Written Assignment

8 Pages
This assignment is a book review. It is a paper that critically evaluates the book Identifying Citizens. ID
Cards as Surveillance by David Lyon; and, tells the reader what the point it is trying to make and how
convincingly it makes this point. Writing a critique achieves three purposes. First, it provides you with
an understanding of the information contained in a book and a familiarity with other information written
on the same topic. Second, it provides an opportunity to apply and develop your critical thinking skills
as you attempt to evaluate critically a political scientist’s (or other thinker’s) work. Third, it helps you
to improve your own writing skills as you attempt to describe the book’s strengths and weaknesses
within a specific page length so that your reader can clearly understand them.
Generally, a written critique covers five areas: thesis; methods; evidence of thesis support; contribution
to the literature; and, recommendation. Because for many of you this will be your first introduction to
the topic and may not know the literature, it is neither anticipated nor expected that you will critique the
book’s contribution to the literature. Before you start your critical review you should provide the reader
with a short summary of what the book is about. Next you should turn your attention to the critical
review. The following are guides to help you write your paper. Thesis: Your first task is to find and
clearly state the thesis of the book. The thesis is the main point the book is trying to make. Many
authors, however, do not present their thesis clearly. Do you have to hunt for the thesis of the book?
Comment about the clarity of the author’s thesis presentation, and state the author’s thesis in your paper.
Methods: What methods did the authors use to investigate their topic? In other words, how did the
authors go about supporting their thesis? In your critique, carefully answer the following two questions.First, were appropriate methods used? In other words, did the author’s approach to supporting the thesis
make sense? Second, did the authors employ the selected methods correctly? Did you discover any
errors in the way the authors conducted their research? Evidence to thesis support: In your critique,
answer the following questions: What evidence do the authors present in support of their thesis? What
are the strengths of the evidence presented by the authors? What are the weaknesses of the evidence
presented? On balance, how well did the authors support their thesis? Recommendation: In this
section, summarize your evaluation of the book. Tell the readers several things. Who will benefit from
reading it? What will the benefit be? How important and extensive is that benefit? Clearly state your
evaluation of the book.
Think of your paper as a construction requiring planning (an outline) and careful thinking of concepts,
issues, problems etc. It is helpful to state the objectives and the plan for the paper in the opening
paragraph (introduction). The introduction should conclude with a concise, coherent summary of the
argument to be developed (the thesis statement). Despite having major components in the paper, you do
not need subheadings. Instead, you should use paragraphs as building blocks. To effectively use the
book in your paper, try to identify the main argument(s) of the authors and select examples carefully to
bolster your argument. Do not use too many long, direct quotations. You can summarize the
argument(s) in your own words, but make sure to cite the source of the information. Because you are
not using outside sources, it will suffice that you simply cite page numbers from the book for either
direct quotation or summarization in your own words.
Your paper will be evaluated on the following criteria:
• A clear, coherent and systematic presentation;
• Correct spelling and a competent writing style which allows you to express your views and ideas
clearly;
• Proper citation;
• Adequately and fully addressing all aspects of the assignment
• Any review which is simply a chapter by chapter summary will automatically receive a grade of
60% and may be lowered based upon the other grading criteria