FAIR’s Policies on Book Reviews
The Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research (FAIR) regularly makes available reviews of various commercial books that may be of interest to our membership or to the general public. Interested reviewers are invited and encouraged to provide an analysis of any book they desire, and to submit such reviews to FAIR for consideration. If we feel the book under review is of interest to our membership, that the review is not at odds with FAIR’s mission, that the review is written in a responsible manner, and that the review generally follows our style guidelines, then we may publish the review on our Web site.
Book reviews are never to be considered the official position of FAIR, but instead reflect the views of the review’s authors. FAIR understands that reviews, being subjective in nature, can cause controversy. We would not expect that all of FAIR’s members or visitors to our Web site would agree with all the reviews published.
It is not FAIR’s policy to post rejoinders, responses, or rebuttals to reviews; we don’t post “reviews of reviews.” Such a practice would not be consistent with FAIR’s “no debate” policy. While we do not debate, it is not uncommon for us to present multiple sides of the same issue. Therefore, FAIR will post differing reviews of the same book, provided each review follows the guidelines earlier mentioned. It is not necessary for the multiple reviews to agree with each other, and each could present entirely different conclusions. (For instance, one review may be overall negative concerning a book, and another may be generally positive.) The reviews should not take each other to task, but should instead focus on the book being reviewed.
If an author of a reviewed book takes issue with a book review that we publish, FAIR will provide a link, at the bottom of the offending review, to an author’s response, on a different Web site, if the author requests it. FAIR does not provide such links for anyone other than the author, and only provides the single link at the author’s request.
FAIR
March 2005
