Aimee Dávila Hisey, History and Philosophy of Science Ph.D. Candidate has Book Review Published

Aimee Dávila Hisey, a Ph.D. candidate in the History and Philosophy of Science program at Oregon State University recently had a book review published in the journal Medical History. Book reviews serve as a vital service component for all historians and is a great way for young researchers to make meaningful contributions to the field. […]

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March 18, 2021

Aimee Dávila Hisey, a Ph.D. candidate in the History and Philosophy of Science program at Oregon State University recently had a book review published in the journal Medical History. Book reviews serve as a vital service component for all historians and is a great way for young researchers to make meaningful contributions to the field. Hisey’s review for the book The Sexual Question: A History of Prostitution in Peru, 1850s-1950s by Paulo Drinot is Hisey’s second published review. 

The Cover for the Journal where Hisey’s Review Appeared

Book reviews are a common “next step” after Ph.D. students move onto candidacy, so when Hisey and the rest of her cohort passed their exams in June 2020 they all worked towards getting reviews. For Hisey, and the other members of her cohort, connecting with editors of journals with overlapping research interests is vital. Reviewers not only need to read the book, but to apply their own expertise to the analysis. This, of course, did not deter Hisey, who found plenty of journals with interests similar to her own research. After she reached out to journal editors, Hisey received two book review offers. Her second book review in the Sixteenth Century Society Journal, about Gaspare Tagliacozzi and Early Modern Surgery: Faces, Men, and Pain is forthcoming. 

Even though the structure of book reviews, such as word count, is dictated by the specific journal, most often the specific content is entirely up to the reviewer. For this review, (and the others she has written), Hisey wanted to give readers a sense of the argument of the book and then to use her expertise to give an opinion of its strengths and weaknesses (if any). After reading the book, and taking copious notes, Hisey drafted her well crafted and thoughtful review. After Hisey drafted her review, she asked her cohort for feedback. Others in the cohort have been doing reviews, so the feedback served to help everyone with their own work as well. In fact, Hisey has noted that getting feedback from the cohort was quite helpful since it gave her more perspectives, not just for reviews but for her writing more generally. After incorporating those edits, Hisey sent the review to her major professor, Nicole von Germeten for a final review. Even though Hisey has admitted that getting feedback “won’t always be rosy,” it was helpful because it forced her to look at her writing from different points of view. 

Hisey hopes to continue doing reviews in the future, as it not only is a way “dip your toe into publishing,” but because reviews serve as a cornerstone of the field. To many more fruitful reviews and to the beginning of a long-lasting and influential career! Congratulations Aimee. 

The book that Hisey Reviewed

A link for the review can be found here

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CATEGORIES: Graduate Students


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