I want to cite a MathSciNet review. Is there a standard format for that? (I couldn't find anything)
[Math] How to cite a MathSciNet review
citationsmathscinet
Related Solutions
It is in principle possible that reviews are revised/replaced (as I assume you know). However, as far as I know, this is mainly done to replace factual errors. From your description it seems to me that your situation might be at the borderline of factual errors and different interpretation.
You could also check http://www.ams.org/mresubs/guide-reviewers.html (in particular the point 'evaluative reviews' to see whether the review is in line with what is written there). Yet, since you say that the review is not negative, this seems less relevant to your situation.
Now, in case you decide to do anything, in your situation it seems definitely advisible to contact the reviewer directly. As it was not negative it might be a misunderstanding/an honest mistake, and the reviewer might be willing or in some sense even happy to correct the review if made aware of the problem.
I am a fairly frequent reviewer for MathSciNet. My greatest worry doing this is to write something wrong in a review, and by doing so, somehow make a fool out of myself. So, in case an author of a paper I reviewed should ever contact me in a friendly way and point out why my review is not to the point and I then understand that s/he is right, I certainly would try to get this corrected, and be grateful for being made aware of it.
By contrast, I know indirectly (a collegue of a collegue...you get the idea) that if the reviewer does not want to change the review it can be very difficult to get it changed (except there is a direct factual error). So, you need the reviewers consent anyway, and as André Henriques says, there is no way to hide that you were 'behind' the activity; or even if there was a way to do this anonymously, it should be the default assumption that the author of the paper is the one 'complaining'. This seems another reason for directly contacting the reviewer, as it seems rather more likely to get her/his consent by this course of action, then by one going an official way.
How to phrase the communication with the reviewer: a way could be to not directly or mainly critizise the review, but to just sent the reviewer your point of view. In other words, write somehow your own review and share it with the reviewer. Perhaps only pointing out key differences in passing.
In any case, if you do not care deeply I would at most contact the author of the review; perhaps this works out well, but if not rather drop the matter as further activity might be in vain, and not be worth the effort and negative side-effects.
You can see the "official line" here: http://www.ams.org/publications/math-reviews/mr-edit In particular,
Elementary articles or books, or articles that have not been refereed are ordinarily not listed.
In my experience, (and in addition to Thierry's and Andreas's list) this includes:
- Books reviews
- More problematic is the case of certain authors and journals who are, shall we say, excessively "prolific"-- sometimes one sees papers which are clearly "new mathematics" (or least, claim to be) but which do not get a review. For obvious reasons I won't give an example, but it's not hard to find using the MathSciNet search tool.
You ask "In particular does it at all imply that the paper has little or no merit from a mathematical viewpoint?". Well, certainly not, in some sense. A book review, or an elementary survey article, might well contain interesting mathematics, and might well be useful to read (which also one can clearly understand why they wouldn't get a review-- a "review of a review" would be quite silly).
As to my case (2.) above-- yes, perhaps this is Math Reviews (or an editor, or someone who was sent the paper to review) making that judgement. This does seem to be a grey area, as it's not covered by the "Editorial Statement" I linked to (except maybe in the word "elementary"). It would be interesting to get more information about this...
Best Answer
Mathematical Reviews can be cited like any other journal, with a review number instead of volume and page numbers:
J. Smith. Review of the article “Regular doodads are widgits” by J. Doe. Mathematical Reviews 123456 (2009).