Writing book reports or book reviews is something that every student should learn. In this post, I'll tell you everything that you should know about writing an A+ book report or review and many tips for your work to stand out from others. As a senior year student in college and an English Language and Literature major, I can honestly say that I've mastered the art of writing a book report. In 6 easy steps, you can do it too. Let's move on to the post.
1- Understanding the Plot Very Well
Knowing the overall plot is actually the basis of writing a good book report or review because it is not possible to write it if you don't understand what is written in it or the meaning of the quotes. If you have already read the book once but still there are parts that you don't understand, Google will help you a lot. If you search the book that you are writing a report on with its author you can find everything that has ever been written about it.
For instance, if you are writing a report on The Miser by Moliere, you should google it in quotation marks like "The Miser by Moliere" and Google will bring you every article that has mentioned The Miser. By the way, you can check out my The Miser By Moliere: Act-by-Act Detailed Summary to get inspiration.
2- Getting to Know the Characters
One of the most important elements of a book is the characters. The characters actually give a lot of clues about what is wanted to be told in the book, the message, and you should look for this message while you are writing a review or report. Although the main character is usually the most important character in a book, the supporting characters are also very important because they change the feelings of the protagonist.
Take the Harry Potter book, for example. Think about how Harry's personality is. Funny, somewhat shy because of his past, has the ability to think fast in difficult situations but is not so good in school. Then think of Hermione and Ron and focus on how they have impacted Harry's life. This will greatly help shape your review or report.
3- Reading about The Author's life
Knowing the author of a book is also very effective in understanding that book. It is very important when writing a review of a book to know in which years the author lived, the country they lived in, the characteristics of the period that they lived in, and the historical, political and scientific developments of that period.
Let me explain again with an example: let's say you are going to write a report on a book by Tolstoy, you should research Lev Tolstoy's life. The first thing you will probably notice is that he was born in Russia in 1852. After that, you should make brief research of the life, political regime and means of living in Russia between the years 1850 and 1900. With this brief research, you will realize why the book was written in the first place.
4- Writing the Draft
Now that you have completed all these steps, you can now proceed to write the draft of your work. Before you finalize your book report or review, you should prepare a draft. Think about what and how much do you want to talk about, the general topics of each paragraph.
In the conclusion part, write what you understand from this book in general, the emotions you felt while reading it, or the parts you like and dislike. In short, write your personal views. After preparing the draft, take a break for a while because your mind is tired and if you try the finalize your work right now, there is a high chance that you will not be able to fix your mistakes properly.
5- Finalizing Your Work
After your break is over, start reading your work again and correct your mistakes. If you are preparing a book report as homework or a project, make sure that what you write is appropriate for an academic text and you don't use any everyday language, idioms.
Having someone at home read it will help you find the errors in your work more easily. But the best method, in my opinion, is to read out loud. Reading out loud what you have written will help you notice the parts that don't sound good much more easily than reading it silently.
6- Finding a Good Title
Now that you're done writing, it's time to come up with a good title. The thing that helps me the most when finding a title is finding the keywords of my report or review and brainstorming.
For example, let's find 5 keywords that describe Harry Potter: magic, friendship, adventure, fantasy, mystery. Let's repeat these keywords out loud for a while, and many titles will come to your mind after a while. For example; "The World of Magical Friendships: Harry Potter Book Review" comes to my mind by repeating these keywords. You can also find beautiful titles like this using this method.
Well done dear readers, your book review or report is over. Do not forget to print out your homework in the format that your teacher or professor suggested. At my university, they usually ask for 12 point Times New Roman font and double-spaced. You can find many examples of book reviews in the Books category of my blog, I believe they will help you as well. You can also check out 5 Inspiring Books to Read Before High School Is Over.
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