Academic
The key purpose of assigning a book review to students is to see whether they can properly understand a specific story. Without a doubt, one more goal of such an assignment is to check whether students have read the book assigned by their professor. To achieve a successful outcome, one should be aware of effective
book review writing tips and pay special attention to the format.
Book reviews give students an opportunity to express their own viewpoints on the ideas presented by the author. Moreover, when working on such papers, students learn to analyze the author’s writing style, used literary devices, and assess the overall quality of the story under analysis.
The Chief Tips For Writing A Book Review:
- Give a summary: What is a book concentrated on? What is the key problem? Who are the principal characters?
- Make your assessment: What is your stance on the book? What are its strong and weak aspects?
- Put forward your recommendations: Would you advise others to read the book? If yes, what type of readers will find the book engaging?
As for the book review structure, it has to contain such elements as an introduction, body section, and conclusion.
Key Steps to Writing a Book Review
Any kind of book can be reviewed regardless of its genre. It is necessary to say that some genres are easy to handle, while other are not. Still, no matter the literary style or genre a book is written in, the book review format is the same. Our writers have prepared detailed book review writing tips by following which it will be easier for you to learn to compose your paper.
Step 1: Detailed planning
Produce an outline that should contain the points which you are going to discuss in your review. Add information about the characters, peculiarities of the plot, and other essential aspects. Remember that each point has to be discussed in a separate paragraph.
Step 2: Introduction
At first, you should indicate the title of the selected book and its author’s name. Discuss the book cover. Create a thesis statement highlighting the major idea of your review.
Step 3: Body section
Pick the chapter you want to sum up. Include 3 quotes in this section and summarize each of them. It is also recommended to express your personal opinion about the quotes you are analyzing. It is important to follow the rule: one quote per one paragraph.
Assess and critique the book. As soon as the central topic and ideas are discussed, start making a critical analysis of the book. Be precise since this is the core part of your book review.
- Use the answers you gave to the questions listed above to form a basis for your critique. State whether the author reached their goal, talk about the quality of the book in comparison with others of the same genre and specify the points that need improvement. Additionally, you may describe our personal experience (if any) of dealing with the subject of the book.
- Remember to support your ideas and claims with correctly cited quotes and excerpts taken from the book. This way you will make your work more powerful and help readers get a better understanding of the analyzed story.
- Stick to the rule of thumb, i.e. the first one-half of two-thirds of your review should outline the author’s concepts and one-third should be devoted to your assessment of the book.
Step 4: Conclusion
Prepare a summary of the ideas and quotes discussed in the body section. Then, finish your conclusion with a sentence that can help readers form a complete picture of the book. Clearly state whether it is worth being read. Remember that saying that you either like or dislike the book is not enough.
A Few more Helpful Tips for Writing a Good Book Review
Let us finish the article with some additional book review writing tips:
- Mind that a review is not a report. Those who need a summary of a specific book may read a synopsis. Reviews serve to provide readers with an in-depth analysis of a particular book.
- Express your viewpoint. Whether you like the book or not, clearly state it and properly explain it.
- Provide your opinion straight away. Do not wait till you reach the “recommendations” part of your review. Your summary should also include your personal opinion about the book.
- Support your statements. Saying that the book is thrilling or the plot is terrible will neither make your review solid nor give readers any valuable information. It is better to give some examples from the text to back up your claims whether they are about positive or negative aspects of the book.
- Include details. Bear in mind that your review has to contain important data about the book. Is this the first author’s book? What kinds of books have the author produced already? What are they concentrated on? How many pages does the book consist of? Where the book was published? How much does the book cost?
- Follow instructions. Are you creating your review for Goodreads, Washington Post, etc.? Depending on that, the style and tone of your book review will vary.
- Learn by example. One of the efficient ways of learning how to do a book review is to analyze the reviews produced by others.
It is also useful to ask someone to read your book review before you hand it in. It is hard to be objective when it goes about one’s own paper and sport all possible mistakes. Thus, ask your friends or relatives to read your work and tell whether the introductory section is captivating and the critical analysis is detailed enough to give readers a proper understanding of the book.
Now, it is time for you to start creating your review. If you face some challenges in the course of writing, remember that the experts working for writer-elite.com are at your disposal.
