What Is a Book Report?
A book report is an assignment that details the content of a book. It requires you to explain what you make out of the book. Knowing what a book report is will help you tackle assignment from lecturers. Whereas a book report focuses on what is in the book, a review leans towards convincing the audience why they should read a particular book.
Writing book reviews is beyond reading publications. A book report aims at expanding your understanding of the society. That is exactly what a good book does to you.
Examples that will help you know what is a Book Report
Knowing the structure of a book will help you come up with a good Book Report
The structure and content of a book report depends on the level of your study. For example, high school book reports differ from what college and university students write. Before you appreciate what is a book report, understand the requirements of the assignment.
A simple book report gives you basic information on the title of the book, a synopsis of the plot and personal opinions about the book.
As you advance in your studies, the requirements of writing a book report become more demanding even though this does not mean that the assignment becomes impossible. At these higher levels, you start exploring the meaning of the messages in a given book and not simply giving a summary of the title. Here you will also share personal experiences as they relate to the theme of the book to affirm your understanding of the issues at hand.
To have accurate content of a book, there is no magic about this but to read and understand. This will help you discern the information to include in your report and what to discard as your report will not be a summary of everything.
Best way to Format a Book Report
As a cardinal rule, your book report should contain the introduction, body and a conclusion. This section discusses what is a book report in details.
The following section shows you what to include in every part of your book report.
- Book Report should be appealing: The introduction segment is the face of your book report. It will help the reader to form an impression about your work. Do you want to catch the attention of your audience from the beginning? Give your introduction the best shot! Achieve this by having a strong introduction that would make them develop an irresistible urge to read the rest of the book report.
Consider this introduction of A Random Walk Down Wall Street:
“A Random Walk Down Wall Street is an investment book by Burton G. Malkiel. The author is a Professor of Economics at Princeton University and the Chairman of Chemical Bank. His experience is an assurance of credibility since he is writing his book from experience.”
The author captures your attention by introducing the book and giving facts about the writer.
- Include the book title and author. Remember to include the title of the book in the first paragraph of your report. Italicize the title to make it distinct from the rest of the text for the reader to notice it with ease. Besides this, include the topic and the author’s name.
- Identify the theme. The introduction should also carry the genre of the book. For example, show if the book is fictional, drama or biography.
- Capture the theme. Also, introduce the reader to the theme. This is the main issue that that the author talks about throughout the book. Note that some books have multiple themes. A theme determines the scope of the writer.
Know what to include in the body of the book report
The body of any paper tells a lot about your commitment towards the assignment. Here, the body should define what is a report book better than any other section.
Before writing the body of your book report, consider a number of reflective questions:
- Was it enjoyable? Every time you read a book, the author will win you with different events as the plot flows. Jot these interesting moments that made you enjoy reading the publication.
- What is the genre? Make up your mind on the genre of the book. You tell the genre of a book depending on how the writer presents his or her ideas. For instance fictional and a play are distinct in their formats.
- What role did the characters play? For fictional books, put a lot of emphasis on the characters, who help in developing the theme.
- What is the thesis? Every nonfictional book has a thesis statement, which gives the beliefs of the writer towards the topic of research and goes ahead to support these claims.
- What is the tone? As you read the book, establish the feelings of the writer by putting emphasis on usage of expressions, and description of characters. Is the author biased? What is the slant of the story?
Engage your thoughts and impressions of the book to develop a good body of your book report.
What to include in your Book Report Conclusion
Points to guide you understand what a book report is.
Wrap up your book report. The conclusion sums up the book report. As the last section of your book report, it gives a reflection of the report. For example, you should give your opinion about the book. Make sound judgment on the theme of the book. Ask yourself if the author has achieved the purpose of writing the book depending on how he or she passes across the message to the audience.
This book report gives an excellent conclusion: Jesus, the Final Days: What Really Happened. The author says
“The New Testament gives sufficient evidence of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. On the resurrection day, three women acted as witnesses, spreading the news to the world.”
Here, the author wraps up the main points, as insinuated in the title of the book.
Do not introduce new ideas. As a rule in book report writing, do not introduce new ideas at this stage of your work. In case the book is fiction, deduce if the author had a satisfactory ending, tying it back to the theme and the role of characters. For nonfictional, your conclusion should state if the book presents enough evidence to support the arguments of the author.
State facts about the author. Besides the book, give any outstanding facts about the author. This could include other published works, awards or even career. One of the most challenging parts in book reporting is recommending the book to others. Give your honest opinion, citing a few reasons to back your stance.
Depending on the lecturer, some may ask you to restate the name and title of the book in your last paragraphs. This calls for the need to consult with your instructor for clarification. A conclusion could be a paragraph or two depending on the word limit of your book report.
What is a book report should not be a daunting task if you have a good introduction, body and conclusion.
More tips to help you in writing a Book Report
When writing a book report, you need a guide, which gives you a summary of what to do. In this segment, you will discover other important details to consider when developing your introduction, body and the conclusion.
What makes a book Report?
- Bibliographical Information: This includes the name of the book and the author. Ensure you identify the book accurately. Also, include the publisher, year and city of publication. You may capture ISBN, which is a serial number that uniquely identifies every book in the world. In addition, give a reason why you chose this particular title for your book report.
Take a look at this example:
The author introduces the report by saying,
“This novel, The Bondwoman’s Narrative by Hannah Crafts talks about the experiences of an enslaved woman and her journey to freedom. The novel was written in 1850s but was published in 2002.”
Here, the report identifies the author of the book, the title, and the year of publication.
- The setting: Paint a picture of where the story took place. The mental image should show whether it was in a farm or in the city. Achieve this with detailed description, leaving out nothing.
- Characters: These are the personalities in the book, whether fictional or nonfictional. Who was the story about? Who were the main and minor characters? What role did these characters play in developing the theme of the book? Remember to identify the characters by their names.
- The Story: Though a book report is not just a summary, explain what happened in the book. Were the characters solving any problem? Reveal what happened in the beginning, in the middle, and in the end.
- Opinion: Give your thoughts about the story. Did you like or dislike the story and why? Would you recommend the book to another person for reading? Lastly, proofread your work for mistakes.
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Online References:
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/703/01/
https://kids.usa.gov/reading-and-writing/book-report/index.shtml
https://library.concordia.ca/help/howto/bookreports.html