Clear Steps to Writing a Book Report

Well, here it is. The one article that will teach you how to write a supreme book report. You will also get resources for writing one as well. Enjoy reading this article!

So you have to write a book report, but the guidelines given you are not clear enough—or, the instructions are there, you are just a little fuzzy on how to put a full-length book report together. Don’t freak out yet. There books, websites, and helpful teachers to help you complete the process. Below are just some of the many sources you could try:

BOOKS on WRITING BOOK REPORTS

How to Write Terrific Book Reports, by Elizabeth James – A Student Survival Guide, this book offers a definition/description of a book report, a chapter on how to choose a book to read, a chapter on using the library, and many more chapters on how to read the book, how to get organized, writing drafts, and even doing oral reports.

How to Write Book Reports, by Dawn B. Sova and Harry Teitelbaum – a step-by-step book on writing reports, knowing the difference between reports and reviews, qualifications of reviewers, note-taking for reports, and many more easy to follow guidelines.



WEBSITES/PAGES on WRITING BOOK REPORTS


Bookadventure.com – a reading motivation program for students k-8. Separated into categories for parents, for kids, and for teachers. Includes book lists, sample quizzes, and a prize zone!

Just for Kids Who Love Books (alanbrown.com) - a site full of activities, including interactive homework chat, favorite quotes section, a place to express what’s on your mind, links to more helpful sites for book lovers, and more.

Kidsread.com – features an author section, a book review section, lists and descriptions of book clubs, a newsletter for kids, and a search box…as well as many more offerings for kids who read.

TeenInk.com – this is a full site for teens, where in one section they have book reviews written by teens for teens (http://www.teenink. com/Books/). A site especially good for models, or sample of book reports.



A FEW GUIDELINES on WRITING BOOK REPORTS, from a TEACHER


You might have noticed two words that must be defined—review and report. That is, a book review and a book report are different, even though many confuse the two. Ask your teacher for clarification if you are not sure whether the assignment calls for a review or a report:

A book report typically contains actual elements and characteristics of the book—the author’s name, the title, genre (type or category book fits in), publication information, and what Sova and Teitelbaum call the “conditions under which the book was published” (how, why, etc.), and a summary of the book. The book report is, in essence, the factual information without any opinion.

A book review does have an opinion included, as well as some information about the book that people who have not read it would appreciate knowing.

A Few Steps for Reading and Writing the Book Report

1. Choose the book for you- If you like murder mysteries, choose a murder mystery. If you like reading about true life stories, pick a biography. If you are given freedom to choose any book or are given a book list, you could ask your librarians what categories to search (based on what you tell them you like to read), or you could ask friends and family members for suggestions (based on what kinds of reading you both know and like to read). You could even ask a teacher, if you like cars, for example, what would be a good car story.

2. Take notes – I know this seems crazy or boring…write at the same time I read!!??? What? Is it a textbook? No, but the trick here is to be able to watch for and catch key parts of the book and remember them later when you are telling your own readers about the work. Just jot down a few things as they strike you: if something is funny, frightening, complicated, confusing, important to the story’s plot, etc., write down a word or two. I promise it will save time and will make your drafting easier!

3. Make an outline – You finish the book and have twenty-million things you want to say. The reader of your report will need those things put in a logical order, so he or she can appreciate the book as you do. Using your notes, put the material together either following the order your teacher has recommended, or try one of these orders:
Order of space – If your book report describes, use details about first the geography, then the town/city, then the people, then the single person, then the individuals thoughts and feelings, for example. (See how that goes from largest to smallest, or general to specific, the way a movie camera zooms from a large space down to a tight focus?)

Order of time – Maybe you are writing a report on a true story, a history book, a memoir/biography, or even a fiction novel. You might want to use chronological order in your summary: first this happened, next this happened, then the central character or narrator said this…etc..

Order of importance – Or maybe you read a book that had a philosophy or a lesson of sorts. You could start with a small idea from the book, and write about more important ideas and theories, continuing until the most important item is the last thing you write about…sort of as if you were saying ta-da!!!! The grand finale!

Note: With order of time and order of importance you can do the opposite of what I have described here, of course, writing about the smallest/closest thing and expanding out to writing about the largest/furthest away thing---or switch the importance order so that the most important is first and the least important is last. Use your judgment and what works for you.

4. Now you have the notes, the outline, and an idea of what to talk about and what to leave out. All you have to do now is put it into complete sentences and paragraphs. For any report, be sure to have an introduction, a main point (thesis), a few paragraphs of details/discussion, and a good way of signing off or concluding.

5. In your book report, you will want to be sure to include a summary. Do not tell the whole story, for the writer already did that! Just tease your reader or inform your reader of key and interesting parts in the book.

a. Some things to include for a fiction work might be setting (where are we in the book?); plot (what are the main events…in one sentence? In two sentences?); and the main characters (the people appearing most often in the story—how would you describe each to a friend?).

b. The most important information to include about a non-fiction (true) book are the subject or topic (what is the major idea, theory, attitude, or tip…if you had to describe it in ten words to your mom, who needs a quick run-down before she takes off for work?); and a summary (using your notes, what are the five or ten most important events, attitudes, or issues covered…if you had to shrink the points down to tell your dad, who is busy getting ready for a meeting?).

Again, the above were just a few tips for doing a book report. For more, be sure to ask your teacher for clarification and support, your librarian for help or suggestions, and the websites and/or books for the step-by-step particulars. And remember, pick a book you like, especially if you don’t like to read all that much: it has gotta be good enough for you to stick with it and for your readers to enjoy your report!

So there you go! The best guide on the internet for writing a good book report. You should also check out those resources stated at the beginning of the article. Good luck in writing your book report!

Some Tips on Book Reports

All students eventually will have to write a book report; it's a fact of life. How you right one, however, is entirely up to you. But there are certain methods and secrets to writing a book report that you should consider. Below is an article that will help you understand the function of a book report, and how to write one effectively.

Book reports are a stand-by teaching method in middle school and high school. Reading is important to any education program, and book reports, when handled correctly, show educators that students are reading books and, more importantly, the students are comprehending what they’re reading. Of course, this teaching technique doesn’t always work flawlessly; every teacher can tell you that he or she has read more than one book report which was obviously written from the book jacket of the assigned book. Though I’m not going to write your book report for you, I should be able to help you write a good one, even if you haven’t quite had time to read the entire book. Though reading is important and should never be downplayed, sometimes it’s tough to finish the book that’s been assigned. Maybe homework is piling up, or you forgot about the assignment, or you plain just didn’t want to do it. Whatever the case, the book report still needs to be written.

When teachers read and grade book reports they are looking for evidence that you did, in fact, read the entire book that was assigned to you. Depending on the grade level and the particular teacher, he or she is probably also looking for some evidence that you comprehended the events which transpired in the book. This part is important, as it shows that you’ve gone beyond the words on the page.

Some rules are good to follow, whether or not you read the entire book. Be specific. Use character names and demonstrate that you know the relationships between them. Refer to specific parts of the book instead of the work as a whole. Also, talk about either how the book made you feel or what it made you think about. Perhaps offer up a similar situation that happened in your own life that parallels a situation in the book. Show that you understand the characters in the book and what they’re going through.

So how do you do all of this if you’ve read only part of the book, or none at all? First find a summary of the book and read that to get a general idea of the storyline, paying attention to key characters and events. It helps to read a few online summaries if you can, since it helps you avoid complete plagiarism, since if you cut and paste text from websites you’re going to get caught. Get an idea of the story and then put it into your own words, and use that, along with a few quotes pulled from the book, to construct your book report.

Well, I hope you at least have a general idea on how to go about constructing a book report. It's quite simple once you get started. If you follow the advice in this article, you should have no problem creating a high quality book report.

Are Authors' Books Credible Anymore?

When looking at books, one must now take a closer look at the work. With so many people writing books, it's sometimes hard to tell which ones are works of integrity, or works of falsehoods. Below is an article that discusses this paradox.

There was a time when authors’ books were accepted as works of integrity, as works that were crafted painstakingly and cleverly and creatively by writers who were dedicated to writing as a calling. There was a time when authors’ books were not challenged for veracity—though they were challenged for other things, for contents, elements or style, by censors, kings, and the paranoid or jealous. But now, with the publishing industry as big as the automotive or mechanical industries, the act and process of writing a book open to everyone from entrepreneurs to illiterates, even the best books are subject to stringent scrutiny.

Thus, writers are now called upon to prove themselves in multiple ways: the writer must undergo the demanding task of writing the book; the writer must actively and exhaustingly participate in publicizing the book (the marketing no longer left to the publishing and PR professionals, that is, but put upon the writer to hawk by mandatory appearances, readings, and interviews); and the writer must answer to his or her readers, speaking to his or her process of writing the book.

This seems both fair, given the competitive nature of book publishing, and unfair, given the nature of the true writer, who often spends his or her time WRITING…not talking about writing or selling writing or proving he spends/spent his time writing. But for many of us, how fair is it that top-paid writers get top pay for cheating? The last two decades have seen accusation of poor, lacking, or absent ethics in writers who have plagiarized, fabricated, or embellished work that the rest of us struggle to write, get published, and get paid enough for to at least pay the rent on a single room, pay the ISP and phone bill, or buy a bag of groceries. Some of these questionable works are the authors’ books, some are articles for the most esteemed publications in the world:

In 1982, for instance, Jerzy Kosinski’s fiction work, The Painted Bird was challenged by Village Voice writers Geoffrey Stokes and Eliot Fremont, who accused the writer of having his editorial assistants write large portions of the author’s book.

In 2001, Michael Finkel, writing for the New York Times, delivered an article on the “slave trade” on the Ivory Coast, an article that turned out to contain a fictional star interviewee and a photo of someone other than the boy featured.

In 2003, Jayson Blair, working (incompetently) for the New York Times, was busted for plagiarizing numerous pieces. After he resigned from his coveted position, more truths were uncovered—that he had “faked” quotes, interviews, and his expense account records (to cover for his true activities…NOT reporting or researching), and lifted articles from other newspapers and news services, passing them off as his own.

In 2004, USA Today reporter Jack Kelley was found to have “fabricated substantial portions of at least eight major stories, lifted nearly two dozen quotes or other material from competing publications, lied in speeches he gave for the newspaper and conspired to mislead those investigating his work,” according to legitimate USA Today writer Blake Morrison.



In 2005, The Davinci Code came under close scrutiny: Dan Brown had poached the idea for his book and the research from The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, a work three writers developed after over ten years of research.

Also in 2005, George Baghdadi, working as a stringer for Cox News, “made up” quotes, farmed out his work (or said he did, blaming an assistant no one had ever or has ever met), and plagiarized large passages from earlier articles written by another paper, The St. Petersburg News.

And so we come to this year, 2006 (and it’s only January), and the authors’ books and articles in question. Tim Ryan of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin was discovered to have been using Wikipedia’s material, word-for-word without having given the props to Wiki as his source. And James Frey (the hottest subject of discussion for writers this week), who wrote A Million Little Pieces, has been outed for his extreme embellishing (falsifying, fabricating, lying) in the book…which is billed as a memoir, a nonfiction book.

The latter transgressor has made profits off the sale of over 3.5 million copies. Those in his small subculture of dubious and duplicitous “writers” have made a good chunk in comparison, having such prestigious jobs as those with the Times and USA Today. Many if not most writers working today are appalled. But how will consumers, readers, respond? Will they rush out to buy the authors book anyway, because it is really good reading? Will they buy and read because of the controversy and scandal? Will they contribute to the perpetuation of the wealthy pseudo writers who can boast good writing sells, no matter from whence it came? We shall have to watch the booksellers’ lists and rankings and find out.

As you can see, every book released, and even old ones, and now carefully scrutinized. The best way to find out if a book is worth its two cents is finding reviews, which are rampant across the internet.