If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.
–Ralph Waldo Emerson
I keep wondering why many students hate reading & writing activities. Without these interconnected in-class/after-class activities, it is impossible to understand how to write a book review. Even if you know a particular plot by heart, you should master some other skills to complete the assignment. What is a solution? I recommend reading the following text to learn how to write a good book review and which skills are required.
Imagine the situation: you have several homework assignments to do, and book review is a priority. To submit the best book paper your teacher ever received, try buying a custom solution from the online academic writers.
How to Write a Book Review and Develop 3 Critical Skills?
What makes each type of academic assignment special & obligatory? The point is different types of academic tasks train different parts of student’s brain. This way, the student gains a certain set of skills. The teachers would like their students to learn how to write a good book review to obtain/develop 3 major skills:
- Describe
- Analyze
- Evaluate
If you don’t know how to write book reviews, you might be lacking the knowledge. It is important to gain corresponding experience by reading the examples published by other world-known authors & journalists. People who dislike reading will probably fail such assignment.
Reviewing an article is easier than analyzing book: the student has to read & analyze 1-2 pages. A book a student should observe to prepare a powerful dissertation or another serious assignment contains several hundreds of pages. It may take a month or more to handle such piece of art.
How to write a book review of any volume in the shortest period of time? What are the main grading criteria/grading rubric elements the teachers & professors look at when evaluating the book review?
The tips & tricks you can read further in the text are kindly shared by the world’s top experienced book authors, educators, & journalists!
Initial Steps on the Way to Successful Homework Assignment
Do not open and start reading without several important pre-stages. Please take a look at the title of the book to reveal what the author suggests to think about from the beginning. Mind the illustration – they might be useful.
Next, move to the preface/introduction, which offers necessary details on the author, his/her purposes, reasons to write a book you plan to read, and the book’s scope. Try to define the restrictions – did the writer avoid critical nuances of the topic? The more information you obtain about the author’s background, experience, life, education, and relationships, the better you will understand the lessons taught and how to write a book review.
I would never read a book if it were possible for me to talk half an hour with the man who wrote it.
–Woodrow Wilson
The last thing to observe before reading the entire book is a table of contents, which reflects the way the book is organized (main points, plot development, order of events, etc.)
9 Things to Define in Book Review
The students who try to analyze how to write a critical book review must weigh some important things.
- The most important feature to define is the genre. The student must decide whether the selected genre matches the book’s plot & nature.
- One more thing to decide is the main idea, which was dominating the artist’s mind when he was working on the masterpiece?
- Explain whether you agree with the main idea or do not support it. Be careful: the assignment must contain objective ideas. To understand how to write a good book review it is important to find the ways to support personal thoughts with the credible evidence. If you are good at argumentative essay composition, you will not find this mission difficult. The goal is to make the audience agree with your point of view if you work on a critical review.
- Take notes during the entire reading process. Do not forget to underline or put down quotations from the analyzed book on a separate sheet of paper to use them later ( see the ways to add direct/indirect in-text citations). Develop a corresponding References page in the end.
- Reread the suggested book’s thesis and decide whether you can follow it.
- Define the writer’s style (formal/informal, hostile/friendly, romantic/realistic): does it correspond to the target audience? It is necessary to identify the target audience from the start to answer some other questions in your review.
- Analyze every concept. Is it well-defined? What can you say about the language, voice, tone, main ideas, theme, revealed problems, and accuracy of the information provided?
- Analyze small details (footnotes, illustrations, quotes, hooks, references, layout, binding, word choice, formatting, etc.)
- Did the author manage to cover the topic in full or more job has to be done?
Answer these questions, and you will understand how to write a good book review to impress your instructor, friends, and family! Need a step-by-step essay writing guide on how to write a critical book review/academic research paper/essay? Get the structure details here!
How to Write a Good Book Review: Critical Stages
Is there any useful mini-guide on how to write a book review? Find it below!
- Insert title of the book, its author’s name, location, publisher, date of release, edition/issue/number, number of pages/pages you cited, ISBN, price, and any specific details like illustrations/maps.
- If the student wants to learn how to write book reviews to grab everyone’s attention from the opening line, he/she must find what a hook sentence is.
- Have you read the book before? In case you have read the book and want to read it again, mention the reasons why you do not get tired rereading it. Personal opinion is welcome, but do not overload the book review with your thoughts!
- List such artists details as authority/reputation, qualifications, acknowledgments, work background, and more.
- Imagine yourself in the shoes of the target reader. It would be easier to realize how to write a book review; think about what a person will say about the feedback.
- The conclusion makes a summary + includes a final evaluation of the book.
These tips & instructions should help every student to learn how to write a book review worth of every teacher’s appreciation. Is there anything else we can do? Competent online academic authors & editors are ready to serve the needs of students worldwide – have a look at their impressive conditions to make a final decision! Purchase book reviews from experts!
