How to Do a Book Report Assessing Strengths & Weaknesses
Writing book reports is one task that many students learn early on in school. Book reports provide one avenue for students to learn the art of essay writing and how to analyze a piece of literature. Some book reports assess the strengths and weaknesses of a book and closely resemble analytical essays. Writing a book report of this nature does not have to be a difficult task; instead it can be accomplished with a little simple planning.
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Instructions
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Read your book carefully and take a few notes as you do. Having a thorough understanding of your book, its plot, character and themes is necessary to produce a quality book report.
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Conduct some research to see what others have to say about the book you are reading. This can provide you with some ideas about how to assess the book you are reporting on.
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Create a list of strengths and weaknesses of the book. Write these down on a sheet of paper so that you can refer back to them as you need them throughout the course of your report.
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Develop an outline for your report. The outline can serve as a guide as you write your report. The outline should reflect what will be contained in the book report and should include an introduction, body and conclusion. The introduction should introduce the reader to the main topic of your paper which, in this case, is to provide an explanation and analysis of the book you have read.
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Write the body of your report. The body of the report should contain the main arguments for the strengths and weaknesses of the book. You can approach this one of two ways. You can either explain all of the strengths of book first and then explain all of the weaknesses, or vice versa. Another approach for this type of book report is to do a point-by-point comparison in which you list one strength followed by one weakness before moving on to the next pair.
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Conclude your essay by providing a summary of what you have already written. A good conclusion should leave readers feeling satisfied that they have received a full and complete assessment of the story.
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References
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