A book report is a critical review of a book or report that demonstrates your understanding of the material discussed in that book as well as to critique the concepts the book contains. A book report is NOT a summary of a book (although it often contains one within it). A book report should include a cover page. This cover page should include the complete title of the book, the author’s complete name, the name of the publisher and the date of publication. The report should be no shorter than 1500 words and no longer than 2000 words and be written in Times New Roman 12 point font. Citations to other sources of material, if they are used, should be cited in an in-line format with an appropriate bibliography at the end. The citation style you use will not affect your grade but the word count of any bibliography should not be used in assessing the length of the report.
The first paragraph of a critical summary should outline the structure of your paper and provide the audience with your main thesis. What are the two or three main points that you intend to focus on in your critical review? What are the themes covered in the book that you intend to discuss? This should not be a laundry list of points – you must be able to defend why you chose these points and be able to expand on each one later in the review.
Subsequent paragraphs should reference each main point that you have outlined in your introductory paragraph. What evidence does the author provide for each of these statements? Is there counter-evidence that does not support the author’s conclusions? Once these paragraphs are written, additional paragraphs should expand on whether the author was effective (or not) in making their arguments? Were they persuasive? Do you agree or disagree with the authors main theses? Why or why not?
Quotes may be used, but they must be set off in quotation marks to distinguish them from your own material and synthesis of the authors arguments.