How to Write a High School Book Report: an Ultimate Guide
So, you have a book report to write but no idea how to actually approach this task? It may be a frustrating situation, especially if a lot depends on the grade you receive for this paper. Do not worry, however – in this article, you will find everything you need to know in order to produce a top-notch book report without resorting to any other sources.
Read the Book Carefully
To produce a high-quality book report, you have to start working on it before you actually sit down to write it. Your work begins as soon as you open the book in question for the first time. Do not just leaf through it – read it carefully and attentively, noting down significant fragments that will be worth mentioning in your report.
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If you deal with a work of fiction, make a few notes about all the important characters and how they have been introduced as well as the notable events that happen in the narrative. Leave post-it notes or bookmarks in places you may want to return to later. Write down a few quotes to use in your report – they will demonstrate that you actually read the book and paid attention.
Prepare a Plan
Do not just start writing right away – you have to prepare a plan beforehand, otherwise, your writing will most likely devolve into a meandering mess. Think about the structure of your future book report: what do you want to tell about the book you read? What do you believe to be its most important features?
How should you introduce them? In what order do you have to mention them? If you know the structure of your report before you start writing it, you are much less likely to forget to mention something important as you write.
Look up the Relevant Style Guide
Chances are, your teacher wants you to use a specific formatting style, like MLA or APA. Find out about it before you start writing and look up a style guide to use as you work on your paper – it is a much more convenient and less time-consuming solution than first writing the paper and then trying to alter it according to the style guide. Pay special attention to the title page, headers, pagination, and quotations.
Write the Introduction
Academic writing specialists usually suggest that the introduction be written last of all when you already have the rest of the paper ready. In the case of a book report, however, it is not necessary, because the introduction here is rather formulaic and does not differ from report to report. You should simply provide basic information about the book: its title, author, date of publication, genre, and a short summary.
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Analyze the Characters
If the book is a work of fiction, you have to provide an analysis of the characters. Do not just describe their obvious characteristics, like age or family relations. Provide some additional information: personality traits, ambitions, relationships with other characters, significant facts from their biography. Use the quotations you collected when you read the book to emphasize these traits.
If your report is about a nonfiction book, then write about its author and how he/she is related to the book’s primary topic.
Summarize the Plot
Here you retell the book’s plot in a condensed form. Only mention the major events that play an important role in moving the plot forward and make some comments on the development of the story, e.g., when it reaches its climax and when the main conflict is resolved. If the book has numerous sub-plots, only mention them if they have some bearing on the main story or if your teacher specifically instructed you to write a detailed report.
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For works of non-fiction, retell the argument made by the author, his/her main statements, and evidence used to prove them.
Analyze the Book
This is arguably the most important part of any book report, as it shows that you did not just read the book but also made some effort to process it in your head. You can analyze a book in a variety of ways. You can focus on its symbolism, reading some underlying meaning to certain elements of the narrative. For example, if the writer constantly mentions a certain color or number, it can have some deeper meaning.
Another approach is to focus on the historical conditions in which the author wrote the book. For example, if the book was written in the period between the First and the Second World Wars, you can pay attention to how it affected the topics covered in the book and its overall atmosphere.
Write a Conclusion
Again, writing a conclusion for a book report is a fairly straightforward job. If you reached any conclusions in your analysis of the plot, this is the time to present them. Another good suggestion is to use the end of the story to end your book report – that is, you can finish your report by making a statement about the ending of the story or some important event that happened by the end of the book.
Get Some Help if Necessary
Not everybody is cut out to write fascinating book reports, and even those who usually do not have problems with this sort of work sometimes fail to complete their assignments on time. If you run into some kind of trouble, do not hesitate to look for a book report writing service to help you out with your difficulties. A reliable online writing service will be able to prepare a custom book report according to your specifications when you are incapable to do it on your own for this or that reason. Students do it all the time, so you do not have to feel bad about it.
Writing a book report can be quite difficult, especially if you do not have enough time to prepare for this job and have plenty of other tasks on your hands. However, we believe that by following our tips you will be able to deal with virtually any assignment of this kind.
