How Do You Write A Book Report?

Posted by Nick Niesen on October 27th, 2010

Some time or the other during our schooling most of us have been assigned the task of writing book reports. We have to live with book report assignments throughout our academic life, grade school, high school and college.

Book reports in grade school are easy as the writing is simple and most of the times the teacher takes an indulgent view due to the student?s age.

High school book reports are a different ball game altogether. Are they not? The teacher expects us to know what we are doing and the assignments too are more unmanageable. This is the time when we are expected to know how to write a book report properly without those irritating grammatical errors and fledgling mistakes.

Nobody likes remarks like ?see me after class? from teachers but still every one of us has had to face them one way or the other during high school.

College, again, throws new challenges when we find that the concept of book reports is not crushed but haunts us under a different name altogether. Suddenly book reports are termed as essays and instead of broad stories the assignments become more focused on an idea that is a recurrent element in the book and specific themes. Instead of indulging in wishful thinking and hoping we were still in high school where things were easier, it is the time when we are required to unearth our talent if we have any.

If we really get down to doing it seriously, learning how to write book reports is pretty elementary. It is simply a matter of organizing and doing it chronologically instead of indulging in it in a haphazard manner. The best way of writing book reports is to work on it step by step. Without trying to make notes in-between, first read the entire book. Writing notes in between may result in loosing focus of the underlying idea the author wants to convey.

The second step is to decide on the focus of your report as per the guidelines of the assignment: depending upon whether the assignment is for a general summary or a focus on a particular aspect of the book, prepare a general outline and structure of the report.

Once the outline and the structure is ready all that is needed is to keep in mind the book?s major themes and start pouring your heart out on what you feel the book and the theme is all about. After all, a book report is all about enlarging the small issue.

However, if you are practically a novice in writing book reports and/or want to improve your technique, there are a good number of websites that can assist you in your endeavor.