How to Write a Book Report

y Plot Summary
Freytag’s Pyramid
How to Make a (n) Summary/Analysis/Evaluation
y Exposition: gives the reader the basic information: the
characters, setting, and basic conflict
published, and by whom?
y Genre: Are you reporting on a novel? A biography? A
history?
y Title: What does it accomplish for the book itself?
What does it tell you about the book?
y Definition of plagiarism: using, borrowing, appropriating
another's work (words or ideas) in any way without acknowledgement or proper citation constitutes an instance of plagiarism
y Analysis y What does the story tell us? How does the book tell
its story or make its argument? What tools does it use?
y Here, you may want to discuss themes, motifs,
y to prove that you have completed, and understood,
the assigned
y To enhance your ability to analyze the story and the
characters
y to add its reader’s knowledge base
y a research paper, which investigates a topic
through a variety of sources and takes a position within a set of claims about that topic
Why Write A Book Report?
symbols, and other rhetorical devices the book uses
How to Make a (n) Summary/Analysis/Evaluation
y Evaluation y What do you think of this book? What makes it
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. (217)
How to Write a Book Report
y What Is A Book Report? y Why Write A Book Report? y What to Be Included in A Book Report? y Where to Begin? y How to Make a (n) Summary/Analysis/Evaluation ? y How to Conduct Further Research? y How to Avoid Plagiarism
y Popular sources are usually self-published. Many blogs,
term paper sharing websites, and internet sources fall into this category.
How to Conduct Further Research?
y When doing research, document with careful and
precise notes
y And careful citation will make your report a more
useful document to both you and your reader
y Journalistic sources include most newspapers and
magazines with which you’re familiar. They are published by for-profit corporations that accept advertising, and they cater to a wider and less specialized audience than do scholarly sources.
What Is A Book Report?
y A book report: providing basic information about
the book
y A book review, going beyond the basics to
evaluate and make more subjective claims about the text’s quality.
What to Be Included in A Book Report?
y Who? What? Where? When? How? Why? y Its category; its major plot, characters, thesis,
and/or main idea; its style
Citation
e.g. 2 ---“xxx” (89)
用双引号；第二次引用只需页码
y
[一般来说，引用原文4行及以上要另起一段，左边缩进10个字 母，除对话外，不用双引号。]
The following are some quotations from one of Bacon’s famous essays:
begin to change for the story and the characters.
y Falling action: the resolution of the climax’s conflict. y Denouement : the ending of the story
How to Make a (n) Summary/Analysis/Evaluation
How to Conduct Further Research?
y Scholarly sources are the bound journals in your library.
They are often published by universities or by university presses.
How to Make a (n) Summary/Analysis/Evaluation
y Summary y You should go into enough detail to make clear that
you’ve gone beyond reading someone else’s summary
Байду номын сангаас
y Rising action: complicates the basic conflict, presenting
the characters with obstacles to overcome and other secondary conflicts.
y Climax: the dramatic, often exciting, point at which things
y the merits and demerits; the social /historical /literary
significance
The structure of a book report
y I. Introduction y II. Summary y III. Analysis y IV. Evaluation
Citation
e.g.1 ---“xxx”( writer page)
用双引号；第一次原著引用。 新批评学者强调诗作为本体的存在，是封闭 孤立、自给自足的客观物，一首诗如同一 个“语像”、“一幅程式化的画卷”，或 者像一只“精致的翁”，“有重量，有体 积，也有界定的边界” (Vendler 4)。
Works Cited
e.g.Vendler, Helen Hennessy. Poets Thinking: Pope, Whitman, Dickinson, Yeats. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004. 姓，名. 书名(斜体). 出版城市：出版社,出版年份. e.g. Porte, Joel, and Saundra Morris eds. The Cambridge Campanion to Ralph Waldo Emerson. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2004 [说明：一个以上作者：从第二个人起后面姓名不颠倒； 主编者： 姓名后加ed (s)] e.g. Smith, David. “My University Days.” College Composition. John Powell, ed. NY: Harvard University Press, 2003.18-29. e.g. Price, Richard. “Interview with Larry Weissman.” 25 June 1998 http://199.29.97.173/0698/price/interview.html.
Databases y JSTOR--西文过刊全文库 y ProQuest Dissertations & Theses(PQDT)--博硕士论文全文数据库
（ProQuest）
y Literature Resource Center--文学资源中心(Gale) y Arts & Humanities Citation Index（1983-）--艺术与人文科学引文索引 y 万方数据资源系统的全文数字化期刊 y 中国期刊网期刊全文数据库 y 维普全文电子期刊 / CNKI (中国知识资源总库 )
important—worth writing a report on, or assigning you to report on? Would you recommend it, or assign it, to others? What are the first few things you would bring up for discussion with someone else?
y You should make your summary concise, clear and
easy to understand
y You should use present tense for a novel or a play or
a science fiction
How to Make a (n) Summary/Analysis/Evaluation
y Explain; Summarize; Analyze; Evaluate
Where to Begin?
y Author: Who wrote it? What, if anything, do you know
about the author?
y Publication Information: When and where was it
How to Conduct Further Research?
中文期刊
y 《外国文学评论》，社科院外文所 y 《国外文学》，北京大学英语系 y 《外国文学》，北京外国语大学 y 《外国文学研究》，华中师范大学 y 《当代外国文学》，南京大学外国语学院
How to Avoid Plagiarism