如何写英语 Book report

Lecture 8

Book Report

Teaching aims

1. Students understand what the book report is.

2. Students learn to write book report.

1. What is a book report?

For most students, outside reading is fun. It can provide them with the opportunity to do the kind of reading that they may always have wanted to do but somehow never found time for. It is stimulating, exciting, and educational, giving them the opportunity to broaden their horizons, to visit other lands, other cultures, other times. It can make them soar to other heights.

But sometimes, they may find outside reading annoying, because they have to submit book reports to their teacher to prove that they have read the book, and they don’t know how to write reports. This unit will make the task less heavy.

1.1 Book reports vs. book reviews

To write a good book report, you must, first of all, know the differences between reports and reviews. Actually, the two terms are so often used interchangeably that they may cause some confusion. In fact, a report on a book---or on any work of art, for that matter---is all conclusive. It could limit itself to a factual description of the title, author, price, place and year of publication, conditions under which the work was produced, as well as a summary of the content of the book. On the other extreme, it could be much more personal, involving an expression of the reader’s opinion of or response to the work.

A book review, however, is basically a statement of opinion about a piece of writing ( or any other work of art, e.g. dance, sculpture, film, music) supported by specific facts and incidents from the work itself. Its primary purpose is to let the reader of the review know whether it would be worth his while to read the book under discussion, you will have to include some information about the content of the work. But never forget that the object of the review is presentation of the reviewer’s opinion.

In essence, therefore, all book reviews are book reports, but not all book reports are book reviews. Since it is the writing of reviews that often presents the greater difficulty, our text will focus on that particular type of book report---book review. By the way, we feel it necessary to remind the reader that our discussion of the method of writing a book report is also appropriate in writing reviews of films, concerts, or any other work of art.

1.2 Authoritative vs. impressionistic book review

Book reviews can be either authoritative or impressionistic. Authoritative reviews are the kinds of reviews you will find in scholarly background to discuss the work with great authority. Such a critic can readily cite other works, critical theories, and literary