Composing an essay on a book is a good writing practice for college and university students. Creating this type of work, students develop various skills and acquire a wide range of knowledge at the same time. If writing an essay on a book is an assignment of an educational program with certain requirements, the teacher may indicate the book to be written about.
In this case, the students will be reading a new fiction or nonfiction book. Thus, the list of their personal readings will be enriched by one more book. Writing an essay about the book, they will gain experience in doing this type of assignment. At the same time, they will develop analytical skills, as the process of creating a book essay often involves analytical work.
So what does it take to write a good and interesting book essay?
Prepare Properly for Writing a Book Essay
⦁ If you have the opportunity to choose a book yourself, choose the one that resonates with you. The one which thoughts and theses are in tune with yours. Then it will be easier and more interesting for you to write about it, whether it is a review-description or a critical analysis.
⦁ You need to know the book well and remember it as well as if you read it a few days ago. If you read it a long time ago and only remember the main plot in general, read it again to recall all the nuances.
⦁ Decide what type of essay you will create. Are you going to write a short review-description or a book critique-analysis?
⦁ If this is going to be your analysis, come up with a subject you will explore in the book you have read. Formulate a new question for the piece that has not yet been explored, and the answers to which will reveal the book in a new way for the reader.
How to Start an Essay on a Book
Develop an outline. Write down the general structure of the future essay – what parts it will consist of (for example, it could be an introduction, body, and conclusion). Think about how to better divide the body into key sections and subsections. Check out the examples of other works of this type that meet the best standards.
At a professional level the specialists of eduzaurus know how to write an essay on a book, where they approach each book essay creatively and responsibly. Choose the book essay example that best suits your vision. Read it carefully to understand which tone of voice is inherent in the literary and which analytical version of the essay.
Key Principles of Writing a Book Essay
⦁ What to Write in the Introduction
If you chose the book yourself (i.e., it was not given to you by your teacher as an assignment), be sure to include what motivated you to choose this particular book to write an essay about. Make the readers engaged. Write a few catchy sentences that will convince them to read your essay in full.
⦁ How to Write the Main Body
After the introduction, you should fully develop the question or thesis that is key to your essay on a book. As already mentioned, the main body should be divided into key sections and subsections. This is not because the principles of organizing such work require it. This part should contain everything for which the book essay is created. In it, you smoothly reveal the essence of your research, moving from one question-thesis to another. Therefore, it should be easy for readers to follow the course of your thoughts. It is better to organize each question- thesis into a new section. And divide the answers to it with your arguments into subsections. And so on from statement to statement. Enrich your essay with quotes from the book you are writing about. This is important. This way, you will better argue what you are proving using the words of the author himself.
⦁ Don’t Forget the Conclusions
The conclusion is the final part of your paper. It is important in it not to express opinions or facts that are new and have not been analyzed in the body of the essay. It is a summary of what has been said above. But it is by no means a retelling of what has already been highlighted. This is a kind of summary and final point in words.
Important Points
Sometimes beginners make mistakes that can give readers the impression the writer is incompetent or haven’t done enough research.
Mistakes to avoid:
⦁ Insufficient number of original ideas. The essay writers paraphrase ideas that have already been revealed without providing their own original analysis.
⦁ Repeating of what has already been written in various text parts, just in different words. It also creates the impression of a lack of deep work.
⦁ Too many quotations without argumentation of why you use them.
As you can see, writing a book essay is a significant task. It requires a structured approach and an understanding of the principles of how to create it. It is both a creative process and one that requires in-depth analysis. When writing an essay, you must follow a certain structure. To do this, you need to understand its components. But following the structure is only one side of the coin. The other side is to show you not only as a skillful structurer, but also as a professional writer. A writer who has managed to see in the book something that hasn’t been seen before. And on the basis of this, to perform a new original analysis, giving strong arguments in defense of your position.
