Part One Book Report

I. The Book Report Teachers who want to know whether their students have read the books assigned and how well they understand those books may require a book report. If they are not required, students may as well write one or two for themselves, for writing book reports helps students to improve their reading comprehension and their ability to analyze and evaluate books.

three main parts Generally speaking, a book report consists of the following three main parts: information about the author and his times, a summary of the book, and comments on it.

A brief account of the author’s life should be given together with a description of his times. The latter should include the circumstances that led to the writing of the book under discussion and the historical and social background related to the content of the book. To make these things clear, the writer perhaps needs to read some reference material, such as biographies of the author and histories of the period described in the book.

A summary (which will be discussed in Part II) should be self-contained, clear, and easy to understand. Above all, it should be objective. Comments on and criticisms of the book should not be mixed with the summary; they can be left to the third part. The summary of a novel or a play is usually written in the present tense, while that of nonfiction, in the tense of the original work: for example, the past tense should be used for a history, and the present for a scientific work.

Comments on and evaluation of the book Comments on and evaluation of the book form the third and most important part of a book report. In this part the writer expresses his or her own views on the book, names its merits and demerits, and discusses its relevance to the present time. The discussion should of course center on the content of the book, but the author’s style and techniques of presentation, if interesting, can also be touched upon.

II. Writing a Summary A summary is a brief restatement of the essential thought of a longer composition. It reproduces the theme of the original with as few words as possible. When one writes a summary, one should not interpret or comment. All one has to do is to give gist of the author’s exact and essential meaning.

A summary condenses a paragraph, an essay, or a book to its controlling idea and main points. It should be written in complete sentences and reworded, as in paraphrasing. Summarizing, like outlining, is an effective study skill, for it requires the student to differentiate between what is essential and what is insignificant. The relative importance of ideas must also be recognized. Once the main idea has been rewritten, the information will be easier to recall later on a test or in a paper. Summarizing is also helpful in taking notes for a research paper.

Uses of summary writing 1) Summary writing is a very good exercise for improving reading comprehension. Some students read carelessly, and gain only a vague idea of what they have read. Summary writing can force them to try to understand what they read, for one can write a summary of any passage unless he has grasped its meaning. So summarizing is also training in concentration of attention. It requires one to read with the mind, as well as with the eye, on the page.

2) Summary writing is also helpful to composition writing. It trains one to express one’s thought clearly, concisely and effectively. It is an excellent corrective of vague and disorderly thinking and loose and diffuse writing. When writing a summary, one has to work within strict limits. One must express a certain meaning in a fixed number of words. So it is important to chose words carefully, to make sentences with an eye to accuracy and brevity, and to write the summary in logical order.

3) Summary writing has practical uses. The ability to grasp quickly accurately what is read, or heard, and to reproduce it in a clear and concise way is of great value to people of many professions. For scientists, businessmen, lawyers, and government officials this ability is not only important, but necessary.

2. Qualities of a good summary 1)Objectivity: No idea that is not the author’s should be included in the summary, and no opinion of the writer should be in the summary. No judgments (whether the article was “good” or “interesting”) are permitted in a summary.

2)Completeness Depending on the assignment, the summary should contain every main idea in the article. Stating only the first main idea, or only one main idea and details to support it, will not give the reader a complete idea of what the article was about.

3)Balance: Giving equal attention to each main idea, and stressing ideas that the author stressed, will result in an accurate summary.

3. Questions to judge a valid summary include Did I include all the important ideas? Did I omit all unnecessary words and phrases? Does the summary read smoothly? (Have I made good use of transitions: also, thus, therefore, however, etc? Have I made every word count?) Would a reader of my summary who had not read the article get a clear idea of the article?

4. The goal of the summary is To give readers an objective, complete, accurate, balanced view of an article they have not read.

5. Procedure of summary writing 1) Read the article quickly, looking for main ideas. 2) Read it again carefully, absorbing the information. 3) Look for the thesis and topic sentences; they will often give you the main ideas of the article that you will need for your summary. 4) Depending on the assignment, select the major ideas you will need to use in your summary. Arrange these ideas carefully in order to achieve balance and completeness. 5) Begin the summary with a sentence that informs your reader of the title and author of the article.

Example In the article” The Making of the Dutch Landscape,” Audrey Lambert states that… Punctuation （ 1 ） Underline the titles of the books, or in quotation marks

6. Experiences in Writing Summary 1) Omit unnecessary details 略去 “ 绿 叶 ” （不必要的细节） In order to make the passage powerful and convinced, he origin will quote examples, quotations of authorities, definitions, details and rhetorical phrases. Such details can be omitted.

2) Keep some plots, reduce the examples 保 留情节, 去掉例证 Follow the chronological order of the origin. 3)Simplify the descriptions, eliminate all repetition.

4) Compress wordy sentences and change phrases to words. “His courage in World War II might without exaggeration be called lion-like.”---He was very brave in World War II. “They acted in a manner that rendered them liable to prosecution （起诉）.”---They acted illegally. “He was hard up for money and was being pressed by his creditor.”---He was in financial troubles.

5) Use general words instead of specific words. “She bought home several Chinese and English novels, a few copies of Times and Newsweek, and some textbooks. She intended to read all of them during the winter vacation.”--- She brought home a lot of books and magazines to read during the vacation.

More 6) Use the shortest possible transitions, e.g. but, thus, yet, for, etc. 7) Put the main points of a dialogue in indirect speech. 8) Analyze the origin 精剖原文 Try to analyze the origin. Try to find out the main idea, topic sentences and so on. 9) Take the use of topic sentences and key words 巧 借主体句和关键词 10) Pay attention to Persons 注意人称 A formal summary should be written by the third person.

Exercise: Write a summary for the following passage. It was an afternoon at the beginning of the spring of last year. The weather was dreary, raining, and stormy. I was alone in the cottage. I knew that I must be alone till evening. The cottage was in a remote part of a remote country. It had been let by its owner together with its furniture. As I am easily affected by weather and hate being alone, I felt unhappy. And my unhappiness was increased because I dislike being set among things that do not belong to me. Whenever I am alone in a room that is not mine, I feel as if everything in it were warning me not to touch it. Articles of glass and china seem to say: “Be careful not to break us.” The carpet seems to say in an angry manner: “If you write anything, you must not spill any ink on me”. The books seem to say in a fit of ill temper. “You must not turn down any page of us, nor leave any mark of your thumb on any page of us, nor break the back of any one of us.”

Summary: I stayed in a remote cottage on a wet stormy day early spring last year. I was made uneasier and unhappier, conscious of the fact that neither the cottage nor the furniture were in my possession.