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How to Critique a Book

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How to Write a Book Critique. How_to_Write_a_Critique. Book or Article Review or Critique Guidelines - Writing Center at TCC. Book or Article Review or Critique Guidelines NOTE: Always check with your teacher to make sure you understand the specific requirements of any assignment. This handout contains general guidelines. Purpose The purpose of a review of a work (book or article) is generally to let readers know what the work is about and what its merits are so that readers can decide whether they want to read the work. Because the readers of a review probably have not read the work under discussion, you must describe the work as well as evaluate it. For a critique or critical review, readers may have read the work; therefore, you need to give less attention to description and summary but more attention to evaluation.

Choosing a Work Sometimes your teacher assigns a particular book or article; however, your teacher may give you a list of works from which to choose or a broad field that you will have to narrow-first to a specific area and then to a specific work. 1. 2. 3. Content of the Review or Critique 1. 2. 3.

Book Critiques. Book Critiques Regardless of whether they call it a critique, a report, or a review, professors tend to want the same kinds of things when they ask for you to write about a book. The first and most important rule is: Read the book. Most professors are skillful at determining whether a student has actually read the book. The second most important rule is: Give you own summary and analysis.

When you read a book, take notes about it and formulate your thoughts as you go along. Keep in mind that you are writing a BOOK critique. A book critique should contain both summary and analysis. The remainder of your paper should be your analysis of the book. If you quote from the book that you are discussing, put the page number in parentheses at the end of the sentence. Be careful not to criticize an author just because he/she did not write the book that you would have wanted. In general, you should also keep in mind that you are reading a book because you want to learn about the topic.

The Book Review or Article Critique. Printable PDF Version Fair-Use Policy An analytic or critical review of a book or article is not primarily a summary; rather, it comments on and evaluates the work in the light of specific issues and theoretical concerns in a course. (To help sharpen your analytical reading skills, see our file on Critical Reading.) The literature review puts together a set of such commentaries to map out the current range of positions on a topic; then the writer can define his or her own position in the rest of the paper. Keep questions like these in mind as you read, make notes, and write the review What is the specific topic of the book or article?

What overall purpose does it seem to have? Browse in published scholarly book reviews to get a sense of the ways reviews function in intellectual discourse. Some reviews summarize the book's content and then evaluate it; others integrate these functions, commenting on the book and using summary only to give examples. Critiquing a Journal Article or Book. How to Critique Literature: 5 Steps (with Pictures. Edit Article Edited by Theburn7, Natalia994, BR, Sarah Eliza and 4 others A literature critique, sometimes called a literary analysis or a literary critical analysis, is an examination of a piece of literature.

The scope of a critique of literature may be to examine a single aspect of the work, or the work in its entirety, and involves breaking the literary piece apart into its separate components and evaluating how they fit together to accomplish the piece's purpose. Literary critiques are commonly executed by students, scholars and literary critics, but anyone can learn how to critique literature by following these steps. Ad Steps 1Read the literary piece you plan on critiquing. 5Prove your interpretation. Add your own method Tips. Why You Should Write in Your Books.