how to write an essay on a book i didn't read

How to Write an Essay on a Book You Didn't Read: A Simple, Step-By-Step Guide

Writing an A-level essay about book can be a pain on its own. Typically, it takes solid skills, lots of time, and at least a few rounds of reading in order to craft a top-notch paper. But, do things really have to be so hard?

In this article, we will share with you the handiest tips to help you write an essay on book you haven’t read quickly and easily, and, at the same time, ensure the highest grade. Also, if you want to get help with your dissertation, you can visit dissertation help https://dissertation-service.com/dissertation-help service. On this service you can get professional phd dissertation help.

What Is a Book Review Essay?

In our guide, we will help you learn how to start a book review essay even if you haven’t read the book. But, first, let’s define what a book review essay is.

A book review essay is a short piece of writing that reflects on a particular literary work. Such papers present a whole book review with constructive analysis of the author’s ideas, writing style, techniques, etc.

The main purpose of this task is to check if students have actually read the assigned book, assess how well they understood it, and, also, let them share their own thoughts on it.

How to Write an Essay on a Book?

When pondering over how to write an essay about a book you didn’t read, the first idea that will probably cross your mind is to look for a ready-made essay on the Internet. After all, the chances that someone has already written a good essay on the same topic are pretty high. But, we encourage you not to give in to this temptation so as not to get a low grade.

Instead, use other ready-made essays only as examples for writing your own paper. And follow along with our tips on writing an essay on a book to ensure success!

Take Notes While Reading

So, how to start an essay about a book without reading the whole thing? The first thing to do is to carefully read the requirements for your essay in order to understand what information you need to pay attention to. Then, you will move on to skimming through the book. And the first tip is to always take notes while reading. If you write down the key information and ideas it will significantly simplify the process of essay writing book.

You Must Read Introduction and Conclusion

If you want to succeed in writing essay books without wasting too much time, the main rule you have to remember is that reading the book’s introduction and conclusion is a MUST! You may not read the whole piece, but reading the introduction and conclusion will help you grasp the main idea of the book and understand what the author wants to emphasize in it. This trick will help you gather enough information to reflect on this book in essay.

Quickly Read Chapters of the Whole Book

Reading the first and last chapters (intro and conclusion) is vital, but it’s not always enough to grasp the whole idea. Thus, if you want to learn how to write a book essay well, we advise you to read the first paragraph of each chapter to understand the idea better.

Choose a Couple of Main Points

Since a reading essay is often quite short, no one expects you to examine the whole book from core to core. Thus, when you grasp what the book is about, choose a couple of main points (or more, depending on the length) to focus on in your essay on book.

Make the First Draft

Now, how to introduce a book in an essay? When you get over all the preparatory steps and define your focus points, you can move on to completing your first draft by writing down the most important information and ideas for your essay about the book.

Quotes Are One of the Most Important Points in Your Essay on Book

Direct quotes play a huge role in the process of essay writing books review. Professors love to see them in students’ works, so this is a very responsible step. But, here is a trick - the more quotes you find, the less you will have to write yourself.

To use quotes from the book in essay to your benefit, find chapters that relate to the main points you previously selected and review them to find quotes. After you find quotes that explain or support your point of view, put them in the main paragraphs.

Point Your Sources

When thinking about how to talk about a book in an essay using quotes, the main rule is to always cite your quotes accordingly. It will help the teacher see that you’ve read the book and found all the quotes yourself.

Cite sources as required in the guidelines for your essay about reading book provided by the teacher. And remember that the more sources and pages you add, the more it will look like you’ve carefully read the entire book.

Write an Essay on a Book With Us!

In this article, we’ve gathered all the main tips and tricks for successfully writing an essay on a book. However, sometimes even the handiest tips can’t help you create a compelling review of a book in an essay, especially if you lack the time or the task is too complex.

But don’t get desperate just yet! If you still don’t feel confident in your skills even after reading our guide on how to write an essay on a book you didn't read, we’ve got you covered!

At our essay writing service, students can get professional help with writing an essay on book or any other academic paper. Our writers are experts with years of experience and the authors of the best essay writing books, who know how to impress even the most demanding professors and get you an A+. We are here to help you handle any academic task with ease. So, don’t hesitate and let the pros take care of your grades while you can mind your own business!

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5 tips on how to write an essay without reading the whole book.

The last thing on a college kid’s list of priorities is thoroughly reading the book their professor assigned. 

Unfortunately, there’s no getting around those pesky assignments that require a deep analysis of the text your teacher expects you to read.  As one who has written many high-grade essays without reading every page, here are five tips on how to examine a text, pull out the evidence and write your essay so well, it fools the professor. 

READ THE INTRODUCTION AND CONCLUSION FIRST

What any good essayist needs to keep in mind is the argument of the author.  Their argument is why the book is so long.  When you sit down to begin writing, read the introduction and conclusion first.  These two sections of the book are where the author states what they are trying to prove and a review of all their main points that back up their claims. Once you determine what they are trying to communicate, you’re ready for step two. 

PICK THREE MAIN POINTS

After figuring out what is being argued, structure your essay with three main points you discovered in the introduction and conclusion.  Since you found them in those sections, that means that they’re in the meat of the book somewhere.  Make this step easy on yourself.  Picking three broad topics is good because then you most likely will find more things in the book you can manipulate to prove what you’re trying to say. 

SEARCH FOR EVIDENCE

This is the most crucial step. Professors like to see direct quotes out of the book and the more quotes you find, the less writing you’ll have to do because they speak for themselves. I find it helpful to go to the table of contents and read the titles of the chapters because there is usually a general theme per chapter.  Find a chapter that might have to do with one of your three topics and scan that section.  Anything that jumps out to you, like a specific word or the discussion of an idea, highlight that sentence and mark the page so you can come back to it. 

Don’t just look for one main point at a time.  Keep your eyes peeled for other quotes in the book that can work for your other sections too.

PULL YOUR QUOTES

Once you’ve found quotes that can explain your points, take the most meaningful and the most obvious ones from your highlighted sections and place them in your body paragraphs.  If you find a quote that is slightly ambiguous and you’re not sure if it will suffice, make it work.  It’s easy to manipulate evidence to make it sound like it relates to what you’re talking about.  To do this, paste the quote into your document and then write a sentence explaining how this excerpt connects to your point. Make the reader believe that what you pulled from the text is evidence even though it might sound broad

CITE YOUR SOURCES

In order to make the professor see what you’ve read and where you found it, always cite it.  For most essays, all you need to do it put the page number in parentheses at the end of the sentence with the quote. The more citations and page numbers that appear in the essay, the more the teacher will think you “read” the book.  A citation is irrefutable proof that you found that information on that specific page. 

If you have any problems, tell that professor to crack open the book and find it themselves. 

Collegian reporter Evan Vicchy can be reached at [email protected] or Twitter at evanNOTkevin7.

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tay • Dec 15, 2021 at 1:15 pm

Great tips, appreciate ya

Finest collection of useful information

How to write an essay on a book you didn’t read

Students hate the idea of reading a whole book then writing an essay on what they read, that is the last thing on a student’s list of priorities. Because most of the books lecturers assign the students are long to read and students have a lot of other things to do while in college. The time to read a whole book isn’t available for many students!

However, students always find solutions to this problem up in their sleeves. Most of them will confirm that in the past they have used a few tricks to write the essays assigned in class without reading a whole book. Well, if you are curious how they did this, take a look at what I have highlighted in this article on how to write an essay on a book you didn’t read.

Trust me, writing the next essay on that long book will be a walk in the park; you won’t even need to read a single page.

If you need someone to write your essay , just contact a reliable company similar to CustomWritings that offers such custom writing help online.

How Do I Write An Essay On A Book I Haven’t Read?

The following steps will help you a lot in writing the best essay without reading the entire book and your lecturer won’t notice and still get the best marks for the essay. The tips to use to do this perfectly are:

1. You need to read the introduction and the conclusion first

You need to keep in mind that to come up with the best essay there are two parts of the book you need to read you should go to first. These parts are the introduction and the conclusion; because they contain the key arguments of the author in the book.

Similarly, in the introduction and the conclusion, they elaborate on why the book is so long. Authors use these two book sections to show what they have written in the book, and they were to prove to the readers. Also, in these two sections, they review all their key points that support their arguments or claims in the book.

After you have read these sections and determined what they wrote in the book then you can jump to step two below.

2. Structure your essay with three key points

Once you have figured out the main arguments of the author in the book, pick three main points from the introduction and conclusion that will assist you to structure your essay.

That is the flesh of the whole book, no wonder they have been included in the introduction and conclusion sections of the book.

Also, this part should be the easiest to deal with; because the three main points you pick will aid you to manipulate the author’s claims in the book. You just need to expound more on them to write your essay.

3. Scan for evidence

Your lecturer will be excited to mark your essay if you make an effort to search for evidence from the book. This is so vital in writing that essay; since direct quotes picked from the book will earn you more marks.

Searching for evidence from the same book will ensure that you spend less time writing because the quotes are self-explanatory, and they speak for themselves. Get the evidence from the table of contents and by reading the titles of the chapters contained in the book.

You will notice that every chapter handles a specific theme. Settle on a chapter that may relate to the three main points you picked in the step above and scan them in the chapter. Anything that you pick from the chapters should be highlighted, those ideas and precise words, or discussions. Bookmark those pages to visit them later.

More importantly, don’t base your search for evidence on just one point out of your main three; look out for other quotes that may pop up in other parts of the book.

4. Take the best quotes

In this step you have all your quotes from the sections you highlighted in the book, now pull them out and include them in your essay’s body paragraphs. Some quotes may seem somehow unclear in the paragraphs, but you need to twist them to make more sense once used in the sentences. Simply make them all work and provide content for your essay.

Make this easy to achieve by manipulating each one of them to have that unique relevance to what you are writing about the book you haven’t read in the first place. One way you can effectively do this is by copying and pasting your quote into your document and then write a sentence excerpt to connect to your point.

You have the power in your hands to make your professor believe that you have quoted from the book you ought to read through it may sound general.

5. Cite your sources

For your lecturer to trust that you read the entire book, you need to ensure your work is cited perfectly. For instance, put the page numbers in the paragraphs where you have quoted the author’s content immediately after the quote. Remember that the page number has to be in parentheses.

The more citations your essay has, the more the supervisor will think that you took your time to read the book and write on it too. Therefore, keep in mind, that citations are irrefutable proof that you found your essay’s content from the assigned book.

There you have it on how to write an essay on a book you didn’t read simply by following the 5 steps highlighted above. No longer will you be stressed reading the entire book and skipping your bed hours to come up with content for your essay.

Don’t lose your head, especially if you have other things to do. Be smart and use the tricks above, and you will have fun accomplishing those essays. Your professor won’t even know how cheeky you can get when it comes to those essays.

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A Step-By-Step Guide to Writing an Essay on a Book

Topic and assignment prompt, essay structure, why is it important.

Outlining Essay Structure

Organizing your essay efficiently is important for making sure it’s clear, concise, and to the point. Before you start writing, it’s important to understand the basic structure of an essay. Most essays are composed of an introduction, body, and conclusion.

The introduction serves as an opening paragraph where you should introduce the topic and provide any necessary background information that readers may need in order to understand the essay. A good introduction will explain why a reader should care about your topic and capture the attention of the reader.

The body is the main section of the essay where you will provide evidence, quotes, and any other relevant information to prove your point. It is important to make sure that each body paragraph has only one main point, and all of the evidence presented in the paragraph supports that one point.

The conclusion is the last paragraph of the essay. It should wrap up all of the points you made in the body and leave the reader with a sense of closure. It should also create a takeaway, or something for the reader to remember about what they have just read.

To make sure your essay is organized and has a consistent tone throughout, it is important to outline what each section should include. Outlining your essay structure before beginning eliminates unnecessary stress and makes sure you don’t forget any important points.

Research Phase: The Importance of Researching the Book

Before you dive into writing your essay on a book, you’ll want to make sure that you have done your research. No matter how familiar you are with the subject, it’s important to conduct research to ensure that your essay is accurate and well-informed.

Research can help you form a stronger thesis statement, better support your arguments, and provide evidence for your claims. It can also help you to organize your thoughts, uncover new ideas and angles, gain a deeper understanding of the text, or even find quotes or references that you can use in your essay.

Research should always come first. It helps to lay a strong foundation for the rest of your essay and it can save you from making any embarrassing mistakes. Have a clear understanding of the book’s themes, characters, and plot before you begin. Read reviews and criticisms, and take down notes for later.

Start by reading the book itself. Take your time and pay attention to details. Make notes, highlight any important passages, and consider different interpretations. After you get an overall gist of the book, expand your research outward into scholarly reviews, biographies, and other texts that can provide an objective, informed perspective.

The more research you do, the stronger your essay will be. Be sure to include all of the sources you used in your bibliography section. Research can be a tedious process, but with enough effort and dedication, you’ll be able to craft a well-informed, thoughtful essay on any book.

Pre-Writing Phase: Planning Your Essay

The pre-writing phase is the most important part of writing an essay on a book. Taking the time to plan your essay and organize your thoughts will help structure your argument and make your writing smoother. The pre-writing phase should involve a few key steps.

• Brainstorm – Before you start writing, spend some time thinking about the book and how it relates to any themes, characters, or symbolism. Jot down your ideas so that you have a better understanding of what you want to focus on.
• Outline – Write down some notes and make an outline of what you will cover in each paragraph. This will help you stay organized while writing and keep everything on track.
• Research – Research any facts or quotes you may need to include in your essay. This will help you back up your claims and make your paper stronger.

Taking the time to plan ahead will help ensure your essay on a book is written clearly and effectively. You’ll be able to shape your argument easily and make sure you don’t miss anything important.

Thesis Formation

The thesis statement is a critical part of any essay on a book. It should be clear, concise, and capture the main argument and point of view of the essay. To ensure that your essay’s thesis statement is well-crafted, it is essential to follow a step-by-step guide.

Step One: Brainstorming Ideas

Before writing a thesis statement, you should brainstorm some ideas related to the book’s content. Consider the key elements of the book and think about how they could be connected into an argument or observation. Write down any ideas that pop into your mind, and use them as a basis for forming your thesis statement.

Step Two: Developing the Argument

Once you have a few ideas in mind, it is time to start developing a coherent argument. Try to make a connection between the ideas to create an original argument. Then, think about why this argument is important and what makes it relevant to the text.

Step Three: Writing the Thesis Statement

Now that you have an argument in mind, you are ready to craft your thesis statement. It should be a single sentence that clearly and concisely expresses your main argument. Generally, it should follow the same structure as any other essay’s thesis statement, stating the primary point of view, the evidence supporting it, and any other relevant details.

Step Four: Proofreading

The final step of crafting a great thesis statement is to proofread and edit it. Make sure that the statement is clear, concise, and captures the argument accurately. Additionally, pay attention to grammar and spelling. A minor mistake can weaken the force of the statement significantly.

Creating an effective thesis statement can help get your essay off to a strong start. As long as you follow these steps, you will be able to form a well-developed argument that can help you write a great essay on a book.

Drafting an Organized Paragraph

Editing: benefits and how to approach it effectively.

When writing an essay on a book, editing is a crucial step in the process. It can often be overlooked or skipped, but it shouldn’t be! Editing offers many valuable benefits, and it’s important to understand how to approach it effectively.

One of the biggest benefits of editing is that it gives you the opportunity to look at your essay with fresh eyes. Once you’ve written the paper, it can be nearly impossible to look at it objectively. Editing allows you to look at it critically and make necessary changes.

Editing also helps you to catch grammar mistakes, spelling errors, and typos. A single error can easily ruin an entire essay, so it’s essential to go over the paper and make sure everything is perfect. This can only be done by editing the paper carefully.

Finally, editing can help you to make sure that the essay is coherent and well-written. After writing the paper , you might realize that the introduction and conclusion don’t match up, or that two paragraphs contradict each other. Editing will help you to identify such issues and make the necessary adjustments.

Now that we’ve discussed the benefits of editing, let’s look at how to approach it effectively. The first step is to read the entire essay through once without making any changes. This should give you a good overview of the paper and allow you to spot any major issues. The next step is to go through the paper again and make notes as you go along.

You should pay particular attention to grammar, spelling, typos, and structure. Make a note of anything that stands out and needs to be changed. Don’t worry if you can’t fix it right away – just write it down and come back to it later. The goal is to get an overall picture of what needs to be done.

Finally, it’s time to make the actual changes. Take your time and read each sentence carefully before you make any changes. Don’t be afraid to delete or add content between paragraphs to ensure that the essay flows naturally.

In summary, editing is an essential step in the essay-writing process. It offers many benefits, including the ability to look at the essay objectively, catch grammar mistakes and typos, and ensure that the essay is coherent and well-written. When approaching the editing phase, it’s important to read the paper through once without making any changes, make notes as you go, and take your time when making the actual changes.

Formatting – Adhering to Academic Standards

Formatting your essay correctly is a critical step in the writing process. It shows that you have taken care to put together an essay that follows the academic standards.

Here are a few tips for formatting your essay according to academic standards:

• Make sure the margins of your essay are set to one inch on all sides.
• Your font should be size 12 Times New Roman or Arial.
• Use double spacing between lines, and make sure there is no extra space before or after each paragraph.
• When quoting direct text, indenting it five spaces will make it easier to read.
• Include a header at the top of your document that includes the title of the essay, your name, and the page number.

Formatted correctly, your essay will present itself as concise, organized, and professional. This is a must when following academic standards.

If you want to ensure that your essay looks even better, check with your professor for specific formatting requirements for your assignment.

By taking the time to properly format your essay, you are showing that you understand the importance of adhering to academic standards. This will help you get the best grades possible!

Understanding the Assignment

Writing an essay on a book can be quite a challenge for many students. One of the most important skills for tackling this task is to understand the assignment. To begin, students should read carefully and take notes on the writing prompt. Pay close attention to all the instructions as they are key to crafting an effective essay. This includes being mindful of any keywords or phrases in the prompt that will require further research.

When interpreting the instructions, it is also important to consider any extra guidelines or expectations the professor may have provided. These can include formatting, length, and specific areas of emphasis such as themes or characters. Questions such as ‘Who is the protagonist?’ or ‘How do the themes interact?’ should be actively considered while writing the essay. This helps produce a focused piece of work that is tailored to meet the requirements.

In addition, consider questions such as ‘What do I need to include?’ or ‘What is the purpose of this essay?’. Answering these questions allows students to identify their main points and develop an argument around them. This is a crucial step for forming an essay that is logical and cohesive.

Finally, students should always use the essay assignment to test their understanding of the book. It is often beneficial to leave time at the end of the writing process to review knowledge and reflect on any unanswered questions. Doing so ensures that the essay is comprehensive and addresses all aspects of the prompt.

Understanding the assignment is a vital step when writing an essay on a book. By paying attention to the prompt and any additional guidelines, students can ensure that their assignment is focused, detailed, and suitable for the task.

Effective Use of Quotes

Make sure your quote is relevant to the main argument of your essay.

Choose a quote that is engaging and thought-provoking.

Include the right amount of detail – don’t use too much or too little.

Explain the quote in your own words and provide context.

Think critically about the quote and how it applies to your argument.

Integrate the quote into your essay so that it flows naturally.

Tools for Writing an Essay on a Book

When writing an essay on a book there are certain tools that can help make the process easier. Knowing some of these basic terms and tools can help you write a better essay and make it much more enjoyable.

Creating an outline is one of the most important steps in writing an essay. It provides structure to your essay, ensuring that each point is made in the correct order and that the essay flows logically. Outlining also helps you stay organized and remember what needs to be included in the essay.

Doing research is important when writing an essay about a book. Read through the text and make notes about any interesting or pertinent information you find. Also, look for additional sources that can provide further insight into the book or the topics it raises.

Grammar and Spelling Checkers

Grammar and spelling checkers can be extremely useful when writing your essay. They can help you identify mistakes or typos that you may have missed. Double-check your work before you submit it to make sure it is as accurate and error-free as possible.

Writing Resources

Finally, there are many great writing resources available online that can provide further advice and guidance on how to write an effective essay. Look through examples of essays written by other students and learn from their techniques and approaches.

Knowing some of these basic terms and tools can help you get off to a strong start when writing an essay on a book. Do your research, create an outline, and use grammar and spelling checkers to make sure your work is as perfect as possible. Finally, don’t forget to look for other writing resources that can provide insight and advice.

Writing an essay on a book can be a daunting task, especially when attempting it for the first time. This guide aims to make the process of writing an essay on a book simple and easy-to-follow. By following the steps outlined in this article, you can make the process of writing your essay much easier.

A good conclusion should summarize the main points of the article, explain how to approach writing the final version, and reiterate why the content was important. To conclude your essay, start by summarizing the arguments and ideas that you presented throughout your paper. Then, move on to discussing why you chose to write the essay and the importance of studying the book. Finally, provide a brief statement that sums up the main points of the essay.

When writing the final version of your essay, there are some key points to keep in mind. First, proofread your work for any typos or errors. Make sure to properly cite any quotes or references that you used in your essay. Finally, consider having a peer review your essay to get another perspective and catch any mistakes that you might have missed.

Writing an essay on a book can be a rewarding experience when done correctly. The most important part of the process is to fully understand the material and the prompt. By following the steps outlined in this article and taking the time to research and plan, you can write an effective essay on a book.

Nick Radlinsky

Nick Radlinsky is a devoted educator, marketing specialist, and management expert with more than 15 years of experience in the education sector. After obtaining his business degree in 2016, Nick embarked on a quest to achieve his PhD, driven by his commitment to enhancing education for students worldwide. His vast experience, starting in 2008, has established him as a reputable authority in the field.

Nick's article, featured in Routledge's " Entrepreneurship in Central and Eastern Europe: Development through Internationalization ," highlights his sharp insights and unwavering dedication to advancing the educational landscape. Inspired by his personal motto, "Make education better," Nick's mission is to streamline students' lives and foster efficient learning. His inventive ideas and leadership have contributed to the transformation of numerous educational experiences, distinguishing him as a true innovator in his field.

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How To Write An Essay: Beginner Tips And Tricks

Updated: July 11, 2022

Published: June 22, 2021

Many students dread writing essays, but essay writing is an important skill to develop in high school, university, and even into your future career. By learning how to write an essay properly, the process can become more enjoyable and you’ll find you’re better able to organize and articulate your thoughts.

When writing an essay, it’s common to follow a specific pattern, no matter what the topic is. Once you’ve used the pattern a few times and you know how to structure an essay, it will become a lot more simple to apply your knowledge to every essay. 

No matter which major you choose, you should know how to craft a good essay. Here, we’ll cover the basics of essay writing, along with some helpful tips to make the writing process go smoothly.

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Types of Essays

Think of an essay as a discussion. There are many types of discussions you can have with someone else. You can be describing a story that happened to you, you might explain to them how to do something, or you might even argue about a certain topic. 

When it comes to different types of essays, it follows a similar pattern. Like a friendly discussion, each type of essay will come with its own set of expectations or goals. 

For example, when arguing with a friend, your goal is to convince them that you’re right. The same goes for an argumentative essay. 

Here are a few of the main essay types you can expect to come across during your time in school:

Narrative Essay

This type of essay is almost like telling a story, not in the traditional sense with dialogue and characters, but as if you’re writing out an event or series of events to relay information to the reader.

Persuasive Essay

Here, your goal is to persuade the reader about your views on a specific topic.

Descriptive Essay

This is the kind of essay where you go into a lot more specific details describing a topic such as a place or an event. 

Argumentative Essay

In this essay, you’re choosing a stance on a topic, usually controversial, and your goal is to present evidence that proves your point is correct.

Expository Essay

Your purpose with this type of essay is to tell the reader how to complete a specific process, often including a step-by-step guide or something similar.

Compare and Contrast Essay

You might have done this in school with two different books or characters, but the ultimate goal is to draw similarities and differences between any two given subjects.

The Main Stages of Essay Writing

When it comes to writing an essay, many students think the only stage is getting all your ideas down on paper and submitting your work. However, that’s not quite the case. 

There are three main stages of writing an essay, each one with its own purpose. Of course, writing the essay itself is the most substantial part, but the other two stages are equally as important.

So, what are these three stages of essay writing? They are:

Preparation

Before you even write one word, it’s important to prepare the content and structure of your essay. If a topic wasn’t assigned to you, then the first thing you should do is settle on a topic. Next, you want to conduct your research on that topic and create a detailed outline based on your research. The preparation stage will make writing your essay that much easier since, with your outline and research, you should already have the skeleton of your essay.

Writing is the most time-consuming stage. In this stage, you will write out all your thoughts and ideas and craft your essay based on your outline. You’ll work on developing your ideas and fleshing them out throughout the introduction, body, and conclusion (more on these soon).

In the final stage, you’ll go over your essay and check for a few things. First, you’ll check if your essay is cohesive, if all the points make sense and are related to your topic, and that your facts are cited and backed up. You can also check for typos, grammar and punctuation mistakes, and formatting errors.  

The Five-Paragraph Essay

We mentioned earlier that essay writing follows a specific structure, and for the most part in academic or college essays , the five-paragraph essay is the generally accepted structure you’ll be expected to use. 

The five-paragraph essay is broken down into one introduction paragraph, three body paragraphs, and a closing paragraph. However, that doesn’t always mean that an essay is written strictly in five paragraphs, but rather that this structure can be used loosely and the three body paragraphs might become three sections instead.

Let’s take a closer look at each section and what it entails.

Introduction

As the name implies, the purpose of your introduction paragraph is to introduce your idea. A good introduction begins with a “hook,” something that grabs your reader’s attention and makes them excited to read more. 

Another key tenant of an introduction is a thesis statement, which usually comes towards the end of the introduction itself. Your thesis statement should be a phrase that explains your argument, position, or central idea that you plan on developing throughout the essay. 

You can also include a short outline of what to expect in your introduction, including bringing up brief points that you plan on explaining more later on in the body paragraphs.

Here is where most of your essay happens. The body paragraphs are where you develop your ideas and bring up all the points related to your main topic. 

In general, you’re meant to have three body paragraphs, or sections, and each one should bring up a different point. Think of it as bringing up evidence. Each paragraph is a different piece of evidence, and when the three pieces are taken together, it backs up your main point — your thesis statement — really well.

That being said, you still want each body paragraph to be tied together in some way so that the essay flows. The points should be distinct enough, but they should relate to each other, and definitely to your thesis statement. Each body paragraph works to advance your point, so when crafting your essay, it’s important to keep this in mind so that you avoid going off-track or writing things that are off-topic.

Many students aren’t sure how to write a conclusion for an essay and tend to see their conclusion as an afterthought, but this section is just as important as the rest of your work. 

You shouldn’t be presenting any new ideas in your conclusion, but you should summarize your main points and show how they back up your thesis statement. 

Essentially, the conclusion is similar in structure and content to the introduction, but instead of introducing your essay, it should be wrapping up the main thoughts and presenting them to the reader as a singular closed argument. 

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Steps to Writing an Essay

Now that you have a better idea of an essay’s structure and all the elements that go into it, you might be wondering what the different steps are to actually write your essay. 

Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Instead of going in blind, follow these steps on how to write your essay from start to finish.

Understand Your Assignment

When writing an essay for an assignment, the first critical step is to make sure you’ve read through your assignment carefully and understand it thoroughly. You want to check what type of essay is required, that you understand the topic, and that you pay attention to any formatting or structural requirements. You don’t want to lose marks just because you didn’t read the assignment carefully.

Research Your Topic

Once you understand your assignment, it’s time to do some research. In this step, you should start looking at different sources to get ideas for what points you want to bring up throughout your essay. 

Search online or head to the library and get as many resources as possible. You don’t need to use them all, but it’s good to start with a lot and then narrow down your sources as you become more certain of your essay’s direction.

Start Brainstorming

After research comes the brainstorming. There are a lot of different ways to start the brainstorming process . Here are a few you might find helpful:

• Think about what you found during your research that interested you the most
• Jot down all your ideas, even if they’re not yet fully formed
• Create word clouds or maps for similar terms or ideas that come up so you can group them together based on their similarities
• Try freewriting to get all your ideas out before arranging them

Create a Thesis

This is often the most tricky part of the whole process since you want to create a thesis that’s strong and that you’re about to develop throughout the entire essay. Therefore, you want to choose a thesis statement that’s broad enough that you’ll have enough to say about it, but not so broad that you can’t be precise. 

Write Your Outline

Armed with your research, brainstorming sessions, and your thesis statement, the next step is to write an outline. 

In the outline, you’ll want to put your thesis statement at the beginning and start creating the basic skeleton of how you want your essay to look. 

A good way to tackle an essay is to use topic sentences . A topic sentence is like a mini-thesis statement that is usually the first sentence of a new paragraph. This sentence introduces the main idea that will be detailed throughout the paragraph. 

If you create an outline with the topic sentences for your body paragraphs and then a few points of what you want to discuss, you’ll already have a strong starting point when it comes time to sit down and write. This brings us to our next step… 

Write a First Draft

The first time you write your entire essay doesn’t need to be perfect, but you do need to get everything on the page so that you’re able to then write a second draft or review it afterward. 

Everyone’s writing process is different. Some students like to write their essay in the standard order of intro, body, and conclusion, while others prefer to start with the “meat” of the essay and tackle the body, and then fill in the other sections afterward. 

Make sure your essay follows your outline and that everything relates to your thesis statement and your points are backed up by the research you did. 

Revise, Edit, and Proofread

The revision process is one of the three main stages of writing an essay, yet many people skip this step thinking their work is done after the first draft is complete. 

However, proofreading, reviewing, and making edits on your essay can spell the difference between a B paper and an A.

After writing the first draft, try and set your essay aside for a few hours or even a day or two, and then come back to it with fresh eyes to review it. You might find mistakes or inconsistencies you missed or better ways to formulate your arguments.

Add the Finishing Touches

Finally, you’ll want to make sure everything that’s required is in your essay. Review your assignment again and see if all the requirements are there, such as formatting rules, citations, quotes, etc. 

Go over the order of your paragraphs and make sure everything makes sense, flows well, and uses the same writing style . 

Once everything is checked and all the last touches are added, give your essay a final read through just to ensure it’s as you want it before handing it in. 

A good way to do this is to read your essay out loud since you’ll be able to hear if there are any mistakes or inaccuracies.

Essay Writing Tips

With the steps outlined above, you should be able to craft a great essay. Still, there are some other handy tips we’d recommend just to ensure that the essay writing process goes as smoothly as possible.

• Start your essay early. This is the first tip for a reason. It’s one of the most important things you can do to write a good essay. If you start it the night before, then you won’t have enough time to research, brainstorm, and outline — and you surely won’t have enough time to review.
• Don’t try and write it in one sitting. It’s ok if you need to take breaks or write it over a few days. It’s better to write it in multiple sittings so that you have a fresh mind each time and you’re able to focus.
• Always keep the essay question in mind. If you’re given an assigned question, then you should always keep it handy when writing your essay to make sure you’re always working to answer the question.
• Use transitions between paragraphs. In order to improve the readability of your essay, try and make clear transitions between paragraphs. This means trying to relate the end of one paragraph to the beginning of the next one so the shift doesn’t seem random.
• Integrate your research thoughtfully. Add in citations or quotes from your research materials to back up your thesis and main points. This will show that you did the research and that your thesis is backed up by it.

Wrapping Up

Writing an essay doesn’t need to be daunting if you know how to approach it. Using our essay writing steps and tips, you’ll have better knowledge on how to write an essay and you’ll be able to apply it to your next assignment. Once you do this a few times, it will become more natural to you and the essay writing process will become quicker and easier.

If you still need assistance with your essay, check with a student advisor to see if they offer help with writing. At University of the People(UoPeople), we always want our students to succeed, so our student advisors are ready to help with writing skills when necessary. 

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• How to write a literary analysis essay | A step-by-step guide

How to Write a Literary Analysis Essay | A Step-by-Step Guide

Published on January 30, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on August 14, 2023.

Literary analysis means closely studying a text, interpreting its meanings, and exploring why the author made certain choices. It can be applied to novels, short stories, plays, poems, or any other form of literary writing.

A literary analysis essay is not a rhetorical analysis , nor is it just a summary of the plot or a book review. Instead, it is a type of argumentative essay where you need to analyze elements such as the language, perspective, and structure of the text, and explain how the author uses literary devices to create effects and convey ideas.

Before beginning a literary analysis essay, it’s essential to carefully read the text and c ome up with a thesis statement to keep your essay focused. As you write, follow the standard structure of an academic essay :

• An introduction that tells the reader what your essay will focus on.
• A main body, divided into paragraphs , that builds an argument using evidence from the text.
• A conclusion that clearly states the main point that you have shown with your analysis.

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Table of contents

Step 1: reading the text and identifying literary devices, step 2: coming up with a thesis, step 3: writing a title and introduction, step 4: writing the body of the essay, step 5: writing a conclusion, other interesting articles.

The first step is to carefully read the text(s) and take initial notes. As you read, pay attention to the things that are most intriguing, surprising, or even confusing in the writing—these are things you can dig into in your analysis.

Your goal in literary analysis is not simply to explain the events described in the text, but to analyze the writing itself and discuss how the text works on a deeper level. Primarily, you’re looking out for literary devices —textual elements that writers use to convey meaning and create effects. If you’re comparing and contrasting multiple texts, you can also look for connections between different texts.

To get started with your analysis, there are several key areas that you can focus on. As you analyze each aspect of the text, try to think about how they all relate to each other. You can use highlights or notes to keep track of important passages and quotes.

Language choices

Consider what style of language the author uses. Are the sentences short and simple or more complex and poetic?

What word choices stand out as interesting or unusual? Are words used figuratively to mean something other than their literal definition? Figurative language includes things like metaphor (e.g. “her eyes were oceans”) and simile (e.g. “her eyes were like oceans”).

Also keep an eye out for imagery in the text—recurring images that create a certain atmosphere or symbolize something important. Remember that language is used in literary texts to say more than it means on the surface.

Narrative voice

Ask yourself:

• Who is telling the story?
• How are they telling it?

Is it a first-person narrator (“I”) who is personally involved in the story, or a third-person narrator who tells us about the characters from a distance?

Consider the narrator’s perspective . Is the narrator omniscient (where they know everything about all the characters and events), or do they only have partial knowledge? Are they an unreliable narrator who we are not supposed to take at face value? Authors often hint that their narrator might be giving us a distorted or dishonest version of events.

The tone of the text is also worth considering. Is the story intended to be comic, tragic, or something else? Are usually serious topics treated as funny, or vice versa ? Is the story realistic or fantastical (or somewhere in between)?

Consider how the text is structured, and how the structure relates to the story being told.

• Novels are often divided into chapters and parts.
• Poems are divided into lines, stanzas, and sometime cantos.
• Plays are divided into scenes and acts.

Think about why the author chose to divide the different parts of the text in the way they did.

There are also less formal structural elements to take into account. Does the story unfold in chronological order, or does it jump back and forth in time? Does it begin in medias res —in the middle of the action? Does the plot advance towards a clearly defined climax?

With poetry, consider how the rhyme and meter shape your understanding of the text and your impression of the tone. Try reading the poem aloud to get a sense of this.

In a play, you might consider how relationships between characters are built up through different scenes, and how the setting relates to the action. Watch out for  dramatic irony , where the audience knows some detail that the characters don’t, creating a double meaning in their words, thoughts, or actions.

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Your thesis in a literary analysis essay is the point you want to make about the text. It’s the core argument that gives your essay direction and prevents it from just being a collection of random observations about a text.

If you’re given a prompt for your essay, your thesis must answer or relate to the prompt. For example:

Essay question example

Is Franz Kafka’s “Before the Law” a religious parable?

Your thesis statement should be an answer to this question—not a simple yes or no, but a statement of why this is or isn’t the case:

Thesis statement example

Franz Kafka’s “Before the Law” is not a religious parable, but a story about bureaucratic alienation.

Sometimes you’ll be given freedom to choose your own topic; in this case, you’ll have to come up with an original thesis. Consider what stood out to you in the text; ask yourself questions about the elements that interested you, and consider how you might answer them.

Your thesis should be something arguable—that is, something that you think is true about the text, but which is not a simple matter of fact. It must be complex enough to develop through evidence and arguments across the course of your essay.

Say you’re analyzing the novel Frankenstein . You could start by asking yourself:

Your initial answer might be a surface-level description:

The character Frankenstein is portrayed negatively in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein .

However, this statement is too simple to be an interesting thesis. After reading the text and analyzing its narrative voice and structure, you can develop the answer into a more nuanced and arguable thesis statement:

Mary Shelley uses shifting narrative perspectives to portray Frankenstein in an increasingly negative light as the novel goes on. While he initially appears to be a naive but sympathetic idealist, after the creature’s narrative Frankenstein begins to resemble—even in his own telling—the thoughtlessly cruel figure the creature represents him as.

Remember that you can revise your thesis statement throughout the writing process , so it doesn’t need to be perfectly formulated at this stage. The aim is to keep you focused as you analyze the text.

Finding textual evidence

To support your thesis statement, your essay will build an argument using textual evidence —specific parts of the text that demonstrate your point. This evidence is quoted and analyzed throughout your essay to explain your argument to the reader.

It can be useful to comb through the text in search of relevant quotations before you start writing. You might not end up using everything you find, and you may have to return to the text for more evidence as you write, but collecting textual evidence from the beginning will help you to structure your arguments and assess whether they’re convincing.

To start your literary analysis paper, you’ll need two things: a good title, and an introduction.

Your title should clearly indicate what your analysis will focus on. It usually contains the name of the author and text(s) you’re analyzing. Keep it as concise and engaging as possible.

A common approach to the title is to use a relevant quote from the text, followed by a colon and then the rest of your title.

If you struggle to come up with a good title at first, don’t worry—this will be easier once you’ve begun writing the essay and have a better sense of your arguments.

“Fearful symmetry” : The violence of creation in William Blake’s “The Tyger”

The introduction

The essay introduction provides a quick overview of where your argument is going. It should include your thesis statement and a summary of the essay’s structure.

A typical structure for an introduction is to begin with a general statement about the text and author, using this to lead into your thesis statement. You might refer to a commonly held idea about the text and show how your thesis will contradict it, or zoom in on a particular device you intend to focus on.

Then you can end with a brief indication of what’s coming up in the main body of the essay. This is called signposting. It will be more elaborate in longer essays, but in a short five-paragraph essay structure, it shouldn’t be more than one sentence.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is often read as a crude cautionary tale about the dangers of scientific advancement unrestrained by ethical considerations. In this reading, protagonist Victor Frankenstein is a stable representation of the callous ambition of modern science throughout the novel. This essay, however, argues that far from providing a stable image of the character, Shelley uses shifting narrative perspectives to portray Frankenstein in an increasingly negative light as the novel goes on. While he initially appears to be a naive but sympathetic idealist, after the creature’s narrative Frankenstein begins to resemble—even in his own telling—the thoughtlessly cruel figure the creature represents him as. This essay begins by exploring the positive portrayal of Frankenstein in the first volume, then moves on to the creature’s perception of him, and finally discusses the third volume’s narrative shift toward viewing Frankenstein as the creature views him.

Some students prefer to write the introduction later in the process, and it’s not a bad idea. After all, you’ll have a clearer idea of the overall shape of your arguments once you’ve begun writing them!

If you do write the introduction first, you should still return to it later to make sure it lines up with what you ended up writing, and edit as necessary.

The body of your essay is everything between the introduction and conclusion. It contains your arguments and the textual evidence that supports them.

Paragraph structure

A typical structure for a high school literary analysis essay consists of five paragraphs : the three paragraphs of the body, plus the introduction and conclusion.

Each paragraph in the main body should focus on one topic. In the five-paragraph model, try to divide your argument into three main areas of analysis, all linked to your thesis. Don’t try to include everything you can think of to say about the text—only analysis that drives your argument.

In longer essays, the same principle applies on a broader scale. For example, you might have two or three sections in your main body, each with multiple paragraphs. Within these sections, you still want to begin new paragraphs at logical moments—a turn in the argument or the introduction of a new idea.

Robert’s first encounter with Gil-Martin suggests something of his sinister power. Robert feels “a sort of invisible power that drew me towards him.” He identifies the moment of their meeting as “the beginning of a series of adventures which has puzzled myself, and will puzzle the world when I am no more in it” (p. 89). Gil-Martin’s “invisible power” seems to be at work even at this distance from the moment described; before continuing the story, Robert feels compelled to anticipate at length what readers will make of his narrative after his approaching death. With this interjection, Hogg emphasizes the fatal influence Gil-Martin exercises from his first appearance.

Topic sentences

To keep your points focused, it’s important to use a topic sentence at the beginning of each paragraph.

A good topic sentence allows a reader to see at a glance what the paragraph is about. It can introduce a new line of argument and connect or contrast it with the previous paragraph. Transition words like “however” or “moreover” are useful for creating smooth transitions:

… The story’s focus, therefore, is not upon the divine revelation that may be waiting beyond the door, but upon the mundane process of aging undergone by the man as he waits.

Nevertheless, the “radiance” that appears to stream from the door is typically treated as religious symbolism.

This topic sentence signals that the paragraph will address the question of religious symbolism, while the linking word “nevertheless” points out a contrast with the previous paragraph’s conclusion.

Using textual evidence

A key part of literary analysis is backing up your arguments with relevant evidence from the text. This involves introducing quotes from the text and explaining their significance to your point.

It’s important to contextualize quotes and explain why you’re using them; they should be properly introduced and analyzed, not treated as self-explanatory:

It isn’t always necessary to use a quote. Quoting is useful when you’re discussing the author’s language, but sometimes you’ll have to refer to plot points or structural elements that can’t be captured in a short quote.

In these cases, it’s more appropriate to paraphrase or summarize parts of the text—that is, to describe the relevant part in your own words:

The conclusion of your analysis shouldn’t introduce any new quotations or arguments. Instead, it’s about wrapping up the essay. Here, you summarize your key points and try to emphasize their significance to the reader.

A good way to approach this is to briefly summarize your key arguments, and then stress the conclusion they’ve led you to, highlighting the new perspective your thesis provides on the text as a whole:

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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By tracing the depiction of Frankenstein through the novel’s three volumes, I have demonstrated how the narrative structure shifts our perception of the character. While the Frankenstein of the first volume is depicted as having innocent intentions, the second and third volumes—first in the creature’s accusatory voice, and then in his own voice—increasingly undermine him, causing him to appear alternately ridiculous and vindictive. Far from the one-dimensional villain he is often taken to be, the character of Frankenstein is compelling because of the dynamic narrative frame in which he is placed. In this frame, Frankenstein’s narrative self-presentation responds to the images of him we see from others’ perspectives. This conclusion sheds new light on the novel, foregrounding Shelley’s unique layering of narrative perspectives and its importance for the depiction of character.

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4 Ways to Write a Book Report Without Reading the Book

If you have an unwelcome book report and no time to read the book, don't lose your head! Outstandingly, there are at least four dependable ways to create a book report - without ever sitting down to read! Here are the top ways to write book reports without reading - ways that teachers don't want you to know!

• Use a summary website. There are dozens of websites and resources that offer complete summaries and critiques on major texts. If you're in public school or college, odds are that the book you're writing a report on has been assigned before (the school system hasn't updated its texts in years). Whether through SparkNotes, Wikipedia, book summary sites or other sources, you're bound to find some site - rather easily - that describes the book in depth. These descriptions are far more brief than reading the book itself, and will even let you know key details like the point of view, types of narrative and the author's literary techniques.
• Stay general, then use a few specific details. Once you've figured out, generally, what the book is about, you can sneakily edge your way around it using general information and terms. After all, your book report isn't about repeating the entire, exact events of the story. You're supposed to summarize the general narrative in order to come to a critical conclusion about the text. Stay general about the book (summary and informative sites can help you do this). Then, when he time is right, find a key detail somewhere in the text and insert it to support your critical analysis. This will make it appear as though you've read the book and remembered salient points, even when you haven't.
• Use a writing service. This is perhaps the easiest way to get English essay writing help . Luckily, it won't cost you an arm and a leg. Students that don't want to read a book, and don't feel prepared to 'fake' their way through a report, can simply hire a professional to do it for them. Professional writing services have always offered book report writing to desperate students, and with pretty fair prices, it may be your best option.
• Skim and question. If you're in a large class where the book report was assigned, odds are, your peers are writing similar book reports. Though it may seem dishonest to some, you can actually find success by pooling off of other's work. Question your peers about their book reports ideas. You can even probe them for information regarding the text itself. Once you've gathered a general idea of the book's purpose, events and themes, skim through the text. Just seeing a brief overview of the book, added to what you've learned from friends, will provide an excellent backbone for a report.

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If You Haven`t Read a Book, You Still Can Write About It

Oscar Wilde was sure that there was no point to read a book he was supposed to write a review of. That`s a great idea actually! The prominent author claimed that he got under the influence of books way too easily so he wanted to stay unbiased. However, your reason for writing an essay on a book that you`ve never even opened can be different. You`re just too lazy or busy.All those computer games won`t play themselves, obviously.

Oscar Wilde is famous for another quotation that I wish you would take rather seriously. He said that if one couldn’t enjoy reading a book over and over again, there was no use in reading them at all. So, if you`ve got an assignment in a form of an essay, perhaps, you`d like to consider reading that book actually. There is literature that every intelligent and educated person should be familiar with.

But if you`ve been procrastinating for way too long time and now you have to write a review at a really short notice, then it`s great that you decided to stop by and read this article. We are willing to provide you with the professional help.

You can, of course, attempt to write a book review without actually reading the book and this article will provide you with tips on how to pull it off. However, what’s the point in trying to make up things and waste your time, if you can just resort to professional writing help on Getessaynow . No reason to spoil an interesting read just because some teacher gave you a book review assignment. Take a minute to place an order on our website and go do something productive.

If you are determined to write a review on your own, “How to Talk About Books You Haven`t Read” is a guide by a French author, professor of literature, and psychoanalyst Pierre Bayard, which you may find rather helpful.

This man knows everything about books, so you are so going to find his ideas useful. In this work, he tells various tricks which will help you to contribute to the conversation even though you`re not knowledgeable about the topic. These tips are absolutely applicable when it comes to writing, and that`s what we`re focusing on now.

Not Reading Is Useful

Imagine yourself at some fancy dinner. Perhaps, it`s even being held at the Buckingham Palace. Well, we can at least dream about it, right? So, you`re engaging in a lovely conversation with well-educated people, and they start talking about literature. It`s not modern literature, so you can`t just say that you didn`t have time to catch up on that yet. It`s all about classic books. And you feel ashamed in this awkward situation because you haven`t read those books though you were supposed to.

Pierre Bayard has something rather refreshing to say about this. The French author is sure that not-reading will do no harm to your intelligence. What is more, it`s actually useful. Before you start deleting all e-books from your smartphone, let me just tell you that you may have gotten his idea wrong. It`s fine not to read a book completely and thoroughly. Diagonal reading is your go-to tool when you don`t have time for proper reading.

This method is good for improving your speed-reading abilities and all-in-all intellectual capacities. This is a way to train your brain to think really quickly, to focus on details, and to switch from one task to the other. Besides, if you`re trying to write a review on a book you know nothing about, this is a good challenge for your intuition.

Read the title, the first and the last couple of pages, and try to guess what the plot might actually be. It may sound like a crazy idea but what if it turns out that you`re a genius, and you got it all right?

This is, of course, a very tricky and unreliable method. So, instead of trying to guess, you can just delegate the task to somebody who actually did the reading. Our writers are all brilliant professionals, and the testimonials on our website prove it. Risk is an honorable thing, but not when it comes to your GPA.

Books Are Meant for Discussion

Pierre Bayard is absolutely sure that books aren`t some stable substance. There are simply no right or wrong opinions on certain literary works. Every book is open to an interpretation. Your professor at university is smart and he/she understands it, so you can really pull it off. Taking into consideration that the author has been studying psychoanalysis as well, he compares the whole process of book interpretation to that psychological field. How come?

When you read a book, the whole impact that it has on you largely depends on your mood at that moment, as well as on the surroundings and time. Your impression of the literary work makes sense only for a short period of time. You`ll move on with your life and will have new books.

So, the way you understand a certain novel is never stable. Besides, you`re not supposed to give the detailed information, nobody wants you to retell the plot, you need to give your opinion, and, yes, it can be biased and non-objective. It`s your personal interpretation, so you`re free to share any thoughts about it.

If You`re Confident Enough, People Will Believe You

That`s an interesting trick actually. Psychological research has shown that if a person is absolutely sure that their opinion is right, they can convince others that it`s an unshakeable truth. Despite the fact that an opponent may be right actually, a self-confident person with strong persuasive arguments (even though they are totally wrongful) will win the dispute. People aren`t logical creatures, you just have to make peace with it already.

The French author claims that a book isn`t a frozen object, it`s more like a fast-flowing river with many confluences. It never stops, it can be unexpected, it can be full of wonders, but it is never stable.

So, getting back to that Oscar Wilde`s idea, the author of “The Picture of Dorian Gray” used to say that you should read for no more than ten minutes if you wanted to write a review of that book. Otherwise, you have a risk to forget the very first impression.

However, yet again, there is a chance the truth may come out. If you want to avoid it, there is a simple solution – just give the task to the writers on our website. In case you have any questions, you can contact us via chat or phone, or take a look at FAQ page.

What is the paradox of reading? It helps you get to know yourself better. But you have to be careful not to get stuck in that imaginary world. Student life offers way too many opportunities to focus just on studying. You can meet with interesting people from all over the world, discover career-boosting internships and simply develop yourself in various disciplines. Reading is just one of the ways to improve, but it is definitely not the only one.

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Reading a book to review it

Choose your book carefully.

Being interested in a book will help you write a strong review, so take some time to choose a book whose topic and scholarly approach genuinely interest you.

If you’re assigned a book, you’ll need to find a way to become interested in it.

Read actively and critically

Don’t read just to discover the author’s main point or to mine some facts.

Engage with the text, marking important points and underlining passages as you go along (in books you own, of course!).

Focus first on summary and analysis

Before you read

• Write down quickly and informally some of the facts and ideas you already know about the book’s topic
• Survey the book –including the preface and table of contents–and make some predictions
• What does the title promise the book will cover or argue?
• What does the preface promise about the book?
• What does the table of contents tell you about how the book is organized?
• Who’s the audience for this book?

As you read

With individual chapters:

• Think carefully about the chapter’s title and skim paragraphs to get an overall sense of the chapter.
• Then, as you read, test your predictions against the points made in the chapter.
• After you’ve finished a chapter, take brief notes. Start by summarizing , in your own words, the major points of the chapter. Then you might want to take brief notes about particular passages you might discuss in your review.

Begin to evaluate

As you take notes about the book, try dividing your page into two columns. In the left, summarize main points from a chapter. In the right, record your reactions to and your tentative evaluations of that chapter.

Here are several ways you can evaluate a book:

• If you know other books on this same subject, you can compare the arguments and quality of the book you’re reviewing with the others, emphasizing what’s new and what’s especially valuable in the book you’re reviewing.
• How well does the book fulfill the promises the author makes in the preface and introduction?
• How effective is the book’s methodology?
• How effectively does the book make its arguments?
• How persuasive is the evidence?
• For its audience, what are the book’s strengths?
• How clearly is the book written?

Academic and Professional Writing

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Analysis Papers

Reading Poetry

A Short Guide to Close Reading for Literary Analysis

Using Literary Quotations

Play Reviews

Writing a Rhetorical Précis to Analyze Nonfiction Texts

Incorporating Interview Data

Grant Proposals

Planning and Writing a Grant Proposal: The Basics

Additional Resources for Grants and Proposal Writing

Job Materials and Application Essays

Writing Personal Statements for Ph.D. Programs

• Before you begin: useful tips for writing your essay
• Guided brainstorming exercises
• Get more help with your essay
• Frequently Asked Questions

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Cover Letters

Business Letters

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Resources for Proposal Writers

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Planning and Writing Research Papers

Quoting and Paraphrasing

Writing Annotated Bibliographies

Creating Poster Presentations

Writing an Abstract for Your Research Paper

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Advice for Students Writing Thank-You Notes to Donors

Reading for a Review

Critical Reviews

Writing a Review of Literature

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Writing About Literature

How to read like a writer.

by Mike Bunn

In 1997, I was a recent college graduate living in London for six months and working at the Palace Theatre owned by Andrew Lloyd Webber. The Palace was a beautiful red brick, four-story theatre in the heart of London’s famous West End, and eight times a week it housed a three-hour performance of the musical Les Miserables . Because of antiquated fire-safety laws, every theatre in the city was required to have a certain number of staff members inside watching the performance in case of an emergency.

My job (in addition to wearing a red tuxedo jacket) was to sit inside the dark theater with the patrons and make sure nothing went wrong. It didn’t seem to matter to my supervisor that I had no training in security and no idea where we kept the fire extinguishers. I was pretty sure that if there was any trouble I’d be running down the back stairs, leaving the patrons to fend for themselves. I had no intention of dying in a bright red tuxedo.

There was a Red Coat stationed on each of the theater’s four floors, and we all passed the time by sitting quietly in the back, reading books with tiny flashlights. It’s not easy trying to read in the dim light of a theatre—flashlight or no flashlight—and it’s even tougher with shrieks and shouts and gunshots coming from the stage. I had to focus intently on each and every word, often rereading a single sentence several times. Sometimes I got distracted and had to re-read entire paragraphs. As I struggled to read in this environment, I began to realize that the way I was reading—one word at a time—was exactly the same way that the author had written the text. I realized writing is a word-by-word, sentence-by-sentence process. The intense concentration required to read in the theater helped me recognize some of the interesting ways that authors string words into phrases into paragraphs into entire books.

I came to realize that all writing consists of a series of choices.

I was an English major in college, but I don’t think I ever thought much about reading. I read all the time. I read for my classes and on the computer and sometimes for fun, but I never really thought about the important connections between reading and writing, and how reading in a particular way could also make me a better writer.

What Does It Mean to Read Like a Writer?

When you Read Like a Writer (RLW) you work to identify some of the choices the author made so that you can better understand how such choices might arise in your own writing. The idea is to carefully examine the things you read, looking at the writerly techniques in the text in order to decide if you might want to adopt similar (or the same) techniques in your writing.

You are reading to learn about writing.

Instead of reading for content or to better understand the ideas in the writing (which you will automatically do to some degree anyway), you are trying to understand how the piece of writing was put together by the author and what you can learn about writing by reading a particular text. As you read in this way, you think about how the choices the author made and the techniques that he/she used are influencing your own responses as a reader. What is it about the way this text is written that makes you feel and respond the way you do?

The goal as you read like a writer is to locate what you believe are the most important writerly choices represented in the text—choices as large as the overall structure or as small as a single word used only once—to consider the effect of those choices on potential readers (including yourself). Then you can go one step further and imagine what different choices the author might have made instead, and what effect those different choices would have on readers.

Say you’re reading an essay in class that begins with a short quote from President Barack Obama about the war in Iraq. As a writer, what do you think of this technique? Do you think it is effective to begin the essay with a quote? What if the essay began with a quote from someone else? What if it was a much longer quote from President Obama, or a quote from the President about something other than the war?

And here is where we get to the most important part: Would you want to try this technique in your own writing?

Would you want to start your own essay with a quote? Do you think it would be effective to begin your essay with a quote from President Obama? What about a quote from someone else? You could make yourself a list. What are the advantages and disadvantages of starting with a quote? What about the advantages and disadvantages of starting with a quote from the President? How would other readers respond to this technique? Would certain readers (say Democrats or liberals) appreciate an essay that started with a quote from President Obama better than other readers (say Republicans or conservatives)? What would be the advantages and disadvantages of starting with a quote from a less divisive person? What about starting with a quote from someone more divisive?

The goal is to carefully consider the choices the author made and the techniques that he or she used, and then decide whether you want to make those same choices or use those same techniques in your own writing. Author and professor Wendy Bishop explains how her reading process changed when she began to read like a writer:

It wasn’t until I claimed the sentence as my area of desire, interest, and expertise—until I wanted to be a writer writing better—that I had to look underneath my initial readings . . . I started asking, how — how did the writer get me to feel, how did the writer say something so that it remains in my memory when many other things too easily fall out, how did the writer communicate his/her intentions about genre, about irony? (119–20)

Bishop moved from simply reporting her personal reactions to the things she read to attempting to uncover how the author led her (and other readers) to have those reactions. This effort to uncover how authors build texts is what makes Reading Like a Writer so useful for student writers.

How Is RLW Different from “Normal” Reading?

Most of the time we read for information. We read a recipe to learn how to bake lasagna. We read the sports page to see if our school won the game, Facebook to see who has commented on our status update, a history book to learn about the Vietnam War, and the syllabus to see when the next writing assignment is due. Reading Like a Writer asks for something very different.

In 1940, a famous poet and critic named Allen Tate discussed two different ways of reading:

There are many ways to read, but generally speaking there are two ways. They correspond to the two ways in which we may be interested in a piece of architecture. If the building has Corinthian columns, we can trace the origin and development of Corinthian columns; we are interested as historians. But if we are interested as architects, we may or may not know about the history of the Corinthian style; we must, however, know all about the construction of the building, down to the last nail or peg in the beams. We have got to know this if we are going to put up buildings ourselves. (506)

While I don’t know anything about Corinthian columns (and doubt that I will ever want to know anything about Corinthian columns), Allen Tate’s metaphor of reading as if you were an architect is a great way to think about RLW. When you read like a writer, you are trying to figure out how the text you are reading was constructed so that you learn how to “build” one for yourself. Author David Jauss makes a similar comparison when he writes that “reading won’t help you much unless you learn to read like a writer. You must look at a book the way a carpenter looks at a house someone else built, examining the details in order to see how it was made” (64).

Perhaps I should change the name and call this Reading Like an Architect, or Reading Like a Carpenter. In a way those names make perfect sense. You are reading to see how something was constructed so that you can construct something similar yourself.

Why Learn to Read Like a Writer?

For most college students RLW is a new way to read, and it can be difficult to learn at first. Making things even more difficult is that your college writing instructor may expect you to read this way for class but never actually teach you how to do it. He or she may not even tell you that you’re supposed to read this way. This is because most writing instructors are so focused on teaching writing that they forget to show students how they want them to read.

That’s what this essay is for.

In addition to the fact that your college writing instructor may expect you to read like a writer, this kind of reading is also one of the very best ways to learn how to write well. Reading like a writer can help you understand how the process of writing is a series of making choices, and in doing so, can help you recognize important decisions you might face and techniques you might want to use when working on your own writing. Reading this way becomes an opportunity to think and learn about writing.

Charles Moran, a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, urges us to read like writers because:

When we read like writers we understand and participate in the writing. We see the choices the writer has made, and we see how the writer has coped with the consequences of those choices . . . We “see” what the writer is doing because we read as writers; we see because we have written ourselves and know the territory, know the feel of it, know some of the moves ourselves. (61)

You are already an author, and that means you have a built-in advantage when reading like a writer. All of your previous writing experiences—inside the classroom and out—can contribute to your success with RLW. Because you “have written” things yourself, just as Moran suggests, you are better able to “see” the choices that the author is making in the texts that you read. This in turn helps you to think about whether you want to make some of those same choices in your own writing, and what the consequences might be for your readers if you do.

What Are Some Questions to Ask Before You Start Reading?

As I sat down to work on this essay, I contacted a few of my former students to ask what advice they would give to college students regarding how to read effectively in the writing classroom and also to get their thoughts on RLW. Throughout the rest of the essay I’d like to share some of their insights and suggestions; after all, who is better qualified to help you learn what you need to know about reading in college writing courses than students who recently took those courses themselves?

One of the things that several students mentioned to do first, before you even start reading, is to consider the context surrounding both the assignment and the text you’re reading. As one former student, Alison, states: “The reading I did in college asked me to go above and beyond, not only in breadth of subject matter, but in depth, with regards to informed analysis and background information on context .” Alison was asked to think about some of the factors that went into the creation of the text, as well as some of the factors influencing her own experience of reading—taken together these constitute the context of reading. Another former student, Jamie, suggests that students “learn about the historical context of the writings” they will read for class. Writing professor Richard Straub puts it this way: “You’re not going to just read a text. You’re going to read a text within a certain context, a set of circumstances . . . It’s one kind of writing or another, designed for one audience and purpose or another” (138).

Among the contextual factors you’ll want to consider before you even start reading are:

• Do you know the author’s purpose for this piece of writing?
• Do you know who the intended audience is for this piece of writing?

It may be that you need to start reading before you can answer these first two questions, but it’s worth trying to answer them before you start. For example, if you know at the outset that the author is trying to reach a very specific group of readers, then his or her writerly techniques may seem more or less effective than if he/she was trying to reach a more general audience. Similarly—returning to our earlier example of beginning an essay with a quote from President Obama about the war in Iraq—if you know that the author’s purpose is to address some of the dangers and drawbacks of warfare, this may be a very effective opening. If the purpose is to encourage Americans to wear sunscreen while at the beach this opening makes no sense at all. One former student, Lola, explained that most of her reading assignments in college writing classes were designed “to provoke analysis and criticisms into the style, structure, and purpose of the writing itself.”

In What Genre Is This Written?

Another important thing to consider before reading is the genre of the text. Genre means a few different things in college English classes, but it’s most often used to indicate the type of writing: a poem, a newspaper article, an essay, a short story, a novel, a legal brief, an instruction manual, etc. Because the conventions for each genre can be very different (who ever heard of a 900-page newspaper article?), techniques that are effective for one genre may not work well in another. Many readers expect poems and pop songs to rhyme, for example, but might react negatively to a legal brief or instruction manual that did so. Another former student, Mike, comments on how important the genre of the text can be for reading:

I think a lot of the way I read, of course, depends on the type of text I’m reading. If I’m reading philosophy, I always look for signaling words (however, therefore, furthermore, despite) indicating the direction of the argument . . . when I read fiction or creative nonfiction, I look for how the author inserts dialogue or character sketches within narration or environmental observation. After reading To the Lighthouse [sic] last semester, I have noticed how much more attentive I’ve become to the types of narration (omniscient, impersonal, psychological, realistic, etc.), and how these different approaches are utilized to achieve an author’s overall effect.

Although Mike specifically mentions what he looked for while reading a published novel, one of the great things about RLW is that it can be used equally well with either published or student-produced writing.

Is This a Published or a Student-Produced Piece of Writing?

As you read both kinds of texts you can locate the choices the author made and imagine the different decisions that he/she might have made. While it might seem a little weird at first to imagine how published texts could be written differently—after all, they were good enough to be published—remember that all writing can be improved. Scholar Nancy Walker believes that it’s important for students to read published work using RLW because “the work ceases to be a mere artifact, a stone tablet, and becomes instead a living utterance with immediacy and texture. It could have been better or worse than it is had the author made different choices” (36). As Walker suggests, it’s worth thinking about how the published text would be different—maybe even better —if the author had made different choices in the writing because you may be faced with similar choices in your own work.

Is This the Kind of Writing You Will Be Assigned to Write Yourself?

Knowing ahead of time what kind of writing assignments you will be asked to complete can really help you to read like a writer. It’s probably impossible (and definitely too time consuming) to identify all of the choices the author made and all techniques an author used, so it’s important to prioritize while reading. Knowing what you’ll be writing yourself can help you prioritize. It may be the case that your instructor has assigned the text you’re reading to serve as model for the kind of writing you’ll be doing later. Jessie, a former student, writes, “In college writing classes, we knew we were reading for a purpose—to influence or inspire our own work. The reading that I have done in college writing courses has always been really specific to a certain type of writing, and it allows me to focus and experiment on that specific style in depth and without distraction.”

If the text you’re reading is a model of a particular style of writing—for example, highly-emotional or humorous—RLW is particularly helpful because you can look at a piece you’re reading and think about whether you want to adopt a similar style in your own writing. You might realize that the author is trying to arouse sympathy in readers and examine what techniques he/she uses to do this; then you can decide whether these techniques might work well in your own writing. You might notice that the author keeps including jokes or funny stories and think about whether you want to include them in your writing—what would the impact be on your potential readers?

What Are Questions to Ask As You Are Reading?

It is helpful to continue to ask yourself questions as you read like a writer. As you’re first learning to read in this new way, you may want to have a set of questions written or typed out in front of you that you can refer to while reading. Eventually—after plenty of practice—you will start to ask certain questions and locate certain things in the text almost automatically. Remember, for most students this is a new way of reading, and you’ll have to train yourself to do it well. Also keep in mind that you’re reading to understand how the text was written —how the house was built—more than you’re trying to determine the meaning of the things you read or assess whether the texts are good or bad.

First, return to two of the same questions I suggested that you consider before reading:

• What is the author’s purpose for this piece of writing?
• Who is the intended audience?

Think about these two questions again as you read. It may be that you couldn’t really answer them before, or that your ideas will change while reading. Knowing why the piece was written and who it’s for can help explain why the author might have made certain choices or used particular techniques in the writing, and you can assess those choices and techniques based in part on how effective they are in fulfilling that purpose and/or reaching the intended audience.

Beyond these initial two questions, there is an almost endless list of questions you might ask regarding writing choices and techniques. Here are some of the questions that one former student, Clare, asks herself:

When reading I tend to be asking myself a million questions. If I were writing this, where would I go with the story? If the author goes in a different direction (as they so often do) from what I am thinking, I will ask myself, why did they do this? What are they telling me?

Clare tries to figure out why the author might have made a move in the writing that she hadn’t anticipated, but even more importantly, she asks herself what she would do if she were the author. Reading the text becomes an opportunity for Clare to think about her own role as an author.

Here are some additional examples of the kinds of questions you might ask yourself as you read:

• How effective is the language the author uses? Is it too formal? Too informal? Perfectly appropriate?

Depending on the subject matter and the intended audience, it may make sense to be more or less formal in terms of language. As you begin reading, you can ask yourself whether the word choice and tone/ language of the writing seem appropriate.

• What kinds of evidence does the author use to support his/her claims? Does he/she use statistics? Quotes from famous people? Personal anecdotes or personal stories? Does he/she cite books or articles?
• How appropriate or effective is this evidence? Would a different type of evidence, or some combination of evidence, be more effective?

To some extent the kinds of questions you ask should be determined by the genre of writing you are reading. For example, it’s probably worth examining the evidence that the author uses to support his/ her claims if you’re reading an opinion column, but less important if you’re reading a short story. An opinion column is often intended to convince readers of something, so the kinds of evidence used are often very important. A short story may be intended to convince readers of something, sometimes, but probably not in the same way. A short story rarely includes claims or evidence in the way that we usually think about them.

• Are there places in the writing that you find confusing? What about the writing in those places makes it unclear or confusing?

It’s pretty normal to get confused in places while reading, especially while reading for class, so it can be helpful to look closely at the writing to try and get a sense of exactly what tripped you up. This way you can learn to avoid those same problems in your own writing.

• How does the author move from one idea to another in the writing? Are the transitions between the ideas effective? How else might he/she have transitioned between ideas instead?

Notice that in these questions I am encouraging you to question whether aspects of the writing are appropriate and effective in addition to deciding whether you liked or disliked them. You want to imagine how other readers might respond to the writing and the techniques you’ve identified. Deciding whether you liked or disliked something is only about you; considering whether a technique is appropriate or effective lets you contemplate what the author might have been trying to do and to decide whether a majority of readers would find the move successful. This is important because it’s the same thing you should be thinking about while you are writing: how will readers respond to this technique I am using, to this sentence, to this word? As you read, ask yourself what the author is doing at each step of the way, and then consider whether the same choice or technique might work in your own writing.

What Should You Be Writing As You Are Reading?

The most common suggestion made by former students—mentioned by every single one of them—was to mark up the text, make comments in the margins, and write yourself notes and summaries both during and after reading. Often the notes students took while reading became ideas or material for the students to use in their own papers. It’s important to read with a pen or highlighter in your hand so that you can mark—right on the text—all those spots where you identify an interesting choice the author has made or a writerly technique you might want to use. One thing that I like to do is to highlight and underline the passage in the text itself, and then try to answer the following three questions on my notepad:

• What is the technique the author is using here?
• Is this technique effective?
• What would be the advantages and disadvantages if I tried this same technique in my writing?

By utilizing this same process of highlighting and note taking, you’ll end up with a useful list of specific techniques to have at your disposal when it comes time to begin your own writing.

What Does RLW Look Like in Action?

Let’s go back to the opening paragraph of this essay and spend some time reading like writers as a way to get more comfortable with the process:

Let’s begin with those questions I encouraged you to try to answer before you start reading. (I realize we’re cheating a little bit in this case since you’ve already read most of this essay, but this is just practice. When doing this on your own, you should attempt to answer these questions before reading, and then return to them as you read to further develop your answers.)

• Do you know the author’s purpose for this piece of writing? I hope the purpose is clear by now; if it isn’t, I’m doing a pretty lousy job of explaining how and why you might read like a writer.
• Do you know who the intended audience is? Again, I hope that you know this one by now.
• What about the genre? Is this an essay? An article? What would you call it?
• You know that it’s published and not student writing. How does this influence your expectations for what you will read?
• Are you going to be asked to write something like this yourself? Probably not in your college writing class, but you can still use RLW to learn about writerly techniques that you might want to use in whatever you do end up writing.

Now ask yourself questions as you read.

Since this paragraph is the very first one, it makes sense to think about how it introduces readers to the essay. What technique(s) does the author use to begin the text? This is a personal story about his time working in London. What else do you notice as you read over this passage? Is the passage vague or specific about where he worked? You know that the author worked in a famous part of London in a beautiful theater owned by a well-known composer. Are these details important? How different would this opening be if instead I had written:

In 1997, I was living in London and working at a theatre that showed Les Miserables .

This is certainly shorter, and some of you may prefer this version. It’s quick. To the point. But what (if anything) is lost by eliminating so much of the detail? I chose to include each of the details that the revised sentence omits, so it’s worth considering why. Why did I mention where the theater was located? Why did I explain that I was living in London right after finishing college? Does it matter that it was after college? What effect might I have hoped the inclusion of these details would have on readers? Is this reference to college an attempt to connect with my audience of college students? Am I trying to establish my credibility as an author by announcing that I went to college? Why might I want the readers to know that this was a theater owned by Andrew Lloyd Weber? Do you think I am just trying to mention a famous name that readers will recognize? Will Andrew Lloyd Weber figure prominently in the rest of the essay?

These are all reasonable questions to ask. They are not necessarily the right questions to ask because there are no right questions. They certainly aren’t the only questions you could ask, either. The goal is to train yourself to formulate questions as you read based on whatever you notice in the text. Your own reactions to what you’re reading will help determine the kinds of questions to ask.

Now take a broader perspective. I begin this essay—an essay about reading —by talking about my job in a theater in London. Why? Doesn’t this seem like an odd way to begin an essay about reading? If you read on a little further (feel free to scan back up at the top of this essay) you learn in the third full paragraph what the connection is between working in the theater and reading like a writer, but why include this information at all? What does this story add to the essay? Is it worth the space it takes up?

Think about what effect presenting this personal information might have on readers. Does it make it feel like a real person, some “ordinary guy,” is talking to you? Does it draw you into the essay and make you want to keep reading?

What about the language I use? Is it formal or more informal? This is a time when you can really narrow your focus and look at particular words:

Because of antiquated fire-safety laws, every theatre in the city was required to have a certain number of staff members inside watching the performance in case of an emergency.

What is the effect of using the word “antiquated” to describe the firesafety laws? It certainly projects a negative impression; if the laws are described as antiquated it means I view them as old-fashioned or obsolete. This is a fairly uncommon word, so it stands out, drawing attention to my choice in using it. The word also sounds quite formal. Am I formal in the rest of this sentence?

I use the word “performance” when I just as easily could have written “show.” For that matter, I could have written “old” instead of “antiquated.” You can proceed like this throughout the sentence, thinking about alternative choices I could have made and what the effect would be. Instead of “staff members” I could have written “employees” or just “workers.” Notice the difference if the sentence had been written:

Because of old fire-safety laws, every theatre in the city was required to have a certain number of workers inside watching the show in case of an emergency.

Which version is more likely to appeal to readers? You can try to answer this question by thinking about the advantages and disadvantages of using formal language. When would you want to use formal language in your writing and when would it make more sense to be more conversational?

As you can see from discussing just this one paragraph, you could ask questions about the text forever. Luckily, you don’t have to. As you continue reading like a writer, you’ll learn to notice techniques that seem new and pay less attention to the ones you’ve thought about before. The more you practice the quicker the process becomes until you’re reading like a writer almost automatically.

I want to end this essay by sharing one more set of comments by my former student, Lola, this time about what it means to her to read like a writer:

Reading as a writer would compel me to question what might have brought the author to make these decisions, and then decide what worked and what didn’t. What could have made that chapter better or easier to understand? How can I make sure I include some of the good attributes of this writing style into my own? How can I take aspects that I feel the writer failed at and make sure not to make the same mistakes in my writing?

Questioning why the author made certain decisions. Considering what techniques could have made the text better. Deciding how to include the best attributes of what you read in your own writing. This is what Reading Like a Writer is all about.

Are you ready to start reading?

• How is “Reading Like a Writer” similar to and/or different from the way(s) you read for other classes?
• What kinds of choices do you make as a writer that readers might identify in your written work?
• Is there anything you notice in this essay that you might like to try in your own writing? What is that technique or strategy? When do you plan to try using it?
• What are some of the different ways that you can learn about the context of a text before you begin reading it?

Works Cited

Bishop, Wendy. “Reading, Stealing, and Writing Like a Writer.” Elements of Alternate Style: Essays on Writing and Revision. Ed. Wendy Bishop. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1997. Print.

Jauss, David. “Articles of Faith.” Creative Writing in America: Theory and Pedagogy. Ed. Joseph Moxley. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1989. Print.

Moran, Charles. “Reading Like a Writer.” Vital Signs 1. Ed. James L. Collins. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1990. Print.

Straub, Richard. “Responding—Really Responding—to Other Students’ Writing.” The Subject is Reading. Ed. Wendy Bishop. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 2000. Print.

Tate, Allen. “We Read as Writers.” Princeton Alumni Weekly 40 (March 8, 1940): 505- 506. Print.

Walker, Nancy. “The Student Reader as Writer.” ADE Bulletin 106 (1993) 35–37. Print.

• How to Read Like a Writer. Authored by : Mike Bunn. Located at : http://writingspaces.org/sites/default/files/bunn--how-to-read.pdf . Project : Writing Spaces. License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

Writing Negative Book Reviews

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How to craft a review when you didn't like the book

Have you ever finished a book and felt dissatisfied? It's really no surprise, because even the most enthusiastic book lovers don't enjoy everything they read.

If you're asked to write a review on a book you didn't like, it's important not to feel guilty or intimidated. Instead, think of book reviews as a way to come to terms with what you've read. You'll find there's still a lot to write about, even if you wouldn't recommend the book to other readers.

There's plenty of advice on how to write book reviews , but there are a few extra points to consider when your opinion of a book is mostly negative. Whether you disliked the plot or disagreed with the thesis, it can be harder to remain objective in your analysis. Here are four tips to keep in mind.

1) Be specific and provide examples

A book review is all about self-expression, so you should be open and honest in your writing. It's important, however, to justify any claims you make with solid evidence. For example, if you thought the characterization was weak, be prepared to explain why. Book reviews can be quite short, but you'll have room to discuss at least a few passages that illustrate your arguments. When you have a negative reaction to a book, it's sometimes hard to articulate your feelings, but it's always important to be precise .

2) Consider the author's perspective

Whether you liked a book or not, book reviews are an excellent way to get inside the author's mind. When crafting your arguments, try to consider the author's motivations for writing the way he or she did. Sometimes, this can help you understand or even appreciate his or her perspective on a deeper level. Even if you come away with a negative impression, at least you'll have some insight into the author's creative process, which can inform or even inspire your own work.

3) Balance weaknesses with strengths (when possible)

In any good review, balance is essential because it lends the reviewer more credibility. Even if you strongly disliked the book, a review should touch on both its strengths and weaknesses. If you feel stumped, try creating a list of the book's pros and cons. For every negative quality, jot down a positive one, even if it's only something small. For example, you may have disliked a book's ending but thought the introduction was imaginative and compelling. Or maybe you enjoyed a section of dialogue, even if you didn't appreciate the overall plot. Balanced book reviews are important because they show you can see both sides of the coin.

4) Don't let emotions get the best of you

Books can affect us on a very deep, emotional level. If you feel disappointed or angry after reading something, it can be difficult to remain levelheaded in your analysis. Before you let emotions get the best of you, consider who might end up reading your review. Although you may feel like spilling all your thoughts out onto the page (or screen), the fact is that not everyone will understand your negativity. Book reviews are naturally critical, but just as in a complaint letter , your arguments should always be polite and tasteful. Most importantly, you should never attack the author—or another reader, for that matter—on a level that's too personal.

In book reviews, your voice goes a long way

Book reviews are important to the literary world, so don't shy away! As a book reviewer, you'll be helping other readers understand and appreciate the written word. You may not always love what you read, but that doesn't mean you can't entertain and inspire through your writing.

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Essay Writing for Those That Never Read the Book

Your paper is due in two days and you have managed to completely avoid reading the book the essay is based on. Since you are not a speed reader or even don't know how to skim the text , this poses a serious problem, and you fear you will never have time to finish the book and get the essay done by the deadline. However, all is not lost! If you follow some basic principles of novel research, you can learn enough in a short time to make the impossible paper a solid A.

The first step in this process is to consult your class notes, if you have any on the text. Your professor will often point out the important events and themes, as well as some useful quotes. Since the professor is the one who will be marking your paper, knowing what he or she thinks is important is key. Also, you can easily comment on particular scenes and use them to explain important themes when the work has been done for you by the professor through the class notes!

After you have determined what is most important based on these notes, or even if these are not available, the next step is to hit the internet. Search for the title of your book (use quotation marks to narrow the number of hits) and add the word “summary.” This will narrow your results, and find sites dedicated to summarizing and explaining the work you have to write about. Start with a short general summary of the whole work, so you can get a feel for the entire thing as broadly as possible. Then, look for specific chapter summaries, and read through those briefly. This process may take between 30 minutes and two hours, depending on the length of the book, but it will be time well spent. This reading will give you the basic information you need, and is significantly shorter than reading the whole text.

Once you have a basic idea of the plot of the story and its principle characters, it is time to start getting specific. For example, if your professor has mentioned that the book contains a strong anti-war message, you can be confident that this theme will be a good one to write about. At this point, you can look on the summary sites for the correct thematic analyses. These will provide you with ideas, but even more importantly, they will show you where in the text the important events surrounding the theme are located, and they may even provide quotes and page numbers. Make a note of the important sections and pages you find in this section, as they will become very important in the next stage of writing.

Now you are ready to turn to the text to focus on just the relevant sections. Your task here is to read very selectively, picking out quotes that help support the themes you are going to be discussing in the paper. Having an electronic copy of the text is very useful here, as it will allow you to quickly move from section to section and quote to quote. Also, with an e-text you can search for the terms which will be most important for your paper, which will give you more to work with than the summery sites alone could provide. Once this is completed, you will be left with a good overview of the novel, an understanding of what your professor thinks is important, a theme you can be sure is worth writing about, and many useful quotes which support that theme. Now you have all you need to complete the paper, and although you haven't read the book, no one will be able to figure this out from your paper.

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• / What can I do if I don’t completely understand the writing assignment?

Sometimes the hardest part about writing a paper is understanding the assignment. You may not understand what you’re being asked to write or how you’re supposed to write about it. But don’t worry: although the prompt may seem confusing at first, there are strategies you can use to understand your assignment.

First, try taking a break from the assignment.

Take a walk, clean your room, get coffee with a friend. Then come back and read the prompt again, keeping any of your instructor’s in-class comments in mind. Looking at your assignment with fresh eyes will often help you either finally understand the assignment or identify what specifically is confusing to you.

If your assignment still seems unclear, ask yourself the following questions:

What is the purpose of your assignment? (What are you being asked to do?)

To understand what the assignment is asking you to do, pay special attention to the verbs that your instructor used. These verbs often function as keywords that signal the purpose of an assignment. Argue, summarize, and compare/contrast are just a few keywords to look for. These verbs can tell you whether you are developing your own argument, describing a plot, or analyzing the similarities or differences between artifacts. Visit our blog or take a look at this handout to find a list of more keywords and their meanings.

Another way to understand the assignment is to see if your instructor has asked you to follow a specific format. Is there a length requirement? Are there a certain number of sources required? Shorter papers are often a thesis-driven analysis with fewer sources. A longer paper with more sources may signal a research assignment. Again, pay attention to any verbs you see; these verbs will often tell you how to approach writing your assignment.

Who is your audience?

Part of the context of any writing situation will include your audience, or who you’re writing to. Since your audience includes your instructor, keep in mind any expectations she or he may have. What concepts have been emphasized in class? You may find these same concepts in your prompt. How is the assignment structured? Understanding the structure may help you decipher how you are being asked to approach the prompt.

Your instructor may not be the only audience member to consider. Are you being asked to communicate with a general audience (who can follow a logical argument but doesn’t know anything about your chosen topic) or an informed one (an audience familiar with the material, but not your chosen angle)? Knowing who your audience is will help you decipher what kind of information will best support your thesis. If you have any questions about who your audience should be, ask your instructor for clarification.

What evidence are you being asked to provide?

Evidence, or the information you use to support your thesis , can come from in-class texts or outside sources like academic journals, scientific studies, or government websites. The type(s) of evidence that you use and how you present it will differ depending on the requirements of your assignment. Is your instructor asking you to draw on readings from class to make an argument? Chances are, this signals a textual analysis in which you develop a thesis and use quotes from your chosen text(s) to support your argument. Alternatively, are you being asked to use outside sources? If so, how many? This may signal a longer project, possibly a research paper in which you generate a thesis and present information on a given topic to either inform or persuade your audience.

Understanding the type of evidence your instructor requires may help you work backwards to determine the format and, ultimately, the purpose of your assignment. Remember: evidence will be presented differently depending on your audience and purpose, so again, look for keywords to help.

If you still find that you don’t fully understand the assignment, don’t panic: you aren’t required to tackle the prompt alone.

Email your instructor and explain your confusion.

Try to be as specific as possible. Are you confused about what you are being asked to do? Is it unclear how you are being asked to structure your paper? Or what kind of evidence you’re supposed to use? Ask them, even if you can’t be specific. They want to help.

Collaborate.

Come to the Writing Center! Talk to a friend or someone you know from class. Being able to talk to someone about your assignment may help you finally decode the prompt.

What can the Writing Center do to help?

Some questions about the assignment can only be answered by instructors, so you should be prepared to discuss the assignment with them. However, consultants at the Writing Center are experienced in reading and interpreting assignments. When you attend a Writing Center session, we ask that you bring a copy of the assignment with you (if you have one), and we will read through the assignment sheet together. We will then help you decipher keywords, look for hints about structure, and finally come to an understanding of the prompt. We can also help you begin brainstorming for the assignment and transition to other steps of the writing process.

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I Really Didn’t Want to Write This Promotional Essay Tied to My Book Release

Lauren acampora on the public consumption of art, and how not to let it consume you.

Did someone click on the title? Good. You made it up to get attention. You’re writing this essay about getting attention—to get attention. Your publisher has encouraged you, as they encourage all their authors, to try writing about something related to your life or work in advance of your new novel’s upcoming release. Whether it’s an essay, an autobiographical vignette, or a reading list/article (“listicle”), creating compelling content tied to your book can be a valuable way to catch the eye of potential readers, build name recognition, and maybe capture some of that elusive phenomenon called “buzz.”

You’re a good sport, and you promise to try. The word essay means “try,” after all. The problem, though, is that you’re a fiction writer, and the idea of writing essays (especially about yourself) makes you feel queasy. Nearly all your writer friends share vexation with this part of the publishing process. After all, if you all were good at this sort of thing—if you were extroverts, scintillating personalities—you probably wouldn’t be fiction writers.

You’d be pop singers, Instagram influencers, politicians, memoirists. You got into this line of work because it lets you do what you perversely love best: sitting alone silently for extended periods of time, making things up. You were raised with the impression that fiction writers were allowed to do that, that they had to do that to write good books, and that writing good books led to success. The books spoke for themselves. The writer could stay in her hermit cave and set the book free without needing to follow it out the door.

But this is naïve, and you know it. A writer can have brilliant genius and amazing endurance, but none of it matters if nobody’s paying attention . Without an audience, what’s art? It’s a tree falling alone in the forest. The metaphor seems sadly apt: what a shame, the poor lonely tree, with all its history and beauty, its musical existential crash unheard, as if it had never lived at all. This, you realize in panic, is the panic of all artists.

The problem is that art withers and dies without dissemination. The artist has a dual quest, to create good work and ensure that it’s shared. The drive to create is rooted, after all, in the basic human need for connection. As an artist, you’re compelled not to just to manifest your vision of the world, but to share it with others. Your job is to run your raw perception and experience of the world through the alchemizing mechanism of your own singular, idiosyncratic mind—and then try to package it in the form of something new, inimitable, and alluring that other people will want to pull into their own minds. You might even say that art is a form of reproduction—the reproduction of your own consciousness—and that it’s just as ingrained as biological reproduction, if not always as enjoyable.

Of course, none if this breaking news. You know that as long as there’s been art there’s been attention-seeking. Prehistoric people didn’t carve petroglyphs in remote, hidden places, but on strategic rock faces where they’d be seen by others. There are carvings spanning hundreds of years squeezed together on Newspaper Rock in Utah, where they were most likely to be viewed by a critical mass. As the volume of artists has grown over the centuries, so has the clamor for attention.

During the Renaissance, artists found themselves vying for limited patronage, trying to attract the powerful few who could expand the reach of their art. Such patronage was symbiotic: financial support and publicity were bestowed on those with celebrity or personal charisma—those who showed themselves to be the best publicists for the patron’s own brand, so to speak. This was arguably when artists first began the work of self-promotion in earnest, cultivating individual personas, burnishing their own auras.

And then Romanticism furthered the notion of the creator as an elevated figure, lifting visual artists, poets, and writers to lofty heights, where they were presumably visited by divine inspiration, transcending the realm of mortals. It certainly didn’t hurt for an artist to nurture this mystique. Lord Byron, possibly the first major literary celebrity, shamelessly promoted “Byromania” by publicizing his exploits in love and war and enhancing his physical beauty in polished and artfully posed portraits.

Walt Whitman, too, was a master publicity hound, writing his own rave reviews and posing for down-home photos that illustrated his persona as anointed poet of the common man. In one photograph, a butterfly appears to perch on his finger—implying that even animals were drawn to his earthy emanation. The butterfly was later discovered to have been a cardboard prop . “The public is a thick-skinned beast,” Whitman said, “And you have to keep whacking away at its hide to let it know you’re there.”

There’s no less pressure for you, today, to whack at the public’s hide, to fashion a personal mythology, or at least drum up some intrigue that might captivate the distractible masses. In our post-industrial world of expanding global links, exploding populations, and exponential spikes in production of everything from lip gloss to selfie sticks to literary fiction, attention is scarcer and more fleeting than ever.

Living in the so-called attention economy, we’re immersed in the constant noise of social media, the unrelenting tide of conversation and content. It’s a babble that never ebbs, pulling at our psychic strings like a never-ending pool party that we can dip in and out of but never really leave. The roar stays in our ears even after we close the computer and turn off the phone. It’s infiltrated our lives so fully that solitude itself has begun to feel like an illusion. There’s a sense of always being watched, alternating with a sense of not being watched, being ignored. It’s this awareness of others that never goes away, the awareness of what or whom they’re paying attention to.

How to function as an artist in this scenario? You, like your writer friends, are hyperventilating. You’re all introspective and maybe a little introverted. You’re paralyzed by the party. Yes, you know that social media is the great equalizer. Never has there been such a democratic avenue for dissemination of ideas, for better or worse, or such an open avenue for self-promotion. It’s an enormous opportunity for those writers with a knack for it. Some of the funnier and quick-witted have built impressive followings.

Some have sold or marketed books based on this virtual audience alone (though it’s still up for debate whether these phantom followers buy many books ). But what about you and others like you—so many others, based on your amateur research—who cringe at posting random thoughts to a global bulletin board? What about those of you hesitant to expose your private lives like flashers, screaming “ Look at me!” ? Every single fiction writer you know has a fraught relationship with social media, too. All of them are disgusted by it and want to quit but feel they shouldn’t or can’t. It’s a time suck, and it makes you feel dirty, but it’s a career responsibility, a shameful addiction, a postmodern ball and chain.

You know—or hope—that social media isn’t the end-all. There are plenty of other ways to expand readership. There’s the old-fashioned power of personal networking, going to parties, schmoozing with people who can amplify a name, lift a career. Some writers are blessed with a glittering built-in persona they can carry from party to party and from book to book: some uncommon background, an extremely interesting or attractive appearance, or pre-existing fame from another career or position. If you don’t have that (and you’re afraid you don’t), you can always manufacture an eye-catching look . Even just adopting a hallmark sartorial choice or visible eccentricity might lay the foundation for legend. You think of Salvador Dalí’s curled mustache and cape, Tom Wolfe’s white suits, Donna Tartt’s tailored shirts and ties, Susan Sontag’s (purposely undyed) streak of white hair, even grouchy Patricia Highsmith’s purse full of snails.

Failing all this, you might find a look—or rather a hook —for the work itself, whether it’s a subject of perpetual interest or some newly hot social topic. It’s too late to do this in your new book, of course, and anyway the latter strategy is nearly impossible to carry off. Nailing a hot topic means having the psychic foresight to write compelling and deeply-felt fiction about that topic far enough in advance that its publication will land at precisely the right moment—sailing through the window of peak interest before the culture moves on. Given the tortoise pace of writing and publishing, this is like hitting a moving target in the water pistol game at a carnival, if you were aiming the pistol from inside your car in the parking lot.

So, where does this leave you, self-pitying ordinary fiction writer, without fame, a fascinating background, uncommon beauty, schmoozing finesse, or social media chops? Where does leave you and your self-pitying ordinary friends for whom self-promotion is nauseating, who write stories that interest yourselves, hoping your universal themes might also interest readers? You yourself are personally unremarkable, maybe a regular lady in the suburbs who does laundry and vacuuming, walks the dog, and helps with math homework. You only wear a cape on Halloween. No snails crawl out of your purse, unless it’s a toy one you’re carrying for your kid. Can’t you just write books and hope the right readers find and love them?

“You have to blow your own horn,” your mother always told you. Nobody’s going to come knocking on your door to discover your talents. Growing up, you were mortified by this. You’d always been under the impression that modesty was a cardinal virtue. When it came time to apply to college, write a resumé, and go on job interviews, it went against every fiber of your being to blow your own horn. What you’d accomplished seemed insignificant compared to what others had done and what you wanted to do. It felt wrong, fake, to promote yourself based on such a weak showing. You still feel this way, and you still think modesty is something to be valued. Maybe you’re old-fashioned, but to your mind it’s a species of kindness, an unwillingness to put yourself above others. It’s a demonstration of respect and belief in the equal value of lives. Your experience, your accomplishments, are no better than anyone else’s; only different.

And yet. Deep down (or not so deep), don’t all artists (at least sometimes) believe they’re geniuses? Doesn’t it take mind-blowing arrogance to write a book? Don’t all creators seek acknowledgement, approval, praise, and yes, fame? You tell one writer friend that you just want to keep publishing books, not be on the Today Show . “But don’t you?” she asks. Well, don’t you? Maybe you do. Maybe it’s disingenuous to pretend otherwise. Maybe it’s stupid to sit back and hope, like a wallflower at a dance, too self-effacing or aloof to jump in the fray. Maybe the unapologetically ambitious, the naked climbers, the entitled and egotistical are the only honest ones—and the only smart ones—out there.

You remember being bewildered by the aspiring art star in college who mounted a show of nude self-portraits during freshman parents’ weekend and who nearly knocked you down to get at the boy you were casually seeing. Only later did you realize the boy was some sort of heir, and that she was deep in a long-game—now exhibiting at the MoMA. Maybe those are the people who stick in the history books, just like Whitman and Byron.

The truth is that attention-seeking is both anathema and integral to art. You know there’s a double imperative to dive inward, creating deeply considered work, and to push outward, wading the shallow waters of promotion. Even when fully removed from the world, toiling deep in your hermit cave, there’s still the hope for an audience, a yearning for it. The only way to create anything true is to believe that no one’s watching, that no one will ever see it—but at the same time, the very act of making art infers the existence of someone else experiencing it. It’s a paradox: creating into obscurity and into the spotlight at once.

To bring it back to Kierkegaard (as you too often insufferably do) the act of creation is an act of faith akin to Kierkegaard’s Knight of Faith, the absurd figure who’s capable of embracing the finite and infinite at the same time. To create art, what’s necessary is an utter belief in both mortality and immortality, an insane conjunction of humility and arrogance. This lunatic dance of the artist isn’t really so different from the dance of ordinary living, you think. We all move through impossible waters, functioning day to day despite crushing despair at the suffering of the world. We all create and affirm life amidst unrelenting destruction. We erase ourselves in deference to the world’s largeness and assert ourselves as part of it, in equal measures. We’re all artists to some extent, subsisting on attention: both receiving it and giving.

As it happens, all your writing is ultimately about this. On the surface, maybe your new book is about rich white people in the suburbs doing rich white suburban things. It’s about ennui, motherhood, frustration, infidelity—the antithesis of a hot topic . But maybe it’s also about environmental degradation, the tendency to hide from the climate crisis and impending doom. It’s about the power of art in the face of catastrophe. And at the core, your novel—and all your work—is about the mandate to create and connect. You’ve always been drawn to writing about art and artists in particular—yes, because writing lets you dream up artworks without buying and dealing with art materials—but also because you’re interested in characters who are desperate to connect. It’s crucial to their lives. Without creative engagement, they languish and stumble into other means of producing friction, often destructive ones.

At heart, you know that it’s a universal human urge to make a mark, to rage against irrelevancy and mortality, to be noticed and remembered. The miracle is the mark—the transmission of one mind to another, the holy act of paying attention, the infinite process of human cross-pollination. The miracle is the persistence of that mark beyond your own life span, its continued ability to command attention from the living, to assure them that those who came before were much the same as they are, and that those who come after will inherit the same set of loves and losses and mysteries. Art is both memento mori, a reminder of our impermanence—and salve, a reminder that we’re not and have never been alone.

And so, in the end, isn’t this the measure of what you want to say—about your work, about writing, about yourself? Well then, here’s your essay. Now, where’s your cape?

___________________________________

The Hundred Waters by Lauren Acampora is available from Grove Press, an imprint of Grove Atlantic. 

Lauren Acampora

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