Students are often asked to read a lot of literature. Sometimes, teachers also ask you to write an essay on a book you have read.
In this article, we will tell you how to write a paper on your favorite book and what its structure and content is. And then, we will give an example of a paper on the book read.
What Is a Paper About a Book?
A paper on a book is a short essay in which the author describes a certain work and expresses their thoughts and attitude toward the book. Such an essay is written in simple language and the volume is approximately 1-2 pages.
Sometimes, writing such a paper can take a lot of time since a student needs not only to read a book but also analyze it. You can use the help of experienced writers by asking them to “write my paper” or use this article as a guide and cope with a paper about your favorite book on your own.
Types of Paper on a Book
Before you start writing a paper on a book, you need to understand what kind of work you need to write. There are three types of paper writing on a book:
- Comment
- Review
- Summary
If you need to write a comment, then you are required to express a personal opinion about a particular book. Did you like the work or not? What attracted or repelled the story?
The review is an overview of storylines, characters, and their actions.
The summary contains a description and a brief retelling of the most interesting and key points of the book.
Students are most often asked to write the second type of paper on a book – a review.
Paper Structure
Regardless of the type of paper, it will have a standard structure:
- Introduction
- Main part
- Final part
In the introduction, the author explains what book will be discussed and what points will be touched on and analyzed.
In the main part, it is necessary to analyze the main storylines that hooked the author the most. Depending on the type of paper, this part will contain either a description of the work or its analysis.
In the final part, the author briefly retells the topic of the paper and its main points and draws conclusions. If you need to write an essay review, then in the conclusion, you need to express your attitude to this work.
How to Write a Paper on a Book
Before writing a paper about your favorite book, use our tips:
- Study the work in detail. Scanning the text or reading a summary will definitely not work here. The book must be read thoughtfully and completely.
- Take notes as you read. You can mark key points with a pencil right in the book or write them out on a draft.
- If you are writing a paper on a book for the first time, write a rough plan. Rely on the structure of the work; write down what you will write in each part of it.
- Clearly formulate the thesis of the paper because it is you who will prove it throughout the work.
- When you give arguments, take examples from the book: the actions of the characters, their relationships, and reasoning.
- If you are writing an essay about your favorite book in English, look at ready-made foreign reviews on the Internet and take key points as a basis.
Book Paper Example
To understand how to write a paper on a book, see examples:
Essay topic: “Don Quixote” by Miguel Cervantes.
This work has a deeper meaning than it seems at first glance, which is why it still causes so much controversy and disagreement. According to the author himself, Don Quixote is a satire and a parody of chivalric novels.
The hero of Cervantes is a knight who despises worldly blessings but not honor. He is sure that all his life, he has gone to the goal, which he saw in standing up for the humiliated people, punishing the unjust people, fighting for the truth, and defeating giants and monsters. He sought to do good to everyone and do no harm to anyone.
In this undoubtedly, his image is very attractive. But in his noble aspirations, Don Quixote goes beyond reality. A “fight windmills” has become a common expression denoting a person’s struggle with non-existent obstacles.
Naturally, such a struggle is absurd and futile. Don Quixote is guided only by good intentions, but he brings only harm to those around him.
At the end of the work, the Knight of the Sad Countenance comes to his senses, his mind returns to him again, and he calmly dies. But before dying, he draws up a will in favor of his niece and warns that he will disinherit if her chosen one is fond of chivalric romances.
After this work was created, the term “quixotic” appeared, which is interpreted as the absurdity of actions and deeds that cause others to laugh and characterize inappropriate behavior.
It is applied to people detached from reality, living in their own world, and weakly responsive to social norms of behavior. But if you look at Don Quixote himself, you can judge that he was a completely normal person until he read a lot of chivalric novels and caught fire with his own dream.
Based on this, the term “quixotic” can be assumed to apply to dreamers, people who are true to their goals and strive to achieve them at all costs. Such people have a wildly developed imagination, like Cervantes’s hero. But for most people, the image of Don Quixote remains a mystery; only one thing is clear – his image is immortal.
It is possible that such “Don Quixote” is sometimes found in the modern world. They are dreamers who follow their goals, even if, for most people, they do not seem real.
The whole novel is endowed with sad irony and filled with deep ideological meaning, which leaves a mark on the mind of every person and spiritually transforms the reader.
Personally, for me, the Knight of the Sad Countenance, created by Cervantes, evoked strong, emotional feelings, and after reading the book, I smiled, but the smile came out sad.
