Introduction
Now that you’ve submitted an annotated bibliography of four database articles for your research paper, you can concentrate on the book-length foundation source you’ve chosen for the research paper.
Course Competencies
This module addresses the following course competencies:
- Write short and long papers, using primary and secondary research.
- Conduct dependable on-site, Internet and/or library research for college-level essays, papers or reports.
- Evaluate researched sources for authority, credibility, and relevance.
- Employ different strategies of integrating research by way of summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting.
- Construct accurate entries for bibliographies and Works Cited lists.
Objectives
After completing this module, you should be able to:
- Analyze a book-length resource for its thesis and reliability as a foundation source for a research project.
- Summarize the main points of three or more chapters of a book.
- Incorporate correctly formatted citations continuously throughout a report while maintaining readability.
- Evaluate an author’s argument(s) for strengths, weaknesses or biases.
- Write a book report for a book in print.
Heads Up
Everything in this module prepares you for The Book Report (BR) of the foundation source you found for you research project in Module 4 and wrote about in Discussion 4.
After feedback, you’ll add this book’s citation to the Research Paper’s Works Cited list and use most of the report in the research paper, too. The Book Report module has two steps
Step One:
Learning Activities teaches the Research Writing Skill of Preparing a Book Report. Use the Practices on Citations and Referencing Content to test yourself on these skills.
Step Two:
Apply what you’ve learned to write a 3-4 page Book Report on three or more chapters from the foundation source you read.
These hyperlinks, embedded in the module, provide essential information for the Book Report:
Research Writing Skill: Preparing the Book Report
Approved List of Books
MLA 8th Edition Help Page: Books
M6 Template BR
M6_Stubbs_BR
By now you have been able to find an interesting book-length print source, and, hopefully, have fallen under its spell. Some of you will read your whole book before you write your book report, and some of you will use a skim-and-read method, skimming the whole book for its design and ideas and reading carefully chapters of the book that you think will be most relevant to your research topic. Both methods are acceptable and realistic for a big research project.
Read Your Book
As you read the book you’ve chosen, make notes of its comparisons, evaluations and arguments and the critical thinking processes the author has applied to present the thesis or argument of the book.
Also, make note of specific passages that you think are well written and help explain important concepts so you can use these in both your book report and eventually research paper.
Once you’ve read at least three chapters of the book source, or enough to feel that you have mastered the material in the selected chapters, you’ll prepare a three-page book report on the major points of the text. Remember that you’ll probably be using much of this report in your final 8-10 page research paper, so try to master the heart of the book’s points that are important to your research topic. Enjoy this reading and thinking process as you begin to master the subject you have chosen to report on for your research paper.
Research Writing Skill: Referencing the Author(s) in a Book Report
Most of you are well practiced, now, at identifying authors and titles of works in the introductions of papers, so you shouldn’t have much trouble identifying the author or authors of your book source and its complete title in book report’s introduction. However, referencing the author(s) throughout your Book Report is not always as easy as it may seem.
Read through the Preparing the Book Report section of the Research Writing Skills website:
- Citing Books
- Referencing Authors and Page Numbers
- Secondary or “qtd. in” References for Experts
- Evaluating Author References
Instructions:
Write a report on the book you have chosen as the foundation source for your research paper. The book, like the research paper, must relate in some way to one of the 18 assigned readings from the ENG 102 Course Selection.
Reminder: The book should come from the List of Approved Books, or meet your instructor’s approval.
After reading the relevant chapters/sections of the book, write a 3-page report discussing the main points, and provide specific affirmation of those points, from three of the book’s chapters that you think relate well as a foundation resource for your planned research paper.
The book should relate directly to your research-paper topic. In fact, with a little revision, you should be able to re-use the book report as part of the research paper.
You may design your own introduction and conclusion to the book report or use the documented reports in M1, M2, and M3 as a suggested structure.
TIP: Try formulating a conclusion to the report as an appeal to logos, ethos or pathos to give yourself a step up on the research paper. After your conclusion, insert a page break and include a Works Cited “list” with one entry: a correctly formatted citation for the book
Use the M6 Template BR to help you format your paper, and M6 Stubbs BR as an example of how a book report could read.
After your conclusion, insert a page break and include a Works Cited “list” with one entry: a correctly formatted citation for the book.
Please save your assignment as a Word document (.doc) and upload it by clicking on the Browse My Computer button. Name the file as LastnameBR, where “Lastname” is your last name (i.e. JohnsonBR.doc).
Your submission will be checked for plagiarism using the SafeAssign feature within Blackboard.
This assignment is worth 100 points and will be evaluated using the ENG 102 Book Report Rubric, which is available when you open the assignment.
- Not Accepted for Review: (Any of the three criteria may disqualify the paper for review): Some information in the paper is plagiarized; researched information is presented without attribution. The book was not approved or is not related to a Course Selection article.
- Accepted for Review: (All three criteria are requirements for the paper’s review): No information in the paper is found to be plagiarized; all researched information is presented with attribution. The book was approved and is related in subject to a Course Selection article.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mt8ooCms4sE
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUNW3Ra7sLc