Despite the difference in nomenclature, book reviews have,
often a-time, been mistaken for book summary. A book review is a systematic analysis
of the contents of a book, indicating the thoughts and opinions of the
reviewer; a book summary, on the other hand, is a brief presentation of the
subject matter discussed in the book.
This article is not bordered on the disparity between book
reviews and book summaries, but from time to time, the various tips indicated
below will help to show their differences. Below are the important points to
note while writing a book or chapter review:
1. INTRODUCTION
The introduction of the book review is almost as important as
the book review itself. This is because the introduction is the first point of
contact between the reviewer and the reader (lecturer). The introduction has to
show how well the reviewer has read the book; it is, more or less, a
presentation of the thoughts of the reviewer about the book and if it is not
well presented, the reader may lose interest in the review without even looking
at a page.
2. ORGANIZATION OF
CONTENT
Book reviews are systematic analyses and need to be treated
as such. Unlike a book summary where the contents of the book can be
interchanged and mixed up in order to give a better meaning to the subject
matter, book reviews have to be done on a chapter-by-chapter and point-by-point
basis. This implies that chapter one has to be reviewed completely before
chapter two is reviewed.
3. TENSE
This is simply the tense in which the review is written. In most
cases, books are written in either present or past tense and this always tempts
reviewers to do the same thing. However, good reviews are written in present
tense.
4. REPORT
A good book review is written as a reported speech; this
implies that the reviewer has to make reference to what the author said in the
book. For example, book reviews should contain statements with “in the author’s
opinion…”; “the author identified…” etc.
5. LENGTH
Most times, students write much more than is needed in a book
review. It is pertinent to note that a chapter that has 5 pages cannot be reviewed
correctly in 8 pages; the review has to be done in less than 5 pages,
preferably in 2. While reviewing a book or chapter, writing more than the pages
of the book is most likely to mean that the reviewer does not know how to do a
review and this will definitely lead to the student being scored lower than is
necessary.
NOTE: Book reviews and chapter reviews are,
more or less, the same thing. The only difference between a book review and a
chapter review is that book reviews encompass the whole chapters while chapter
reviews talk about only the subject matter in the chapter; therefore they
should be approached in the same way.
Conclusively, avoid
copy and paste as it will definitely reduce the mark that would have
ordinarily been awarded to the student for a job well done.
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