how to write a critical essay on a book

Getting an Idea How do you get an idea? To begin, read the text carefully, as many times as you can. (If you are working with a long work of literature, like an epic poem or a novel, select a passage from the work that seems important to you, and re-read it several times.) React to it: try to understand your reactions. Underline, in the text, any words, phrases or ideas that strike you as interesting or significant, and then take notes in which you try to record and analyze your responses. Read over your notes to see if any pattern is developing in the way that you're thinking about the work. You may wish to focus on an aspect of the work that for you is troubling, confusing, or inconsistent. Clarify for yourself just what the problem is, for you, with this image or idea or use of language. Then concentrate on this particular aspect of the work, trying to see how it fits, how it operates in the work as a whole. That is, define a problem for yourself and attempt to solve it. Your solution to the problem will be the topic or focus of your essay; this solution may suggest an idea about the meaning or significance of the work as a whole. Because you are dealing with a carefully composed text, you may want to concentrate on how it works. How is it structured? What sorts of images or symbols, or figurative language, or rhetorical techniques, or narrative strategies does the author employ? Does he or she use any of them consistently in conjunction with a specific emotion or idea? To what end? How effective is the writer's use of these techniques? How well are the writer's methods suited to his or her purposes? Some Techniques for Writing the Essay When you begin the process of pre-writing, you probably will not really have a clear thesis, and your organization may be confused. But as you work through your ideas, more and more clarity about your thesis and organization will.
“CRITICISM”: n. The art, skill or profession of making discriminating judgments and evaluations. THE ESSENCE OF CRITICAL THINKING Ask Four Basic Questions as You Read / Listen: What is the book/message about as a whole? What is the author/speaker saying in detail, and how is it said? Is the book/message true, in whole or in part? What is the significance of the book/message? ELEMENTS OF A CRITICAL PAPER The following is a general structure to follow for the body of a critical paper. Be sure to include a suitable introduction and conclusion, as described in the previous section, How to Write a Whole Composition. Adapt it to specific assignments as appropriate. PART ONE: DESCRIPTION Classify the book/message according to kind and subject matter. Very briefly, state what the whole of the book/message is about. Enumerate the major parts of the book/message in their order and relation. Define the problem or problems that the author/speaker is trying to solve. PART TWO: INTERPRETATION Find the important words (terms) in the book/message and determine the author’s/speaker’s meaning of these terms, with precision. Identify the most important sentences (propositions) in the book/message, the ones that express the judgments on which the whole book/message rests. These are the foundational affirmations and denials of the author/speaker. They must be either premises or conclusions. State them in your own words. Construct the author’s/speaker’s arguments, beginning with any assumptions and/or self-evident propositions. An argument is the author’s/speaker’s line of reasoning aimed at demonstrating the truth or falsehood of his or her claims, that is, the coherent series of reasons, statements, or facts that support or establish a point of view. If the arguments are not explicitly expressed in the book/message, you will need to construct them from sequences of sentences. Determine.
What is a Critical Essay? A critical essay is a critique or review of another work, usually one which is arts related (i.e. book, play, movie, painting). However, the critical essay is more than just a summary of the contents of the other work or your opinion of its value. The critical essay is an objective analysis of the work, examining both its positive and negative aspects. The critical essay is informative and stresses the work rather than your opinion. You need to support any observations or claims you make with evidence. For this reason, in writing a critical essay, you don’t use the first person. Following the general essay format of title, introduction, body, and conclusion is helpful in writing the critical essay. Formatting Your Critical Essay Title: An essay is an examination of a single topic. Because critical essays must back each point with solid evidence, it’s much easier to focus on a single aspect of a work rather than an entire work. Remember this when choosing your essay title. For instance, rather than trying to examine the movie “Star Wars”, examine “The Use of Dialogue in Star Wars”. In a critical essay, even this topic may be too broad. Narrow it further to a topic like how Yoda’s odd dialogue contributes to the movie or how the voice of James Earl Jones adds to the character of Darth Vader. Introduction: The introduction of a critical essay introduces the topic, including the name of the work that you’re analyzing and the author or artist of the work. It also states your position on the work and briefly outlines the questions that led you to develop the arguments you’ll detail in the body of your essay. Tip: Use relevant background or historical information to show the importance of the work and the reason for your evaluation. Body: The body of a critical essay contains information that supports your position on the topic. Develop your.
Steps Learn your paper topic as soon as possible to help plan your research. Find research information from a wide variety of sources including journal articles, books, encyclopedias, and news sources. Gather more information than you expect to actually reference when writing your paper, but don't gather too much this can distract from the main point and you will end up putting it in your essay simply for the reason you researched it. Do not use wikipedia for everything, and do not copy and paste peoples replies; no matter what website you got it from, plagiarism will be found out. Skim through your sources to separate the interesting research from the irrelevant material. Interesting research can be from books, york notes, and published critical essays on your specific topic. otherwise don't research things that aren't relevant ie. researching witches when your question is on monarchy Reread the relevant material thoroughly and critically. Highlight, underline, or otherwise mark any journal articles or books you own. Use different color post-it notes to direct your attention to critical details from library books. Summarize or otherwise annotate each source after you've read it. Note a few important details and the source's main argument for future reference. Brainstorm a thesis by reviewing your notes and research. You may choose to write out a rough thesis statement or you may instead opt to ask a critical question that your paper will answer. Sketch out a rough introduction, recognizing that you may want to edit or rewrite your introduction later. Develop a rough outline based on your research notes. Identify two or three major sections for the body of your paper. These sections should consist of the most important portions of your argument. Use your notes and research to fill in the details of your sections. You may copy and paste critical details or arguments.
Chapter 30. CRITICAL REVIEW Introduction Basics Advanced Samples Activities --- Student Samples Page--- --- Introduction The samples below are papers by students, unless specifically noted.  They are examples of A level undergraduate writing or entry-level professional work.  To get a better idea of how this type of paper is written, you will want to look at all the samples.  Then compare the samples to each other and to what the Basics part of this chapter says.     The authors of all sample student papers in this Web site have given their permission in writing to have their work included in WritingforCollege.org.  All samples remain copyrighted by their original authors.  Other than showing it on this website, none should be used without the explicit permission of the author. Unless otherwise noted, sample papers do not necessarily meet all requirements an individual instructor or professional supervisor may have: ask your instructor or supervisor.  In addition, the samples single spaced to save room; however, a proper manuscript given to an instructor or supervisor normally should be double spaced with margins set at or close to 1 unless another format has been requested. Sample One: Critical Review of One Book Inver Hills College Rough-draft Critical Review Eng 1114-91, Spring 2006 © 2006 by Laura Beres A Critical Review of Man’s Search for Meaning by Laura Beres Introduction In Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor E. Frankl tells the very personal story of his experience as a prisoner in a concentration camp during the Holocaust.He presents this story in the form of an essay in which he shares his arguments and analysis as a doctor and psychologist as well as a former prisoner.This paper will review Frankl’s story as well as his main arguments, and will evaluate the quality of Frankl’s writing and focus on any areas of weakness within the story. Summary This section.
Your review should have two goals: first, to inform the reader about the content of the book, and second, to provide an evaluation that gives your judgement of the book’s quality. Your introduction should include an overview of the book that both incorporates an encapsulated summary and a sense of your general judgment. This is the equivalent to a thesis statement. Do NOT spend more than one-third or so of the paper summarizing the book. The summary should consist of a discussion and highlights of the major arguments, features, trends, concepts, themes, ideas, and characteristics of the book. While you may use direct quotes from the book (make sure you always give the page number), such quotes should never be the bulk of the summary. Much of your grade will depend on how well you describe and explain the material IN YOUR OWN WORDS. You might want to take the major organizing themes of the book and use them to organize your own discussion. This does NOT mean, however, that I want a chapter-by-chapter summary. Your goal is a unified essay. So what do I want, if not just a summary? Throughout your summary, I want you to provide a critique of the book. (Hence the title: “A Critical Book Review.”) A critique consists of thoughts, responses, and reactions. It is not necessarily negative. Nor do you need to know as much about the subject as the author (because you hardly ever will). The skills you need are an ability to follow an argument and test a hypothesis. Regardless of how negative or positive your critique is, you need to be able to justify and support your position. Here are a number of questions that you can address as part of your critique. You need not answer them all, but questions one and two are essential to any book review, so those must be included. And these are ABSOLUTELY NOT to be answered one after another (seriatim). Don’t have one paragraph that.