Book Reviews are of great value to the publishing industry and to shoppers. In this regard, book reviews provide a valuable service to the greater book reading communities.  Consumers rely heavily on reviews when considering a purchase. Teachers and professors consult reviews before purchasing a book to read in the consideration process for course assignments. Additionally, professionals publish book reviews as part of their service to their given fields of endeavor.

In the digital market age, there has been a great expansion of book reviews and book reviewers. No doubt, all of you have relied on “other peoples’ opinions” prior to purchasing a book. Several of you have already posted and or published a review of a book. As a college student, you have probably relied on a published review of a book to assist you in the course wherein the book was a part of the assigned reading list.

The primary goal of this assignment, as with all in this course, is to serve as an exercise to enhance your writing skills. Woven into the concept of its design, this exercise affords students the opportunity to explore a book of their choosing.

The Assignment: Compose a 750-word, 3-page book review. Try to keep it close to 750 words, this is where editing skills come into play.

· You can review any book you wish.

· All genres are open, including graphic novel formats and children’s books, etc.

· I recommend choosing a book that you believe you can really put together a great review on.

The paper needs to meet all of the following requirements:

· Why someone would want to read this book: In the review, there needs to be at least three specific reasons that support your suggestion to read this book

· Don't just summarize – tell me why the characters were believable, tell me if the writing/imagery was effective and why, was the storyline believable? (Only discuss the storyline in one body paragraph). Refer back to the Film Review to refresh on analysis versus summary. 

· These reasons, and your suggested target reader, need to be in the Recommendation statement, which must be, somewhere, in the introductory paragraph and clearly restated in the conclusion.

· An example of such a “Recommendation Statement” is: I recommend Birds: An Annotated Guide for readers who are interested in Birds of Prey, Pigeons and Robins, because the level of information shared is magisterial and the illustrations are fantastic. This is a short, cogent sentence that packs in all the points.

· In common with your other essays, the overall structure of the Book Review is a standard, 5-paragraph essay.

· For the introductory paragraph, the “recommendation” statement should be clearly stated.

· Each one of the 3 body paragraphs will discuss one of the 3 reasons given in the recommendation statement. At least 1 example must be given to support each of the 3 reasons.

· Try to balance the size (word count) of each of these paragraphs, as they should all be quite close in size.

· For the conclusion paragraph, the recommendation must be restated. Typically, this is the shortest paragraph.

· No Outside Sources – Just the Book you are reviewing

· No separate title page

· Title of the paper is the title of the book

· Students are required to stay with the 5-paragraph structure

· Papers are graded on the quality of writing and accuracy of formatting (do not stray from the 5-paragraph format).

· Summaries will not be accepted – students must analyze the book, using some summarizing to back-up their arguments.