Question

Instructions SCHOLARLY INQUIRY SUBJECT

you are tasked to write a critic paper.

The critic paper’s topic may be a book or movie that you have recently watched, or even a long-time favorite of yours. However, as you write your critic, you must apply your learning from the second module and try to be aware of your own biases on viewing the material.

The points for critic can vary, but at the least try to look at the various aspects of the book or the film. Both form and content should be considered, but it is up to you on which aspects of form and content you will highlight in your paper (e.g. for a novel, you can highlight the story, the characterization, the writing style, the emerging themes, etc.). You also decide how you will organize your critic points to lead towards your ultimate assessment or review of the material.

The critic paper should be around 1000 words in length (around two pages of short bond paper). Unlike the previous assessments wherein guide questions are provided to assist you in writing, for this assessment you will have to determine the organization and outline of your work.

The critic paper’s structure should include an introduction, a body and conclusion. You may organize your critic points with subheads. Do not forget to include in your introduction proper context for your critic, i.e. provide a summary and background of the material that you have chosen.

Answer 1

Book Critique Format

A book critique should follow a specific structure: it should start with an introduction, further develop its main idea in the body paragraph, and finish with a conclusion. Read on to take a detailed look at each of these sections:

Introduction

As it can be inferred from the name of the section, here you need to introduce your topic and intention of writing. You need to clearly explain why you have chosen a specific topic or why the topic assigned to you is worth attention or is significant for analysis. All in all, it is a must to provide your target readers with such information as the book title and the book author, the year of publication, the genre, some brief background information about the history of writing, and other facts that you consider to be worthy of attention. Sometimes, you are free to mention your personal impression from the reading.

The Main Body

In the main body of the paper, you need to elaborate your idea and provide both summative and analytical information. If you do not know for sure how to organize your body paragraphs, you are free to examine some book critique example. The book should be briefly summarized in the first body paragraph. However, since it is a critique, make sure you do not delve deep in the paper summary. The core part of the text should be devoted to analysis. The summary has an intention to provide a general idea or notion of the piece of literary writing to those people who have not read the book and do not have any idea what it is about. As such, when summarizing the book, make sure to emphasize on the main events of the plot, mention the main characters, and pinpoint to the relation between them. After the summary, make sure to pay enough attention to the critique and evaluation part. Writing this part involves application of your analytical and critical skills in practice. As such, you need to pinpoint to the potential reason why the author wrote the book, how masterfully he did that, what the book intends to convey, whether it bears some historical significance, etc.

Aspects You Should Pay Attention to in the Evaluation Part:

1. Is the plot logical? Is it well-developed? Is it easy to understand what is going on in the book? Is there any confusion? Are there inconsistencies in the way the events are narrated or discussed?
2. Provide your opinion and analytical perspective of the characters. How do they relate? How do they behave? Why do they behave in a specific way? Do they have specific motifs behind their actions? Are they properly described or do you lack some key information about a specific character? Are there both positive and negative characters?
3. Take into consideration the language of the book writing? Why does the author use specific language or concrete literary devices? What impression does the author provide with the way he/ she writes?
4. What is the main motif/ message/ idea of the book? Has the author managed to convey it in a clear and understandable way?
5. Are the ideas presented in the book unique and original? Or have you managed to notice some parallels with the other literary works? If yes, which ones?
6. Does the book bear some social or historical significance? What lesson does it teach?
7. Hare your personal opinion on the book after reading it. Make sure to sound convincing and provide strong arguments.

The Conclusive Paragraph

The conclusion should provide information on whether the book is worth reading and paying attention to. You need to re-emphasize the idea expressed in the thesis statement or just make it clear whether you were right as you conveyed a specific idea in the thesis.