How to Write an Essay on a Book You Didn't Read: A Simple, Step-By-Step Guide

Writing an A-level essay about book can be a pain on its own. Typically, it takes solid skills, lots of time, and at least a few rounds of reading in order to craft a top-notch paper. But, do things really have to be so hard?

In this article, we will share with you the handiest tips to help you write an essay on book you haven’t read quickly and easily, and, at the same time, ensure the highest grade. Also, if you want to get help with your dissertation, you can visit dissertation help https://dissertation-service.com/dissertation-help service. On this service you can get professional phd dissertation help.

how to write an essay on a book you never read

What Is a Book Review Essay?

In our guide, we will help you learn how to start a book review essay even if you haven’t read the book. But, first, let’s define what a book review essay is.

A book review essay is a short piece of writing that reflects on a particular literary work. Such papers present a whole book review with constructive analysis of the author’s ideas, writing style, techniques, etc.

The main purpose of this task is to check if students have actually read the assigned book, assess how well they understood it, and, also, let them share their own thoughts on it.

How to Write an Essay on a Book?

When pondering over how to write an essay about a book you didn’t read, the first idea that will probably cross your mind is to look for a ready-made essay on the Internet. After all, the chances that someone has already written a good essay on the same topic are pretty high. But, we encourage you not to give in to this temptation so as not to get a low grade.

Instead, use other ready-made essays only as examples for writing your own paper. And follow along with our tips on writing an essay on a book to ensure success!

Take Notes While Reading

So, how to start an essay about a book without reading the whole thing? The first thing to do is to carefully read the requirements for your essay in order to understand what information you need to pay attention to. Then, you will move on to skimming through the book. And the first tip is to always take notes while reading. If you write down the key information and ideas it will significantly simplify the process of essay writing book.

You Must Read Introduction and Conclusion

If you want to succeed in writing essay books without wasting too much time, the main rule you have to remember is that reading the book’s introduction and conclusion is a MUST! You may not read the whole piece, but reading the introduction and conclusion will help you grasp the main idea of the book and understand what the author wants to emphasize in it. This trick will help you gather enough information to reflect on this book in essay.

Quickly Read Chapters of the Whole Book

Reading the first and last chapters (intro and conclusion) is vital, but it’s not always enough to grasp the whole idea. Thus, if you want to learn how to write a book essay well, we advise you to read the first paragraph of each chapter to understand the idea better.

Choose a Couple of Main Points

Since a reading essay is often quite short, no one expects you to examine the whole book from core to core. Thus, when you grasp what the book is about, choose a couple of main points (or more, depending on the length) to focus on in your essay on book.

Make the First Draft

Now, how to introduce a book in an essay? When you get over all the preparatory steps and define your focus points, you can move on to completing your first draft by writing down the most important information and ideas for your essay about the book.

Quotes Are One of the Most Important Points in Your Essay on Book

Direct quotes play a huge role in the process of essay writing books review. Professors love to see them in students’ works, so this is a very responsible step. But, here is a trick - the more quotes you find, the less you will have to write yourself.

To use quotes from the book in essay to your benefit, find chapters that relate to the main points you previously selected and review them to find quotes. After you find quotes that explain or support your point of view, put them in the main paragraphs.

Point Your Sources

When thinking about how to talk about a book in an essay using quotes, the main rule is to always cite your quotes accordingly. It will help the teacher see that you’ve read the book and found all the quotes yourself.

Cite sources as required in the guidelines for your essay about reading book provided by the teacher. And remember that the more sources and pages you add, the more it will look like you’ve carefully read the entire book.

Write an Essay on a Book With Us!

In this article, we’ve gathered all the main tips and tricks for successfully writing an essay on a book. However, sometimes even the handiest tips can’t help you create a compelling review of a book in an essay, especially if you lack the time or the task is too complex.

But don’t get desperate just yet! If you still don’t feel confident in your skills even after reading our guide on how to write an essay on a book you didn't read, we’ve got you covered!

At our essay writing service, students can get professional help with writing an essay on book or any other academic paper. Our writers are experts with years of experience and the authors of the best essay writing books, who know how to impress even the most demanding professors and get you an A+. We are here to help you handle any academic task with ease. So, don’t hesitate and let the pros take care of your grades while you can mind your own business!

You May Also Be Interested In

how to write an essay on a book you never read

Guam is the ultimate destination for beach lovers, nature explorers, divers, adventurers, and backpackers. This little oasis located amidst the immense waters of the Pacific is a perfect...

how to write an essay on a book you never read

While you might not like it, essay writing is a part of your school life. What’s more, essays can affect your GPA if they don’t meet the required standards. As a student, assignments can be overwhelming...

how to write an essay on a book you never read

You have a WordPress blog, and you want to take it to the next level, so you are thinking about hosting. You have heard of people who have managed to increase their sales and improve their...

how to write an essay on a book you never read

  • Buying book reports
  • Never order book report writing services
  • What to avoid while writing a book report
  • Finding a book report writer
  • Who can do my book report for me?
  • Winning book report
  • Top research paper topics for college
  • Book report samples
  • Finding a good report sample online
  • Creating a good report: presentation & style
  • Finding book reports examples
  • Writing a college book report outline
  • Writing a book report in 2 hours
  • 4 ways to write a book report
  • Who Moved My Cheese book report example
  • Outlining main ideas in your book report
  • 3 tips for writing a book report
  • Aeneas character review
  • Formatting your report
  • What format to use for a report?
  • Free online book reports
  • Book report help
  • Tips for writing a book report
  • How to order a book report online
  • Writing a strong book report
  • Creating a strong book report
  • Prompts for specific book genres
  • Where to find inspiration
  • 'Thank You For Smoking' movie review
  • The Great Gatsby book review example
  • Composing a great article review
  • Custom capstone literature review example
  • Capitalism and Slavery book review example
  • The Bell Jar novel review
  • Using book review services
  • Your list of sources
  • Review sample on insurance
  • Reviewing poetry
  • Book review services
  • Book review The Black Jacobins
  • Key points of writing a book review
  • How to choose a book review format?
  • Evaluation in a book review
  • Creating a book review draft
  • 10 tips for an interesting book review
  • Some book reviewing essentials
  • Helpful sources for a book review
  • 'The World Is Flat' book review
  • Montana 1948 review example
  • How to be informative
  • Paragraphs of an article review
  • Essay on Rule of the bone
  • Summarizing a book
  • An article review from a custom service
  • Murder of Julius Caesar review sample
  • Writing original book review
  • Creating a book review outline
  • Composing a book review
  • The Gold Bug review sample
  • Book review writing challenges
  • King Lear book review
  • How to write article reviews
  • Writing a strong article review
  • Journey From The Land book review sample
  • Book review of a favorite story
  • Reviewing a favorite book
  • How to write a book review
  • Finding a free book review sample
  • Using book reviews
  • Article review tutorial
  • How to write a good book review
  • A basic guide for a poetry review
  • Tips on writing a poetry review
  • 12 years a slave book review sample
  • Writing an original book review
  • Writing a good book review
  • The Cask Of Amontillado review sample
  • Petrarchan and Shakespearean sonnets
  • Barn Burning by Faulkner summary sample
  • Using term paper services
  • Homosexuality in society essay sample
  • Fashion icons and mainstream fashion essay sample
  • Post Graduate Thesis Guidlines
  • Stormbreaker summary example
  • Summary on Holes by Louis Sachar
  • Developing effective instrumentation essay example
  • Creating a strong article
  • Summary paper sample
  • An excellent book review
  • The relation between readings and us
  • Powerpoint book presentation
  • An expert for a book report
  • Swift's A Modest Proposal
  • Essay sample on tragic hero
  • Article review writing rules
  • PPT presentation help
  • Shopping essay example

InnerLightTheory.com provides free book report writing help for students and graduates.

4 Ways to Write a Book Report Without Reading the Book

If you have an unwelcome book report and no time to read the book, don't lose your head! Outstandingly, there are at least four dependable ways to create a book report - without ever sitting down to read! Here are the top ways to write book reports without reading - ways that teachers don't want you to know!

  • Use a summary website. There are dozens of websites and resources that offer complete summaries and critiques on major texts. If you're in public school or college, odds are that the book you're writing a report on has been assigned before (the school system hasn't updated its texts in years). Whether through SparkNotes, Wikipedia, book summary sites or other sources, you're bound to find some site - rather easily - that describes the book in depth. These descriptions are far more brief than reading the book itself, and will even let you know key details like the point of view, types of narrative and the author's literary techniques.
  • Stay general, then use a few specific details. Once you've figured out, generally, what the book is about, you can sneakily edge your way around it using general information and terms. After all, your book report isn't about repeating the entire, exact events of the story. You're supposed to summarize the general narrative in order to come to a critical conclusion about the text. Stay general about the book (summary and informative sites can help you do this). Then, when he time is right, find a key detail somewhere in the text and insert it to support your critical analysis. This will make it appear as though you've read the book and remembered salient points, even when you haven't.
  • Use a writing service. This is perhaps the easiest way to get English essay writing help . Luckily, it won't cost you an arm and a leg. Students that don't want to read a book, and don't feel prepared to 'fake' their way through a report, can simply hire a professional to do it for them. Professional writing services have always offered book report writing to desperate students, and with pretty fair prices, it may be your best option.
  • Skim and question. If you're in a large class where the book report was assigned, odds are, your peers are writing similar book reports. Though it may seem dishonest to some, you can actually find success by pooling off of other's work. Question your peers about their book reports ideas. You can even probe them for information regarding the text itself. Once you've gathered a general idea of the book's purpose, events and themes, skim through the text. Just seeing a brief overview of the book, added to what you've learned from friends, will provide an excellent backbone for a report.

InnerLightTheory.com - since 2002. Unauthorized copying is prohibited

Summer School at Yale is now open for ages 13 to 15. Find out more and secure your place now.

Other languages

  • 9 Essay Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

how to write an essay on a book you never read

Writing essays is a mainstay of education from secondary school through to university, and no matter how well you know the subject in question, if you can’t write a good essay, your marks will suffer. Different academic traditions approach essays in different ways, so in this article we’re going to focus on the kind of essay expected in British schools and universities; the kind you’d be taught how to write, for instance, at our Oxford summer school . That kind of essay should put forward an argument, develop it through several different points, and conclude in a way that marries the points together and reinforces your original argument. It sounds straightforward, but as anyone who’s ever had to write an essay knows, it isn’t always so simple. Here are the types of error people make when writing essays, and how you can avoid them.

1. The list

Perhaps the most common type of bad essay is the list. This can be a result of bad essay writing, but bad question-setting also plays a role. Take the classic essay topic of the causes of the First World War . One way of phrasing a question on this could be simply, “What were the causes of the First World War?” It naturally lends itself to a list; you could almost answer in bullet point. To avoid the list, you’d have to distort the question. Another question could explore the same area of knowledge, but encourage a better-structured essay, such as “Was the First World War inevitable?” or “Was imperialism responsible for the First World War?” You’ll know if you’ve fallen into the trap of writing a list if words like “moreover”, “furthermore” and “additionally” are creeping into your essay more than “therefore” and “however”. To avoid just writing a list, first see if the question invites a list, and if so, reframe it in your head in order to construct an argument. In the First World War example, you could say, “It is popularly believed that the chief cause of the First World War was… but the causes of war in fact went much deeper…” – and then you’re arguing, rather than listing, right away. Consider also which items on your list are more important or less important, and how they interact with each other, and make sure that you come to a firm conclusion that picks a stance and doesn’t settle for “there were many causes, all important” or related waffle.

2. The weighing scales

how to write an essay on a book you never read

The “weighing scales” approach to writing an essay is when you have a choice of two options, and you come down firmly on the fence. This is particularly common in essays on a difficult or controversial topic, such as, “Would justice be better served if criminals were given longer prison sentences?” The weighing scales approach would say, “on the one hand, some criminals are treated too leniently… on the other hand, longer prison sentences can increase recidivism… then again, longer sentences may act as more of a deterrent… but they also cost the state a lot of money.” The essay then concludes that there are strong arguments in favour of both sides, and perhaps that more research is needed (even when there has been plenty of research on the topic). In some academic disciplines and some cultures, the “weighing scales” approach to an essay is considered actively desirable. But that’s not the case for British universities. While it’s important to mention both sides (more on that in a moment), an essay should advance an argument. If you conclude that both sides have merit, your argument should at least propose a way of navigating between them. Make sure that by the end of your essay, your reader knows what your opinion is.

3. The polemic

how to write an essay on a book you never read

The direct opposite of the “weighing scales” approach is the polemic. In this kind of essay, your reader is in no doubt at all about what your point of view is; unfortunately, they’ve heard rather too much of it and rather too little of anything else. Continuing on the same example as above, in the polemic, you might argue that prison is wholly negative, based on punishment not rehabilitation, leading to worse outcomes for prisoners than alternatives like community service, and introducing ‘new’ criminals to experienced ones so that they end up learning not how to avoid crime, but how to become better at it. While all those points are reasonable, the issue is that the other side is altogether missing. In a “polemic”-style essay, the writer rejects the other side so much that they won’t even discuss their ideas. That’s not persuasive; you also need to spend time acknowledging and refuting the alternative point of view. You don’t need to accept it, only explain where it comes from, and why it’s mistaken.

4. The literature review

how to write an essay on a book you never read

A literature review is a perfectly valid piece of writing: it’s where you look at everything that’s been written on a particular topic, and compare, contrast and analyse the writers’ stances without interjecting too much of your own views. It’s a standard part of theses and dissertations, allowing you to establish the thoughts of the major authorities in the field so that you can refer to them later in the piece without the need for a lengthy introduction. But if you’re not supposed to be writing a literature review, then your essay shouldn’t resemble one. After all, it’s about assessing your knowledge, ideas and opinions, not everyone else’s. When a subject has been written about extensively, it can feel impossible to produce an original thought on it. You can end up attributing every point you want to make to another writer, because otherwise it can feel like plagiarism. But while every point might have been said before, your route through them and your reasoning will still be original. Make sure your own point of view is established, without relying too heavily on the literature.

5. The plagiarist

how to write an essay on a book you never read

The opposite of the literature review, the “plagiarist” is the essay that passes off a little too much as your own work when it really ought to be credited to someone else. To be clear, we’re not talking about genuine copy-and-paste plagiarism (or the same thing with a couple of words tweaked and examples changed, which is no better) – that’s not a pitfall, that’s grounds for expulsion. This is instead where you’ve maybe read an idea, forgotten which article or book you read it in – or even that it wasn’t your idea in the first place – and put it in an essay without a citation. But even if you didn’t do it deliberately, it’s likely to be frowned on by your teachers. The only way to avoid the “plagiarist” essay is to take more thorough notes when you’re working on an essay. If you read something interesting, even if you don’t think it’s relevant, make a note of where you found it in case you do want to refer back to it. If you’re feeling really lazy, just take a photo of the details on your phone. Then you can make sure you’re not taking credit for ideas that aren’t your own.

6. The long introduction

how to write an essay on a book you never read

This one is reasonably self-explanatory – it’s when it feel like the majority of the essay is introduction or scene-setting, and you never really get to the point. To go back to the earlier example of an essay on the causes of the First World War, a “long introduction” essay would spend paragraphs describing the context, the different countries and personalities involved, not to mention their histories – and then, running out of word count, would cram in a paragraph or two at the end about how all of this resulted in war. A “long introduction” essay can be the result of misjudging the word count (and more on that later) but it can also be the result of knowing a great deal about a topic and not wanting to commit to an argument. Avoid the long introduction by making sure your argument is clear from your introduction onwards. Sometimes students also structure an essay by starting with their weaker points and leading to their best point, as a kind of rhetorical crescendo. This can be effective if done well, but it can also lead to a “long introduction” essay as your reader has to sit through paragraphs of muddle waiting for you to get to your real knock-out idea.

7. The textbook

how to write an essay on a book you never read

Another perfectly valid piece of writing that nonetheless makes for a poor essay is the “textbook” approach. Instead of writing an essay – with points, examples, explanations and an argument running through it all like a stick of rock – you write an explainer on the topic. This is akin to the list, but typically better written and structured. A “textbook” essay is not necessarily a bad piece of work; it’s just not what’s being asked of you when you write an essay. Sometimes, when students are shy about expressing their opinion, a “textbook”-style essay is the end result. They outline all the examples and explanations that they might have included without committing to the points. The end result is an essay where the student’s point of view could perhaps be inferred from the approach taken, but where it isn’t made explicit. If this is you, try to express your opinion more assertively; you might be avoiding saying things like “I believe” (as usually essays shouldn’t contain the first person) but try phrases like “it is clear that” or that such and such an alternative argument “is flawed”.

8. The revision notes

how to write an essay on a book you never read

The “revision notes” essay is not an essay that resembles revision notes; instead, it’s an essay that’s so painfully light on detail that it reads like you used revision notes rather than doing the reading or research that you were supposed to. It skims over dates; it focuses only on the main characters of a novel; where a reader might expect it to cite another theorist, it avoids it with vague statements such as “many people have argued that…”. Assertions go unexplained and unproven. Typically the reason a student writes an essay like this is because they’re out of their depth; they haven’t done the work or understood the topic well enough to go into any more detail. If you’re finding that you’re writing this sort of essay even when you do know your topic, go through and see where more detail could be added. Even something like adding dates for events in brackets can give the sense that you know what you’re talking about. Similarly, try to use examples that aren’t the most obvious or default choice for the point that you’re making. It might feel unnecessary when you know the person marking your essay knows these details already, but you have to prove that you know the details as well.

9. The word count challenge

how to write an essay on a book you never read

This goes in both directions – the essays where you’re restricted to 2,000 words and you feel like you could write a novel on the subject, and the ones where you have to write 2,000 words and you feel like you could barely manage a paragraph. Every student will have developed some tricks for getting round this, such as changing the margins or font size, or adding or removing contractions and adjectives. Of course, your teachers are wise to this. It’s much better to write an essay that’s appropriate for the length set in the first place, which means planning it out carefully. If you have what feels like too few points for the word count, can you go into more detail on those points? And if you have too much to say, can your points be grouped together for more of an overview that skips out the finer detail? Or perhaps your approach is too broad, and you can stick more closely to the question asked to condense what you want to say. This is particularly relevant for exams, where realising that you have more to say than time to say it in can be disastrous; the way to avoid it is practising until you have a better sense for how much content you need for a certain exam duration or word count.

Image credits: writing an essay ; list ; scales ; speaker ; books ; citation ; long book ; textbooks ; post-it note ; miniature book .

how to write an essay on a book you never read

booksandauthor.com

essay tips from professional authors

Comprehensive Guide on How to Write an Essay About a Book

how to write an essay on a book you never read

Essays are very common in middle school, high school, and college. Even after graduating college, you may need to write essays in the business world in the form of reports. However, writing an essay about a book takes a slightly different turn. It usually involves writing a detailed summary of the plot of a book or a simple book review.

This writing process may seem as simple as sitting down at the computer and beginning to type for some. But a lot more planning goes into writing a book essay successfully. If you have never written one before or struggle with talking about a book in an essay, you should read on.

In this article, we’ll provide a comprehensive guide on how to write essays on books and give you some important steps in the essay writing process.

How to start an essay about a book

A book essay involves closely studying a text, interpreting its themes, and exploring why the author makes certain choices. It can be applied to novels, plays, short stories, poems, or any other form of literary writing.

Book essays aren’t merely book summaries. They can be a form of argumentative essay where you need to analyse the text’s perspective, language, and structure. They also explain how an author uses literary terms and elements to create emotional effects and convey ideas.

Before starting a book essay, it’s vital to carefully read the book and develop a thesis statement to keep your essay focused. As you write, you should follow the standard structure of a professional essay. Seeking professional guidance for your college application? Consider enlisting expert assistance to Write You College Essay and increase your chances of admission success.

It should take this structure:

  • An introduction that gives the reader an idea of what your essay will focus on.
  • The main body, which is divided into paragraphs that develop an argument using the text’s ideas.
  • A conclusion that summarises the main ideas you have given with your analysis.

Mentioning a book in an essay

Writing a book essay is not as easy as it may seem, especially when you are not sure how to write a book title in an essay. Some of the questions that most students ask include; Can I use quotation marks? Should I underline the book title? Will I use italics? Does the format depend on the referencing of the paper?

Every question highlighted is essential in learning how to mention a book in an essay. However, it is important to know that different writing styles have varying writing standards.

The style used to write a title of a book in an essay varies based on the formatting style of the paper. There are the APA, MLA, and Chicago writing styles.

Let’s take the example of an APA format.

The rules that apply to an APA format are different from those used in MLA and Chicago writing formats. Here are some of them:

  • Capitalise the first word and every word with more than four letters
  • For two-part hyphenated words, capitalization of both words is necessary
  • Words after dash or colon should also be capitalised
  • Use quotation marks instead of italics for reference material such as dictionaries.
  • Use italics for titles of Books, Films, Videos, journals, magazines, newspapers, and TV shows.

Learning the different book title writing styles for each paper format is very important, especially when writing a college essay about a book.

How to write an essay about a book

Writing a book essay can be tricky, so here are the steps that will guide you:

  • Read the book and locate literary devices

The first step is to read the book and take notes carefully. As you read, pay attention to the main points of the story. For instance, you can take note of things that are intriguing, surprising, or even confusing in writing. These usually form the basis of your analysis.

To begin your analysis, there are many key areas that you can focus on. As you analyse each element of the text, try to think about how they all connect.

  • Generate a thesis

Your thesis in a book essay is the point you want to make about the text. It’s usually the main argument that gives your essay direction and prevents it from being a collection of random observations about a book. If you’re given a prompt for your essay, your thesis must directly relate to the prompt.

  • Write a title and introduction

To start your book essay, you’ll need a good title and an introduction.

The title should indicate what your analysis will focus on. It generally contains the author’s name and the book you’re analysing. Keep it as brief and interesting as you can.

Your essay introduction should provide a brief outlook of where your argument is going. It should contain your thesis statement and an outline of the essay’s structure.

  • Write the body

Each paragraph in the main body should focus on one topic or argument of your book essay. Don’t try to add everything you can think about the text, but only key analysis that fuels your argument.

  • Write your conclusion

The conclusion of your analysis should wrap up the essay and summarise your key points while emphasising their significance to the reader. To achieve this, briefly summarise your key arguments, and locate the conclusion they’ve led you to.

Unlike regular essays, writing a book essay requires adherence to more rules and writing formats. You should always comprehensively read the book you want to write an essay about and follow a given writing style.

IB Writing Service Logo

A Step-By-Step Guide to Writing an Essay on a Book

Topic and assignment prompt, essay structure, why is it important.

How to write an essay on a book

Outlining Essay Structure

Organizing your essay efficiently is important for making sure it’s clear, concise, and to the point. Before you start writing, it’s important to understand the basic structure of an essay. Most essays are composed of an introduction, body, and conclusion.

The introduction serves as an opening paragraph where you should introduce the topic and provide any necessary background information that readers may need in order to understand the essay. A good introduction will explain why a reader should care about your topic and capture the attention of the reader.

The body is the main section of the essay where you will provide evidence, quotes, and any other relevant information to prove your point. It is important to make sure that each body paragraph has only one main point, and all of the evidence presented in the paragraph supports that one point.

The conclusion is the last paragraph of the essay. It should wrap up all of the points you made in the body and leave the reader with a sense of closure. It should also create a takeaway, or something for the reader to remember about what they have just read.

To make sure your essay is organized and has a consistent tone throughout, it is important to outline what each section should include. Outlining your essay structure before beginning eliminates unnecessary stress and makes sure you don’t forget any important points.

Research Phase: The Importance of Researching the Book

Before you dive into writing your essay on a book, you’ll want to make sure that you have done your research. No matter how familiar you are with the subject, it’s important to conduct research to ensure that your essay is accurate and well-informed.

Research can help you form a stronger thesis statement, better support your arguments, and provide evidence for your claims. It can also help you to organize your thoughts, uncover new ideas and angles, gain a deeper understanding of the text, or even find quotes or references that you can use in your essay.

Research should always come first. It helps to lay a strong foundation for the rest of your essay and it can save you from making any embarrassing mistakes. Have a clear understanding of the book’s themes, characters, and plot before you begin. Read reviews and criticisms, and take down notes for later.

Start by reading the book itself. Take your time and pay attention to details. Make notes, highlight any important passages, and consider different interpretations. After you get an overall gist of the book, expand your research outward into scholarly reviews, biographies, and other texts that can provide an objective, informed perspective.

The more research you do, the stronger your essay will be. Be sure to include all of the sources you used in your bibliography section. Research can be a tedious process, but with enough effort and dedication, you’ll be able to craft a well-informed, thoughtful essay on any book.

Pre-Writing Phase: Planning Your Essay

The pre-writing phase is the most important part of writing an essay on a book. Taking the time to plan your essay and organize your thoughts will help structure your argument and make your writing smoother. The pre-writing phase should involve a few key steps.

  • Brainstorm – Before you start writing, spend some time thinking about the book and how it relates to any themes, characters, or symbolism. Jot down your ideas so that you have a better understanding of what you want to focus on.
  • Outline – Write down some notes and make an outline of what you will cover in each paragraph. This will help you stay organized while writing and keep everything on track.
  • Research – Research any facts or quotes you may need to include in your essay. This will help you back up your claims and make your paper stronger.

Taking the time to plan ahead will help ensure your essay on a book is written clearly and effectively. You’ll be able to shape your argument easily and make sure you don’t miss anything important.

Thesis Formation

The thesis statement is a critical part of any essay on a book. It should be clear, concise, and capture the main argument and point of view of the essay. To ensure that your essay’s thesis statement is well-crafted, it is essential to follow a step-by-step guide.

Step One: Brainstorming Ideas

Before writing a thesis statement, you should brainstorm some ideas related to the book’s content. Consider the key elements of the book and think about how they could be connected into an argument or observation. Write down any ideas that pop into your mind, and use them as a basis for forming your thesis statement.

Step Two: Developing the Argument

Once you have a few ideas in mind, it is time to start developing a coherent argument. Try to make a connection between the ideas to create an original argument. Then, think about why this argument is important and what makes it relevant to the text.

Step Three: Writing the Thesis Statement

Now that you have an argument in mind, you are ready to craft your thesis statement. It should be a single sentence that clearly and concisely expresses your main argument. Generally, it should follow the same structure as any other essay’s thesis statement, stating the primary point of view, the evidence supporting it, and any other relevant details.

Step Four: Proofreading

The final step of crafting a great thesis statement is to proofread and edit it. Make sure that the statement is clear, concise, and captures the argument accurately. Additionally, pay attention to grammar and spelling. A minor mistake can weaken the force of the statement significantly.

Creating an effective thesis statement can help get your essay off to a strong start. As long as you follow these steps, you will be able to form a well-developed argument that can help you write a great essay on a book.

Drafting an Organized Paragraph

Editing: benefits and how to approach it effectively.

When writing an essay on a book, editing is a crucial step in the process. It can often be overlooked or skipped, but it shouldn’t be! Editing offers many valuable benefits, and it’s important to understand how to approach it effectively.

One of the biggest benefits of editing is that it gives you the opportunity to look at your essay with fresh eyes. Once you’ve written the paper, it can be nearly impossible to look at it objectively. Editing allows you to look at it critically and make necessary changes.

Editing also helps you to catch grammar mistakes, spelling errors, and typos. A single error can easily ruin an entire essay, so it’s essential to go over the paper and make sure everything is perfect. This can only be done by editing the paper carefully.

Finally, editing can help you to make sure that the essay is coherent and well-written. After writing the paper , you might realize that the introduction and conclusion don’t match up, or that two paragraphs contradict each other. Editing will help you to identify such issues and make the necessary adjustments.

Now that we’ve discussed the benefits of editing, let’s look at how to approach it effectively. The first step is to read the entire essay through once without making any changes. This should give you a good overview of the paper and allow you to spot any major issues. The next step is to go through the paper again and make notes as you go along.

You should pay particular attention to grammar, spelling, typos, and structure. Make a note of anything that stands out and needs to be changed. Don’t worry if you can’t fix it right away – just write it down and come back to it later. The goal is to get an overall picture of what needs to be done.

Finally, it’s time to make the actual changes. Take your time and read each sentence carefully before you make any changes. Don’t be afraid to delete or add content between paragraphs to ensure that the essay flows naturally.

In summary, editing is an essential step in the essay-writing process. It offers many benefits, including the ability to look at the essay objectively, catch grammar mistakes and typos, and ensure that the essay is coherent and well-written. When approaching the editing phase, it’s important to read the paper through once without making any changes, make notes as you go, and take your time when making the actual changes.

Formatting – Adhering to Academic Standards

Formatting your essay correctly is a critical step in the writing process. It shows that you have taken care to put together an essay that follows the academic standards.

Here are a few tips for formatting your essay according to academic standards:

  • Make sure the margins of your essay are set to one inch on all sides.
  • Your font should be size 12 Times New Roman or Arial.
  • Use double spacing between lines, and make sure there is no extra space before or after each paragraph.
  • When quoting direct text, indenting it five spaces will make it easier to read.
  • Include a header at the top of your document that includes the title of the essay, your name, and the page number.

Formatted correctly, your essay will present itself as concise, organized, and professional. This is a must when following academic standards.

If you want to ensure that your essay looks even better, check with your professor for specific formatting requirements for your assignment.

By taking the time to properly format your essay, you are showing that you understand the importance of adhering to academic standards. This will help you get the best grades possible!

Understanding the Assignment

Writing an essay on a book can be quite a challenge for many students. One of the most important skills for tackling this task is to understand the assignment. To begin, students should read carefully and take notes on the writing prompt. Pay close attention to all the instructions as they are key to crafting an effective essay. This includes being mindful of any keywords or phrases in the prompt that will require further research.

When interpreting the instructions, it is also important to consider any extra guidelines or expectations the professor may have provided. These can include formatting, length, and specific areas of emphasis such as themes or characters. Questions such as ‘Who is the protagonist?’ or ‘How do the themes interact?’ should be actively considered while writing the essay. This helps produce a focused piece of work that is tailored to meet the requirements.

In addition, consider questions such as ‘What do I need to include?’ or ‘What is the purpose of this essay?’. Answering these questions allows students to identify their main points and develop an argument around them. This is a crucial step for forming an essay that is logical and cohesive.

Finally, students should always use the essay assignment to test their understanding of the book. It is often beneficial to leave time at the end of the writing process to review knowledge and reflect on any unanswered questions. Doing so ensures that the essay is comprehensive and addresses all aspects of the prompt.

Understanding the assignment is a vital step when writing an essay on a book. By paying attention to the prompt and any additional guidelines, students can ensure that their assignment is focused, detailed, and suitable for the task.

Effective Use of Quotes

Make sure your quote is relevant to the main argument of your essay.

Choose a quote that is engaging and thought-provoking.

Include the right amount of detail – don’t use too much or too little.

Explain the quote in your own words and provide context.

Think critically about the quote and how it applies to your argument.

Integrate the quote into your essay so that it flows naturally.

Tools for Writing an Essay on a Book

When writing an essay on a book there are certain tools that can help make the process easier. Knowing some of these basic terms and tools can help you write a better essay and make it much more enjoyable.

Creating an outline is one of the most important steps in writing an essay. It provides structure to your essay, ensuring that each point is made in the correct order and that the essay flows logically. Outlining also helps you stay organized and remember what needs to be included in the essay.

Doing research is important when writing an essay about a book. Read through the text and make notes about any interesting or pertinent information you find. Also, look for additional sources that can provide further insight into the book or the topics it raises.

Grammar and Spelling Checkers

Grammar and spelling checkers can be extremely useful when writing your essay. They can help you identify mistakes or typos that you may have missed. Double-check your work before you submit it to make sure it is as accurate and error-free as possible.

Writing Resources

Finally, there are many great writing resources available online that can provide further advice and guidance on how to write an effective essay. Look through examples of essays written by other students and learn from their techniques and approaches.

Knowing some of these basic terms and tools can help you get off to a strong start when writing an essay on a book. Do your research, create an outline, and use grammar and spelling checkers to make sure your work is as perfect as possible. Finally, don’t forget to look for other writing resources that can provide insight and advice.

Writing an essay on a book can be a daunting task, especially when attempting it for the first time. This guide aims to make the process of writing an essay on a book simple and easy-to-follow. By following the steps outlined in this article, you can make the process of writing your essay much easier.

A good conclusion should summarize the main points of the article, explain how to approach writing the final version, and reiterate why the content was important. To conclude your essay, start by summarizing the arguments and ideas that you presented throughout your paper. Then, move on to discussing why you chose to write the essay and the importance of studying the book. Finally, provide a brief statement that sums up the main points of the essay.

When writing the final version of your essay, there are some key points to keep in mind. First, proofread your work for any typos or errors. Make sure to properly cite any quotes or references that you used in your essay. Finally, consider having a peer review your essay to get another perspective and catch any mistakes that you might have missed.

Writing an essay on a book can be a rewarding experience when done correctly. The most important part of the process is to fully understand the material and the prompt. By following the steps outlined in this article and taking the time to research and plan, you can write an effective essay on a book.

Nick Radlinsky

Nick Radlinsky

Nick Radlinsky is a devoted educator, marketing specialist, and management expert with more than 15 years of experience in the education sector. After obtaining his business degree in 2016, Nick embarked on a quest to achieve his PhD, driven by his commitment to enhancing education for students worldwide. His vast experience, starting in 2008, has established him as a reputable authority in the field.

Nick's article, featured in Routledge's " Entrepreneurship in Central and Eastern Europe: Development through Internationalization ," highlights his sharp insights and unwavering dedication to advancing the educational landscape. Inspired by his personal motto, "Make education better," Nick's mission is to streamline students' lives and foster efficient learning. His inventive ideas and leadership have contributed to the transformation of numerous educational experiences, distinguishing him as a true innovator in his field.

You Might Be Interested

  • Psychology Internal Assessment Topics
  • Business IA topics. Guide with examples
  • How to Choose Math IA Topic
  • IB Biology IA Topics That Don’t Require Experiment
  • Biology IA topics
  • A Guide to Choosing and Creating Compelling Math IA SL Topics
  • How to write physics IA. Comprehensive Guide
  • How to write Biology Internal Assessment. Comprehensive Guide
  • Economics IA topic ideas
  • Math SL Internal Assessment Ideas
  • Geography IA ideas
  • IB Internal Assessment Rubric: Grading Criteria and How to Excel
  • How to write an IB Internal Assessment

Looking for more help with your Internal Assessment? Check out our IB IA Writing Service or buy Internal Assessment .

Mathematics: Analysis and Approaches IA Topics

Writing the Internal Assessment (IA) for IB Mathematics: Analysis and Approaches is a crucial step for any IB student, combining challenge and opportunity in equal measure. This article highlights the diverse and intriguing IA topics available to Standard Level (SL) and Higher Level (HL) students, helping them to use their mathematical skills in creative and meaningful ways.

Sports, Exercise and Health Science IA Topics

Writing your Internal Assessment in IB Sports, Exercise and Health Science marks an important stage in your education. This in-depth course offers a range of fascinating topics for your research, each of which provides an opportunity to combine scientific study with your enthusiasm for sport and health. A carefully chosen IA topic can make or break a student’s engagement and understanding of this broad subject.

Design Technology IA Topics: SL and HL Topic Ideas

This article provides a wide array of Design Technology IA Topics, offering both Standard Level and Higher Level students a range of creative and innovative ideas to choose from. From sustainable innovations to advanced technological applications, these topics are selected to challenge and enhance your design and technical skills.

World Religions IA Topics: SL and HL Ideas

In this detailed guide, we offer a wide array of World Religions IA Topics, carefully selected for both SL and HL IB students. Covering a range of themes from the intricate theological comparisons to the impact of religion in modern cultures, these topics are crafted to engage and provoke thought. Ideal for students aiming to create meaningful and insightful Internal Assessments.

Philosophy IA Topics and Research Tips

In this article, we introduce a range of engaging Philosophy IA topics, ideal for IB students seeking inspiration for their assessments. Accompanying these topic ideas are practical research tips, aimed at enhancing students’ approach to their philosophical inquiries.

May 2024 TOK Essay Titles Guide. Short Descriptions & Writing Tips

Get a head start on the May 2024 TOK essay titles with our detailed guide. This article offers succinct descriptions and targeted tips for writing each essay. It’s designed to assist IB students in understanding complex topics and developing persuasive essays. Learn how to approach these titles with confidence and articulate your thoughts effectively, enhancing your TOK essay writing skills.

how to write an essay on a book you never read

© 2023  I Bstudenthelp.com. This website is owned and operated by Udeepi OU Harju maakond, Tallinn, Lasnamäe linnaosa, Sepapaja tn 6, 15551. Disclaimer : Services we provide are only to assist the buyer like a guideline to complete any kind of writing assignment. Privacy Policy Terms and Conditions Cookie Policy Revision Policy Refund Policy

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, generate accurate citations for free.

  • Knowledge Base

The Beginner's Guide to Writing an Essay | Steps & Examples

An academic essay is a focused piece of writing that develops an idea or argument using evidence, analysis, and interpretation.

There are many types of essays you might write as a student. The content and length of an essay depends on your level, subject of study, and course requirements. However, most essays at university level are argumentative — they aim to persuade the reader of a particular position or perspective on a topic.

The essay writing process consists of three main stages:

  • Preparation: Decide on your topic, do your research, and create an essay outline.
  • Writing : Set out your argument in the introduction, develop it with evidence in the main body, and wrap it up with a conclusion.
  • Revision:  Check your essay on the content, organization, grammar, spelling, and formatting of your essay.

Instantly correct all language mistakes in your text

Upload your document to correct all your mistakes in minutes

upload-your-document-ai-proofreader

Table of contents

Essay writing process, preparation for writing an essay, writing the introduction, writing the main body, writing the conclusion, essay checklist, lecture slides, frequently asked questions about writing an essay.

The writing process of preparation, writing, and revisions applies to every essay or paper, but the time and effort spent on each stage depends on the type of essay .

For example, if you’ve been assigned a five-paragraph expository essay for a high school class, you’ll probably spend the most time on the writing stage; for a college-level argumentative essay , on the other hand, you’ll need to spend more time researching your topic and developing an original argument before you start writing.

Here's why students love Scribbr's proofreading services

Discover proofreading & editing

Before you start writing, you should make sure you have a clear idea of what you want to say and how you’re going to say it. There are a few key steps you can follow to make sure you’re prepared:

  • Understand your assignment: What is the goal of this essay? What is the length and deadline of the assignment? Is there anything you need to clarify with your teacher or professor?
  • Define a topic: If you’re allowed to choose your own topic , try to pick something that you already know a bit about and that will hold your interest.
  • Do your research: Read  primary and secondary sources and take notes to help you work out your position and angle on the topic. You’ll use these as evidence for your points.
  • Come up with a thesis:  The thesis is the central point or argument that you want to make. A clear thesis is essential for a focused essay—you should keep referring back to it as you write.
  • Create an outline: Map out the rough structure of your essay in an outline . This makes it easier to start writing and keeps you on track as you go.

Once you’ve got a clear idea of what you want to discuss, in what order, and what evidence you’ll use, you’re ready to start writing.

The introduction sets the tone for your essay. It should grab the reader’s interest and inform them of what to expect. The introduction generally comprises 10–20% of the text.

1. Hook your reader

The first sentence of the introduction should pique your reader’s interest and curiosity. This sentence is sometimes called the hook. It might be an intriguing question, a surprising fact, or a bold statement emphasizing the relevance of the topic.

Let’s say we’re writing an essay about the development of Braille (the raised-dot reading and writing system used by visually impaired people). Our hook can make a strong statement about the topic:

The invention of Braille was a major turning point in the history of disability.

2. Provide background on your topic

Next, it’s important to give context that will help your reader understand your argument. This might involve providing background information, giving an overview of important academic work or debates on the topic, and explaining difficult terms. Don’t provide too much detail in the introduction—you can elaborate in the body of your essay.

3. Present the thesis statement

Next, you should formulate your thesis statement— the central argument you’re going to make. The thesis statement provides focus and signals your position on the topic. It is usually one or two sentences long. The thesis statement for our essay on Braille could look like this:

As the first writing system designed for blind people’s needs, Braille was a groundbreaking new accessibility tool. It not only provided practical benefits, but also helped change the cultural status of blindness.

4. Map the structure

In longer essays, you can end the introduction by briefly describing what will be covered in each part of the essay. This guides the reader through your structure and gives a preview of how your argument will develop.

The invention of Braille marked a major turning point in the history of disability. The writing system of raised dots used by blind and visually impaired people was developed by Louis Braille in nineteenth-century France. In a society that did not value disabled people in general, blindness was particularly stigmatized, and lack of access to reading and writing was a significant barrier to social participation. The idea of tactile reading was not entirely new, but existing methods based on sighted systems were difficult to learn and use. As the first writing system designed for blind people’s needs, Braille was a groundbreaking new accessibility tool. It not only provided practical benefits, but also helped change the cultural status of blindness. This essay begins by discussing the situation of blind people in nineteenth-century Europe. It then describes the invention of Braille and the gradual process of its acceptance within blind education. Subsequently, it explores the wide-ranging effects of this invention on blind people’s social and cultural lives.

Write your essay introduction

The body of your essay is where you make arguments supporting your thesis, provide evidence, and develop your ideas. Its purpose is to present, interpret, and analyze the information and sources you have gathered to support your argument.

Length of the body text

The length of the body depends on the type of essay. On average, the body comprises 60–80% of your essay. For a high school essay, this could be just three paragraphs, but for a graduate school essay of 6,000 words, the body could take up 8–10 pages.

Paragraph structure

To give your essay a clear structure , it is important to organize it into paragraphs . Each paragraph should be centered around one main point or idea.

That idea is introduced in a  topic sentence . The topic sentence should generally lead on from the previous paragraph and introduce the point to be made in this paragraph. Transition words can be used to create clear connections between sentences.

After the topic sentence, present evidence such as data, examples, or quotes from relevant sources. Be sure to interpret and explain the evidence, and show how it helps develop your overall argument.

Lack of access to reading and writing put blind people at a serious disadvantage in nineteenth-century society. Text was one of the primary methods through which people engaged with culture, communicated with others, and accessed information; without a well-developed reading system that did not rely on sight, blind people were excluded from social participation (Weygand, 2009). While disabled people in general suffered from discrimination, blindness was widely viewed as the worst disability, and it was commonly believed that blind people were incapable of pursuing a profession or improving themselves through culture (Weygand, 2009). This demonstrates the importance of reading and writing to social status at the time: without access to text, it was considered impossible to fully participate in society. Blind people were excluded from the sighted world, but also entirely dependent on sighted people for information and education.

See the full essay example

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

The conclusion is the final paragraph of an essay. It should generally take up no more than 10–15% of the text . A strong essay conclusion :

  • Returns to your thesis
  • Ties together your main points
  • Shows why your argument matters

A great conclusion should finish with a memorable or impactful sentence that leaves the reader with a strong final impression.

What not to include in a conclusion

To make your essay’s conclusion as strong as possible, there are a few things you should avoid. The most common mistakes are:

  • Including new arguments or evidence
  • Undermining your arguments (e.g. “This is just one approach of many”)
  • Using concluding phrases like “To sum up…” or “In conclusion…”

Braille paved the way for dramatic cultural changes in the way blind people were treated and the opportunities available to them. Louis Braille’s innovation was to reimagine existing reading systems from a blind perspective, and the success of this invention required sighted teachers to adapt to their students’ reality instead of the other way around. In this sense, Braille helped drive broader social changes in the status of blindness. New accessibility tools provide practical advantages to those who need them, but they can also change the perspectives and attitudes of those who do not.

Write your essay conclusion

Checklist: Essay

My essay follows the requirements of the assignment (topic and length ).

My introduction sparks the reader’s interest and provides any necessary background information on the topic.

My introduction contains a thesis statement that states the focus and position of the essay.

I use paragraphs to structure the essay.

I use topic sentences to introduce each paragraph.

Each paragraph has a single focus and a clear connection to the thesis statement.

I make clear transitions between paragraphs and ideas.

My conclusion doesn’t just repeat my points, but draws connections between arguments.

I don’t introduce new arguments or evidence in the conclusion.

I have given an in-text citation for every quote or piece of information I got from another source.

I have included a reference page at the end of my essay, listing full details of all my sources.

My citations and references are correctly formatted according to the required citation style .

My essay has an interesting and informative title.

I have followed all formatting guidelines (e.g. font, page numbers, line spacing).

Your essay meets all the most important requirements. Our editors can give it a final check to help you submit with confidence.

Open Google Slides Download PowerPoint

An essay is a focused piece of writing that explains, argues, describes, or narrates.

In high school, you may have to write many different types of essays to develop your writing skills.

Academic essays at college level are usually argumentative : you develop a clear thesis about your topic and make a case for your position using evidence, analysis and interpretation.

The structure of an essay is divided into an introduction that presents your topic and thesis statement , a body containing your in-depth analysis and arguments, and a conclusion wrapping up your ideas.

The structure of the body is flexible, but you should always spend some time thinking about how you can organize your essay to best serve your ideas.

Your essay introduction should include three main things, in this order:

  • An opening hook to catch the reader’s attention.
  • Relevant background information that the reader needs to know.
  • A thesis statement that presents your main point or argument.

The length of each part depends on the length and complexity of your essay .

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.

The thesis statement is essential in any academic essay or research paper for two main reasons:

  • It gives your writing direction and focus.
  • It gives the reader a concise summary of your main point.

Without a clear thesis statement, an essay can end up rambling and unfocused, leaving your reader unsure of exactly what you want to say.

A topic sentence is a sentence that expresses the main point of a paragraph . Everything else in the paragraph should relate to the topic sentence.

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

The exact format of your citations depends on which citation style you are instructed to use. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

Is this article helpful?

Other students also liked.

  • How long is an essay? Guidelines for different types of essay
  • How to write an essay introduction | 4 steps & examples
  • How to conclude an essay | Interactive example

More interesting articles

  • Checklist for academic essays | Is your essay ready to submit?
  • Comparing and contrasting in an essay | Tips & examples
  • Example of a great essay | Explanations, tips & tricks
  • Generate topic ideas for an essay or paper | Tips & techniques
  • How to revise an essay in 3 simple steps
  • How to structure an essay: Templates and tips
  • How to write a descriptive essay | Example & tips
  • How to write a literary analysis essay | A step-by-step guide
  • How to write a narrative essay | Example & tips
  • How to write a rhetorical analysis | Key concepts & examples
  • How to Write a Thesis Statement | 4 Steps & Examples
  • How to write an argumentative essay | Examples & tips
  • How to write an essay outline | Guidelines & examples
  • How to write an expository essay
  • How to write the body of an essay | Drafting & redrafting
  • Kinds of argumentative academic essays and their purposes
  • Organizational tips for academic essays
  • The four main types of essay | Quick guide with examples
  • Transition sentences | Tips & examples for clear writing

What is your plagiarism score?

  • February 23 Gallery: CSU Right Horse Program
  • February 22 Embracing intersectionality: B/AACC Real Talk discussion covers race, gender
  • February 22 CSU track and field hopes to make history at MW championships
  • February 22 Preview: Swim and dive heads to Mountain West championship
  • February 22 Indigenous artist Joe Pekara shares his journey
  • February 22 CSU celebrates 68th annual World Unity Fair
  • February 22 Spanking, corporal punishment found to be ineffective, damaging
  • February 22 Gallery: World Unity Fair
  • February 21 Breaking: FoCo resident arrested in connection to indecent exposure investigation
  • February 21 This week in ASCSU: Accessibility report, off-campus housing

The Student News Site of Colorado State University

The Rocky Mountain Collegian

The Student News Site of Colorado State University

In today's era of information technology, engineering plays the role of a vanguard, trying to optimize processes and develop new products, making...

  • Arts and Entertainment
  • Entertainment

5 tips on how to write an essay without reading the whole book.

The last thing on a college kid’s list of priorities is thoroughly reading the book their professor assigned. 

a stack of books on a table

Unfortunately, there’s no getting around those pesky assignments that require a deep analysis of the text your teacher expects you to read.  As one who has written many high-grade essays without reading every page, here are five tips on how to examine a text, pull out the evidence and write your essay so well, it fools the professor. 

READ THE INTRODUCTION AND CONCLUSION FIRST

What any good essayist needs to keep in mind is the argument of the author.  Their argument is why the book is so long.  When you sit down to begin writing, read the introduction and conclusion first.  These two sections of the book are where the author states what they are trying to prove and a review of all their main points that back up their claims. Once you determine what they are trying to communicate, you’re ready for step two. 

PICK THREE MAIN POINTS

After figuring out what is being argued, structure your essay with three main points you discovered in the introduction and conclusion.  Since you found them in those sections, that means that they’re in the meat of the book somewhere.  Make this step easy on yourself.  Picking three broad topics is good because then you most likely will find more things in the book you can manipulate to prove what you’re trying to say. 

SEARCH FOR EVIDENCE

This is the most crucial step. Professors like to see direct quotes out of the book and the more quotes you find, the less writing you’ll have to do because they speak for themselves. I find it helpful to go to the table of contents and read the titles of the chapters because there is usually a general theme per chapter.  Find a chapter that might have to do with one of your three topics and scan that section.  Anything that jumps out to you, like a specific word or the discussion of an idea, highlight that sentence and mark the page so you can come back to it. 

Don’t just look for one main point at a time.  Keep your eyes peeled for other quotes in the book that can work for your other sections too.

PULL YOUR QUOTES

Once you’ve found quotes that can explain your points, take the most meaningful and the most obvious ones from your highlighted sections and place them in your body paragraphs.  If you find a quote that is slightly ambiguous and you’re not sure if it will suffice, make it work.  It’s easy to manipulate evidence to make it sound like it relates to what you’re talking about.  To do this, paste the quote into your document and then write a sentence explaining how this excerpt connects to your point. Make the reader believe that what you pulled from the text is evidence even though it might sound broad

CITE YOUR SOURCES

In order to make the professor see what you’ve read and where you found it, always cite it.  For most essays, all you need to do it put the page number in parentheses at the end of the sentence with the quote. The more citations and page numbers that appear in the essay, the more the teacher will think you “read” the book.  A citation is irrefutable proof that you found that information on that specific page. 

If you have any problems, tell that professor to crack open the book and find it themselves. 

Collegian reporter Evan Vicchy can be reached at [email protected] or Twitter at evanNOTkevin7.

Joseph Sagonige Yanasi Perkaras good friend speaks out about the missing and murdered Indigenous People Crisis that is and has been occurring for many years Feb 15.

Hey, thanks for visiting Collegian.com! We’d like to ask you to please disable your ad blocker when looking at our site — advertising revenue directly supports our student journalists and allows us to bring you more content like this.

Refresh

Comments (1)

Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

tay • Dec 15, 2021 at 1:15 pm

Great tips, appreciate ya

how to write an essay on a book you never read

  • Writing an essay on a book

Dec 4, 2019 | Writing , Essay Writing , Writing guide

how to write an essay on a book you never read

It is common knowledge that not every student likes writing. There is a lot that is involved in this task such that the student feels too overwhelmed at times. These students have no other choice but to tow the line and write assignments that will help them to get good grades. One such assignment involves writing an essay about a book. The idea is to give the audience a good opinion of the work such that they can decide to reads it or not. Even though literature is not among the most favorite subjects even in high school, the student is still expected to bring his A-game.

If the assignment requires you to write an essay on book, be ready to go through everything necessary for its success. Think of all the aspects that make the book interesting or not. Follow the author has discussed the various aspects in that piece of literature. It is your prerogative to know how to write an essay on a book, whether you like it or not.

Writing essays on books is a common assignment that you will have to face. As such, you are supposed to take a stand on a given work. You have to analyze it in the bigger context as well as analyze the themes therein. You also have to pay attention to the literary merit of the author. This means you have to read the book severally to understand everything about it. You have to capture what the authority intended to be the primary message of the work. Remember, after reading, it is the only time you can take up a stance on the work. This will help you to formulate an excellent thesis statement to make your writing more focused. This is one of the best techniques you can apply when you want to know how to write an essay for a book.

What you gain from this essay

One of the important things that you can gain from writing essays on a book is that you enhance your understanding of the work. It is also a chance for you to work hard for those good grades that you want. This is an assignment you need to take seriously, as it not only leaves with good grades but also with excellent skills of analyzing a given piece of literature in a better way that you would have before. Henceforth, you will be writing better assignments, whether or not you are reviewing a book or not.

what you gain from essay on a book

Quick pointers to write a better essay on a book

Before proceeding further, you can take these quick tips that can help you in the first instances. They include the following.

Select a book

If you have not been issued with a book, you can select one and decide to write an essay on it. This should be a book that is interesting to you and by extension, to the audience. However, remember that the audience may or may not have read the book. As such, you should be careful about the details that you divulge here.

Determine the goal for the length

This essay is likely to have a predetermined number of words. As such, you should read the book bearing in mind that you have a limitation on the number of words you can write. As such, be ready with a good strategy that will enable you to write a very competent essay about a book.

Decide the format and the style

If you are lucky enough to choose the format for yourself, choose something that you are familiar with. This will make your work easy because you will have control over everything. On the other hand, if you have been given a format to follow, ensure that you familiarize yourself with it before you even start writing the essays on book.

Need help in writing an essay? Essaymin has expert writers to help you

Read the assigned book.

The best way to capture the essence of a book as you seek to know how to write an essay on a book is to read the work. You cannot capture the message of the book with the first reading; hove well you are at it. You have to read the work severally, identifying different aspects that make the work stand out or fail in one way or the other. Reading is important, and you should invest time in it. This is the only way you get to write an excellent piece of essay on a book.

reading the assigned book

Formulate an excellent thesis statement

Remember that this is an academic assignment. As such, you have to follow all the rules. One of the best ways you will make your essays on book focused is to formulate a very strong thesis statement. This thesis statement is based on the content of the book. It is your stance on the work that you are going to defend through the points you discuss. Your thesis statement ought to be a single sentence or two at most. Use it to pitch your idea to the audience and use as much evidence as possible. The best way to defend your thesis statement is to choose memorable direct quotes from the book to back up your stance on the work.

Your thesis must be insightful enough and must have a very clear counter-argument. For instance, if in the book you believe that the protagonist left his lover because of the tragic upbringing and not because of infidelity and are sure that this argument can sustain your essay, you should sate your stance about hat idea. In most cases, thesis statements are written as the last sentences of the introduction paragraph.

With your thesis statement intact, you already have your thoughts organized. You also have a very good approach that you are going to apply when writing essays on a book.

Formulate a good introduction

This is where you start throwing a spanner into the works. One of the best tricks to know how to write an essay for a book is to grab the attention of the audience from the start; your opening sentence should be striking enough to have the audience drooling for more. This is where you give the background of the book as we as its author. Close your introduction with your thesis statement. This will serve as a reminder to the audience of what the work is all about. It is also a transitional way of introducing the audience to the first topic sentence you are going to talk about in the first paragraph of the body.

The body paragraphs

To write excellent body paragraphs for your essays on a book, you have to present all your arguments. These arguments can never be discussed in a single paragraph. You should divide them into points; then make them topic sentences, each of which takes a single paragraph. The work is to ensure that the topic sentence that you formulate relates to your thesis statement. Remember that everything you are writing here must relate to the book that you are analyzing. The evidence that you use per paragraph must come from the book. This can be direct quotes or paraphrases that are duly cited.

The relevance of the points you make relies on how they connect to the central argument. As such, one of the ways to know how to write an essay on a book It ensures that he pieces of evidence and information you use are strong enough to prove your claims about the book, since you are trying to tell the audience if the book is worth it or not, you should be very convincing enough. Analyze, interpret, and present specific themes within the book. It can be themes, character motivations, rising actions, and all other elements of the book that you think will adequately support the central theme of your essay.

This should happen for every paragraph you write. If you have three body paragraphs, ensure they have distinct evidence from the book as support, and by far, they should help you prove what you want the audience to know. Remember that you are trying to give an honest opinion that is based on facts, albeit from your point of view. As such, work hard to defend it.

the body paragraphs

Using transitions in our work

Another tip of knowing how to write an essay on a book is that you have to use transition. This enhances the flow of your ideas. The audience can follow how you organize your thoughts easily. This not only adds to the readability of your paper but also positions you to get a good grade in the end. The smooth transition from claim to claim makes it easier for the audience to piece all your positions together. They will see the value of your argument. The idea o using transitions is no only used when writing essays on a book, but also in other academic writing tasks. Transitions make your essay more cohesive, thereby achieving its goal easily.

Write your conclusion

This is the last chance you have of making a lasting impression on your audience. It is a time tom wrap the work and ensures that the audience is left with something to think about. The conclusion of your essays on a book allows you to restate your thesis statement. When doing so, you are not necessarily writing it verbatim as it is I the introduction. Some other words that do not negate its meaning in the first place. More so, you can also summarize the points that you have discussed in the body of your essays on book. Emphasize more on the significance of the work. Let the audience know if you are going to recommend it for them. However, the concludes is no to place where you can introduce new evidence or facts or anything else that you ave not discussed on the body of your paper. That would be too much and rightly so because it would go through the readers into confusion.

Revise and edit your work

For you to ensure you have covered everything well in that paper, revise everything. You can go through it to ensure you have covered everything you wanted in it. The idea is to ensure that the paper represents your points well. It is also a way to check whether you have covered all the aspects outlined by your instructor. Rest assured that you would have achieved a very crucial goal of writing a review about a literary work.

As you proofread, look at the grammatical mistakes, punctuation’s as well as the spelling of words, the idea is to ensure that you present a paper that is free of mistakes. Once you are satisfied with your revision and proofreading , you can prepare the final copy of your wok.

Those are the simple points you need to know on how to write an essay for a book. If there are problems with the assignment, you can always trust our online writing services . We shall help you with his assignment and many more. Trust our services and enjoy good grades henceforth.

revise and edit your work

Recent Posts

  • Case studies: everything you need to know
  • Tips to help you make your essay longer
  • Writing sociology essays: Sociology essay tips and topics to consider
  • The best way to formulate an interesting research paper introduction

Recent Comments

  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • Abstract Writing
  • Annotated Bibliography
  • application essay
  • Argumentative Essays
  • Article Writing
  • assignment writing
  • book review
  • business plan
  • business proposal
  • chicago style format
  • Citing A Research Paper
  • Classification Essay
  • communication skills
  • coursework writing
  • critical thinking paper
  • Descriptive Essay
  • Descriptive Essay Topics
  • Dissertation Proposal Writing
  • Dissertation writing
  • Essay Editing
  • Essay on leadership
  • Essay Writing
  • essay writing skills
  • exam preparation
  • Homework writing
  • Journal Writing
  • literature review
  • movie review
  • Online Writing
  • Online Writing Services
  • paper writing
  • persuasive writing
  • philosophy paper
  • poem writing
  • Presentation writing
  • psychology paper
  • Report Writing
  • research design
  • research methods
  • research paper
  • review writing
  • Scholarship essay
  • sociology essay
  • speech writing
  • thematic essays
  • thesis paper
  • Thesis paper writing
  • thesis writing
  • thesis writing services
  • Uncategorized
  • Writing guide

Getessaynow

If You Haven`t Read a Book, You Still Can Write About It

Too Many Books

Oscar Wilde was sure that there was no point to read a book he was supposed to write a review of. That`s a great idea actually! The prominent author claimed that he got under the influence of books way too easily so he wanted to stay unbiased. However, your reason for writing an essay on a book that you`ve never even opened can be different. You`re just too lazy or busy.All those computer games won`t play themselves, obviously.

Oscar Wilde is famous for another quotation that I wish you would take rather seriously. He said that if one couldn’t enjoy reading a book over and over again, there was no use in reading them at all. So, if you`ve got an assignment in a form of an essay, perhaps, you`d like to consider reading that book actually. There is literature that every intelligent and educated person should be familiar with.

But if you`ve been procrastinating for way too long time and now you have to write a review at a really short notice, then it`s great that you decided to stop by and read this article. We are willing to provide you with the professional help.

You can, of course, attempt to write a book review without actually reading the book and this article will provide you with tips on how to pull it off. However, what’s the point in trying to make up things and waste your time, if you can just resort to professional writing help on Getessaynow . No reason to spoil an interesting read just because some teacher gave you a book review assignment. Take a minute to place an order on our website and go do something productive.

If you are determined to write a review on your own, “How to Talk About Books You Haven`t Read” is a guide by a French author, professor of literature, and psychoanalyst Pierre Bayard, which you may find rather helpful.

This man knows everything about books, so you are so going to find his ideas useful. In this work, he tells various tricks which will help you to contribute to the conversation even though you`re not knowledgeable about the topic. These tips are absolutely applicable when it comes to writing, and that`s what we`re focusing on now.

Not Reading Is Useful

Speed Reading

Imagine yourself at some fancy dinner. Perhaps, it`s even being held at the Buckingham Palace. Well, we can at least dream about it, right? So, you`re engaging in a lovely conversation with well-educated people, and they start talking about literature. It`s not modern literature, so you can`t just say that you didn`t have time to catch up on that yet. It`s all about classic books. And you feel ashamed in this awkward situation because you haven`t read those books though you were supposed to.

Pierre Bayard has something rather refreshing to say about this. The French author is sure that not-reading will do no harm to your intelligence. What is more, it`s actually useful. Before you start deleting all e-books from your smartphone, let me just tell you that you may have gotten his idea wrong. It`s fine not to read a book completely and thoroughly. Diagonal reading is your go-to tool when you don`t have time for proper reading.

This method is good for improving your speed-reading abilities and all-in-all intellectual capacities. This is a way to train your brain to think really quickly, to focus on details, and to switch from one task to the other. Besides, if you`re trying to write a review on a book you know nothing about, this is a good challenge for your intuition.

Read the title, the first and the last couple of pages, and try to guess what the plot might actually be. It may sound like a crazy idea but what if it turns out that you`re a genius, and you got it all right?

This is, of course, a very tricky and unreliable method. So, instead of trying to guess, you can just delegate the task to somebody who actually did the reading. Our writers are all brilliant professionals, and the testimonials on our website prove it. Risk is an honorable thing, but not when it comes to your GPA.

Books Are Meant for Discussion

Discussion

Pierre Bayard is absolutely sure that books aren`t some stable substance. There are simply no right or wrong opinions on certain literary works. Every book is open to an interpretation. Your professor at university is smart and he/she understands it, so you can really pull it off. Taking into consideration that the author has been studying psychoanalysis as well, he compares the whole process of book interpretation to that psychological field. How come?

When you read a book, the whole impact that it has on you largely depends on your mood at that moment, as well as on the surroundings and time. Your impression of the literary work makes sense only for a short period of time. You`ll move on with your life and will have new books.

So, the way you understand a certain novel is never stable. Besides, you`re not supposed to give the detailed information, nobody wants you to retell the plot, you need to give your opinion, and, yes, it can be biased and non-objective. It`s your personal interpretation, so you`re free to share any thoughts about it.

If You`re Confident Enough, People Will Believe You

That`s an interesting trick actually. Psychological research has shown that if a person is absolutely sure that their opinion is right, they can convince others that it`s an unshakeable truth. Despite the fact that an opponent may be right actually, a self-confident person with strong persuasive arguments (even though they are totally wrongful) will win the dispute. People aren`t logical creatures, you just have to make peace with it already.

The French author claims that a book isn`t a frozen object, it`s more like a fast-flowing river with many confluences. It never stops, it can be unexpected, it can be full of wonders, but it is never stable.

So, getting back to that Oscar Wilde`s idea, the author of “The Picture of Dorian Gray” used to say that you should read for no more than ten minutes if you wanted to write a review of that book. Otherwise, you have a risk to forget the very first impression.

However, yet again, there is a chance the truth may come out. If you want to avoid it, there is a simple solution – just give the task to the writers on our website. In case you have any questions, you can contact us via chat or phone, or take a look at FAQ page.

What is the paradox of reading? It helps you get to know yourself better. But you have to be careful not to get stuck in that imaginary world. Student life offers way too many opportunities to focus just on studying. You can meet with interesting people from all over the world, discover career-boosting internships and simply develop yourself in various disciplines. Reading is just one of the ways to improve, but it is definitely not the only one.

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published.

Captcha

There’s only one click to solve the challenge you came here with!

how to write an essay on a book you never read

Essay Writing for Those That Never Read the Book

Your paper is due in two days and you have managed to completely avoid reading the book the essay is based on. Since you are not a speed reader or even don't know how to skim the text , this poses a serious problem, and you fear you will never have time to finish the book and get the essay done by the deadline. However, all is not lost! If you follow some basic principles of novel research, you can learn enough in a short time to make the impossible paper a solid A.

Book Essay

The first step in this process is to consult your class notes, if you have any on the text. Your professor will often point out the important events and themes, as well as some useful quotes. Since the professor is the one who will be marking your paper, knowing what he or she thinks is important is key. Also, you can easily comment on particular scenes and use them to explain important themes when the work has been done for you by the professor through the class notes!

After you have determined what is most important based on these notes, or even if these are not available, the next step is to hit the internet. Search for the title of your book (use quotation marks to narrow the number of hits) and add the word “summary.” This will narrow your results, and find sites dedicated to summarizing and explaining the work you have to write about. Start with a short general summary of the whole work, so you can get a feel for the entire thing as broadly as possible. Then, look for specific chapter summaries, and read through those briefly. This process may take between 30 minutes and two hours, depending on the length of the book, but it will be time well spent. This reading will give you the basic information you need, and is significantly shorter than reading the whole text.

Once you have a basic idea of the plot of the story and its principle characters, it is time to start getting specific. For example, if your professor has mentioned that the book contains a strong anti-war message, you can be confident that this theme will be a good one to write about. At this point, you can look on the summary sites for the correct thematic analyses. These will provide you with ideas, but even more importantly, they will show you where in the text the important events surrounding the theme are located, and they may even provide quotes and page numbers. Make a note of the important sections and pages you find in this section, as they will become very important in the next stage of writing.

Now you are ready to turn to the text to focus on just the relevant sections. Your task here is to read very selectively, picking out quotes that help support the themes you are going to be discussing in the paper. Having an electronic copy of the text is very useful here, as it will allow you to quickly move from section to section and quote to quote. Also, with an e-text you can search for the terms which will be most important for your paper, which will give you more to work with than the summery sites alone could provide. Once this is completed, you will be left with a good overview of the novel, an understanding of what your professor thinks is important, a theme you can be sure is worth writing about, and many useful quotes which support that theme. Now you have all you need to complete the paper, and although you haven't read the book, no one will be able to figure this out from your paper.

Become a Writer Today

Essays About Books: Top 5 Examples and Writing Prompts

Books open portals to new worlds and display new knowledge inspired from the old to the new. Here are some published essays about books and prompts you can use.

Books are a way for the past to teach the present and preserve the present for the future. Books come in all shapes and sizes. In addition, technology has improved the way books can be accessed with eBooks and audiobooks that are more accessible and hassle-free to use. 

No matter what genre, a book aids its readers in gaining valuable knowledge, improving vocabulary, and many more. Following are 5 essays with books as their subject:

1. Why Are Books So Important in Our Life by Ankita Yadav

2. essay on books for students by kanak mishra, 3. listening to books by maggie gram, 4. short essay on books and reading by sastry, 5. long essay on books by ram, 1. do we still need libraries, 2. the names an author gives to their characters, 3. do you read or write, 4. your favorite book, 5. books and inspirations, 6. the book cover, 7. paper books vs. digital copies, 8. why read the book you hate, 9. the book is better than the movie.

“Books are the best companions in our life. They never leave us alone and are like our best friends.”

For Yadav, a book is someone’s best friend, guide, all-time teacher, and keeper of various information. The essay talks about how reading a physical book is better than watching movies or using modern technologies for entertainment and learning purposes. The author also believes that autobiography books of great people inspire students and motivate them to work hard to achieve their goals in life.

“Though the technology has so much changed that we can take information about anything through internet… importance of books has not decreased…”

The writer describes books as the best option for self-learners. They don’t only note an issue, topic, or story but also put effort and emotions into their writing. Next, she discusses the types of books and their subcategories. Finally, she gives tips about finding a good book to read.

“The possibility of reading while also doing something else produces one of the stranger phenomenological characteristics of audio book reading: you can have a whole set of unrelated and real (if only partially attended) experiences while simultaneously experiencing a book.”

Gram’s primary focus in this essay is audiobooks, discussing their history and how audiobooks started. She also mentions how audiobooks help blind people who find it challenging to read braille books. The author also compares physical books and audiobooks to help the reader choose better for a long drive, house cleaning, or simply doing anything other than reading. 

“Books are standing counsellors and preachers, always at hand and always neutral.”

Sastry considers novels the best option when one is tired and looking for healthy recreational activity. Still, the author didn’t forget the fact that reading history, science, religion, and other more “serious” books can also bring gratification to their readers. Books offer unlimited benefits if well used, but not when abused, and as the writer said, “no book can be good if studied negligently.”

“Books are important because they provide a few things that are key to an open and intelligent society.”

The essay is best to be read by students from classes 7 to 10, as it gives the simplest explanation of why it is vital to read a book during their spare time or extended holidays. Ram says people get inspired and receive life lessons by reading books. Reading classic and newer books with lots of words of wisdom and new ideas are better than wasting time and learning nothing.

Are you looking for writing applications to help you improve your essay? See the seven best essay writing apps to use.

Top 10 Writing Prompts on Essays About Books

Writing essays about books can be easy as many subtopics exist. However, it can also be challenging to pick a specific subcategory. To help you narrow it down, here are ten easy writing prompts that you can use.

Essays About Books: Do We Still Need Libraries?

Libraries help many people – from bibliophiles to job seekers and students. They offer free access to books, newspapers, and computers. But with modern devices making it easier to get information, are libraries still needed? Use this prompt to discuss the importance of libraries and the consequences if all of them close down.

Some authors like to give their characters very unusual names, such as “America Singer” from the book The Selection by Keira Cass. Do you think characters having strange names take away the reader’s attention to the plot? Does it make the book more interesting or odd? Suppose you are writing a story; how do you name the characters and why?

They say writers need readers and vice versa, but which role do you find more challenging? Is writing harder than finding the best book, story, and poetry to read? 

Use this prompt to describe their roles and explain how readers and writers hold each other up.

Essays About Books: Your Favorite Book

There is always a unique book that one will never forget. What is your favorite book of all time, and why? Write an essay about why you consider that book your favorite. You can also persuade others to try to read it. 

If you have more than one preference, describe them and tell the readers why you can’t choose between your favorite books. Check out these essays about literature .

Authors inspiring their readers to try something new by reading their book are not always intentional but usually happens. Have you ever experienced wanting to move to a new place or change career paths after reading something? 

Use this prompt to share your experience and opinion on readers who make significant life changes because books and characters influence them in a story.

Have you ever gone to a book shop to find a book recommended to you but didn’t buy or read it because of the cover? They said never judge a book by its cover. In this prompt, you can.

Share what you think the book is all about based on its cover. Then, make a follow-up writing if you were right or wrong after reading the book’s contents.

Studies confirmed more benefits to reading physical books than digital books, such as retaining information longer if read from a printed copy. Are you more of a traditional or modern reader? Use this prompt to explain your answer and briefly discuss the pros and cons of each type of book in your opinion.

Are you ever tasked to read a book you don’t like? Share your experience and tell the reader if you finished the book, learned anything from it, and what it feels like to force yourself to read a book you hate. You can also add if you come to like it in the end.

J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter is undisputedly one of the most popular books turned into movies. However, avid readers consider books better than movies because they can echo the main protagonist’s thoughts.

Do you have a favorite book adapted into a film? Did you like it? Write about what makes the movie version better or underwhelming. You can also include why movies are more limited than books. 

Do you still feel like there is something wrong with your essay? Here is a guide about grammar and punctuation to help you.

If you still need help, our guide to grammar and syntax explains more.

how to write an essay on a book you never read

Maria Caballero is a freelance writer who has been writing since high school. She believes that to be a writer doesn't only refer to excellent syntax and semantics but also knowing how to weave words together to communicate to any reader effectively.

View all posts

  • Good Writing
  • Revising & Rewriting
  • Nonfiction Writing
  • Academic Writing
  • Travel Writing
  • Literary Agents
  • Getting Published
  • Fiction Writing
  • Self-Publishing
  • Marketing & Selling Books
  • Building a Blog
  • Making Money Blogging
  • Boosting Blog Traffic
  • Online Writing
  • eZine Writing
  • Making Money Online
  • Non-Fiction Writing
  • Magazine Writing
  • Pitching Query Letters
  • Working With Editors
  • Professional Writers
  • Newspaper Writing
  • Making Money Writing
  • Running a Writing Business

7 Ideas for Writers Who Have No Idea What to Write About

  • June 27, 2023
  • 16 Comments

How do you write an essay, article or blog post when you have no ideas and nothing to write about? When I taught Language Arts and Journalism, I often watched students stare at their blank pages, bewildered. They knew they had to write – and they even wanted to write – but they had nothing to write about.

Welcome to the club! It’s illustrious and teeming with authors, bloggers, scriptwriters and freelancers. All writers get stuck sometimes. Even professional journalists on assignment, published book authors with an editor breathing down their neck, and Oscar-winning screenwriters who have a swiftly-approaching deadline. Even unknown bloggers like me get stuck even though I typically write more than 2,000 words a day. Actually, my problem is a little different: I have too many ideas, too much to write about …and I get paralyzed. I feel like I have nothing to write about because of my jumbled thoughts and ideas and plans.

But even though I often have ideas for blog posts and even magazine articles (which I never pitch because I’d rather be blogging), I know the feeling of having nothing to write about. So you’ve come to the right place, fellow scribe. Put your feet up; my seven writing tips will give you something to write about. I guarantee it! Because even if you still aren’t motivated and have no ideas at the end of this blog post, you can write about how bored and tired you were while reading. And then you can write about that .

Yes, I was an annoying teacher. When students came to me and said, “I have nothing to write about” I’d tell them to write about that (being bored and uninspired). Where does your mind go when it’s unoccupied? How often are you bored? What do you think about and feel most often? Who do you think about when you have nothing to do? What is the most boring activity in the world? Write about stuff like that.

But read these tips first. You may find more ideas than you can shake a pen at.

7 Ways to Get Ideas to Write About

“Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open,” says Natalie Goldberg, author of Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within .

Easier said than done, Natalie.

You may be perfectly happy – and willing – to write about ideas that disturb and scare you. The problem is you have no ideas . Word of warning: Don’t fall into the trap of believing you have “writer’s block.” That will become a self-fulfilling downward spiral and you really will have no ideas to write about. Instead, focus on  writing a rough first draft  of your project.

1. Don’t drown in discouragement

Discouragement is a death knell for successful writers because once it sets in, it suffocates your motivation to write. Discouraging thoughts will kill your creativity and suffocate even the smallest spark of a good idea. Instead of sitting and staring at your blank paper or screen (like I forced my students to do), get up. Go somewhere. Talk a walk, run, bike ride or swim. If you’re in class, ask your teacher if you can walk around the school. The most important thing is to fight the discouragement.

Ideas for Writers Who Have No Idea What to Write About

The best way to fight discouragement is to get specific . Are you discouraged because, say, you’re not get­ting enough traffic to your blog right now? Or many you have nothing to write about because you feel pressured to make money as a freelance writer. Or maybe you’re trying to find an essay topic. I don’t know what your situation is…but you do. And that means you need to dig around inside you .

Took a long break? Read How to Motivate Yourself to Start Writing Again .

2. Stop thinking about what to write about

Take a deep breath. Settle your bum in your chair. Close your phone or laptop. Get off the internet; it’s a distracting, not an idea-generating machine.

Instead of trying to find something to write about, just start writing whatever comes into your head. Let your thoughts flow, your imagination rise, your emotions bubble to the surface. Don’t think. Just write whatever is in your head. What made you mad last night? Who are you worried about? Why are you looking for ideas to write about? Where are you going tomorrow? Write about it all.

3. Do the “Write ~ Reward” dance

To force myself to write when I think I have nothing to write about , I say: “Laurie, after you’ve worked on the editor’s assignment client’s stuff for 30 minutes, then you can reward yourself by blogging for an hour.” I don’t consider blogging writing . This is play. To me, real writing involves books, magazine articles, church articles and copy for clients. After I do my real writing, I reward myself by blogging.

What’s your idea of real writing? What’s your idea of a reward for coming up with ideas to write about, writing for 20 minutes, then taking a little break? This dance can take you miles down the road…and you’ll barely notice how far you’ve come. Until you arrive at your destination. Then you’ll be a happy writer.

4. Put a new spin on an old theme

Some writers have more ideas than they can use; other writers struggle to come up with ideas they think editors, agents, or publishers will buy. One way to write despite “idea block” is to spice up what’s already been written. For example, there are a million articles on how to write a book. How can you spin this idea and make it more unique?

Here’s an example from earlier this morning: a couple years ago I wrote an article for alive magazine about women’s circles (which I called “girl gangs”). This morning I used some of the research and interview excerpts to answer a reader’s comment. I called this new blog post How Women’s Circles Help You Stop Feeling Bad About Yourself . Learn how to rewrite previously successful (or boring) themes and ideas in fresh new ways.

5. Allow yourself to start write bad, boring stuff with bad, boring ideas

“All of us who do creative work … get into it because we have good taste. But it’s like there’s a gap, that for the first couple years that you’re making stuff, what you’re making isn’t so good,” says American public radio personality Ira Glass. He won lots of awards, including the Peabody, and wrote the forward of Out on the Wire: The Storytelling Secrets of the New Masters of Radio by Jessica Abel.

“A lot of people never get past that phase. A lot of people at that point, they quit. And the thing I would just like say to you with all my heart is that most everybody I know who does interesting creative work, they went through a phase of years where they had really good taste and they could tell what they were making wasn’t as good as they wanted it to be — they knew it fell short, it didn’t have the special thing that we wanted it to have. And the thing I would say to you is everybody goes through that .

6. Remember how fast words add up!

Write a lot…one word at a time. “The most important possible thing you can do is do a lot of work — do a huge volume of work,” says Natalie Goldberg. “Put yourself on a deadline so that every week, or every month, you know you’re going to finish one story. Because it’s only by actually going through a volume of work that you are actually going to catch up and close that gap.”

If you’re a new freelance writer, you’ll hate spending hours writing and pitching article query letters, and hearing nothing back from magazine editors. Find a writing buddy to help you through the dry spells. He/she can be another freelance writer or an entrepreneur. Find someone who has career goals similar to yours, and work together to achieve your goals. Make a pact to share your progress – and figure out effective “punishments” if you don’t perform satisfactorily. Be there for each other.

7. Say yes to writer’s slump (but not writer’s block)

“Writing is elemental,” said Natalie in Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within . “Once you have tasted its essential life, you cannot turn from it without some deep denial and depression. It would be like turning from water.”

how to write when you have no ideas

Natalie Goldberg also said:

“A writer must say yes to life, to all of life: the water glasses, the Kemp’s half-and-half, the ketchup on the counter. It is not a writer’s task to say, “It is dumb to live in a small town or to eat in a café when you can eat macrobiotic at home.”

Our task is to say a holy yes to the real things of our life as they exist – the real truth of who we are: several pounds overweight, the gray, cold street outside, the Christmas tinsel in the showcase, the Jewish writer in the orange booth across from her blond friend who has black children.

We must become writers who accept things as they are, come to love the details, and step forward with a yes on our lips so there can be no more noes in the world, noes that invalidate life and stop these details from continuing.”

What do you think, fellow scribe? I hope one of these ideas will give you something to write about…or at least something to think about. Eventually your thoughts will lead to something worth writing down. And all will be well!

Comments Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Notify me of new posts by email.

16 thoughts on “7 Ideas for Writers Who Have No Idea What to Write About”

Your points are interesting. When I hit that wall where I’m completely stuck and feel almost “stalled”, what I do is I go out to ezine articles and start looking at what others have written about the subjects that I’m interested in. While I’m doing that I jot down the ideas that come to my mind so that I can remember them later.

I split my research time from my writing time too. That way I can let my creative juices flow without getting bogged down in trying to produce something right then.

The other thing that I do is I break my ideas into sub-sections and write about each sub-section. Typically I shoot for writing 350 to 550 words per sub-section and make 3 to 4 points.

There’s my 2 cents.

It’s not JUST that I think it’s pointless to spend so much time writing rubbish and am scared to try or whatever, and I didn’t understand what you even meant by the last part about it being stupid to go to a cafe or something… – I don’t have anything to say at all! Not ‘my ideas are bad’ or ‘I can’t write’ (although that’s true too – whenever I want to say something I often can’t find the words and am unable to get across exactly what I mean, and it’s SO frustrating), but I don’t have ideas at all! I literally do not know how to have ideas. People just say ‘well think’, like it’s that easy and obvious and I must be stupid to not have any. I think constantly. I can’t understand anyone who doesn’t. But I think about things, not think of new things. There is nothing I have to say that wouldn’t be a copy of something that’s already been said. And why would one copy something almost word for word? That’s copying, not creating. I just feel like I must be stupid because all the so-called advice still means nothing to me. I want to be able to create things, I just don’t know what. Any of my so-called thoughts are just ‘oh, that book was good, that film was good, that idea that so and so was talking about was good’. Not ‘oh wouldn’t it be cool if ***stuff that I’ve not been told directly by someone else before at some point***’. I just feel so stupid. And if its a case of ‘oh you’re just not meant to be creative’.. well apparently my life has been telling me I’m not meant to do anything. I seem to fail at anything I try, or want to do, and I feel so pathetic seeing people talk like it’s obvious and easy and even the ‘problems’ are solvable. Nobody seems able to tell me how to have something to say, only that I should start saying it.

Hey. I want to write. When i was in school I wrote a lot. I wrote some songs for my ex. I don’t know if I i can write or not but sometimes it feels like I really should write. i had ideas butI then seem to disagree with them. this post of yours in a way guided me. I am looking forward to you and myself. Maybe I don’t know this is gonna help me in many ways.

Ah! Laurie, you just prodded me to action. Thank you very much. Do you know that for several months now, I’ve not been able to write a word? Now I’m beginning to do something. If I become any kind of a writer one day, you will be the first person on my mind that has really encouraged me. Thank you.

Thanks for your comments! I’ve learned that it’s crucial to write down my ideas at the exact moment I have them, or I’ll forget…and then I’ll be stuck. That’s how I write a blog post – and sometime two – every weekday.

  • Dissertation
  • PowerPoint Presentation
  • Book Report/Review
  • Research Proposal
  • Math Problems
  • Proofreading
  • Movie Review
  • Cover Letter Writing
  • Personal Statement
  • Nursing Paper
  • Argumentative Essay
  • Research Paper

Hints On Writing Persuasive Essays About Books

Jared Houdi

Read about effective ways to create an effective persuasive essay about an exciting piece of literature you have read and convince your audience that it is worth reading.

How to write an essay on a book?

Writing a persuasive essay has a purpose of encouraging readers to accept a particular point of view or to act in a certain way.

Persuasive essays about books are common assignments for high-school and college students that should be based on analyzing themes (big picture ideas from stories which can be applied to real life) and explaining author’s literary merit (specific techniques used to achieve goals).

Working on a book review essay, writers have to take a stand and build a strong argument to win over readers. The key to the success of your writing is demonstrating sound logic and having relevant factual evidence to support the argument.

Not sure how to write a paper on a book? Follow these easy 5 steps.

  • Create a specific and robust thesis statement . Think about the arguments you will include for supporting your statement. Find good examples in the text of a novel or a short story that illustrate and enhance your position, choose memorable direct quotes to back up your stance.
  • Organize your thoughts . Brainstorm ideas and plan your essay on a book. Think about the structure of your paper and make a practical outline – the foundation upon which you will create the content. Your project should consist of 3 main parts: an introduction, main body, and conclusion.
  • Write an introduction . Start your paper with a hook to grab readers’ attention: a question, memorable quote or anecdote. Provide some background information about a book and its author and introduce a clear thesis statement that reveals your position and outlines your argument.
  • Write body paragraphs . Present all arguments to support the thesis. Each paragraph should present a specific point. Start each paragraph with a topic sentence, stating the central point of the paragraph. Give an explanation to make it more specific. Then present several pieces of evidence to support it and explain why you use it. Justify all claims with specific examples from the text. Include direct quotes if necessary. When using quotes, make sure to cite them correctly. Share the feelings that the book made you feel. Provide comparisons with similar stories or novels. Tell about strengths and weaknesses. End every paragraph with a concluding sentence that sums up what you have discussed. Use smooth transitions from paragraph to paragraph to create a whole, cohesive piece.
  • Write a conclusion . Wrap up your ideas to leave readers with a strong impression. Restate the thesis and supporting points. Summarize your opinion and evaluate a literary work as a whole. Emphasize its significance. Tell the audience whether you recommend this literary piece.
  • Revise and edit your paper . Review your essay, modify and reorganize the ideas to make it the best it can be. Improve style and clarity. Correct grammar and spelling mistakes.

How to persuade someone to read a book?

Reading is a priceless activity that gives people incomparable pleasure. Books expand our knowledge of the world and stay fantastic sources of inspiration. But, unfortunately, not all people are fond of reading. This habit is declining mainly due to the growth of technology.

Besides, there are too many distractions.

Wondering how to persuade someone to read a book? Logics and good reasons are genuinely important when you persuade someone. Still, there are special literary persuasive techniques that can be used to present ideas in a convincing manner.

Here are some of them.

  • Storytelling . People understand complex concepts and abstractions better when those are told through stories.
  • Repetition . Ads and commercials prove that repetition really works. People can’t agree with you if they don’t get what you are talking about. Say the same thing in different ways and make it easier for your readers to understand your point of view and agree with it.
  • Appeal to emotions. Making readers feel happy, angry or sad can help persuade them to take action or agree with your viewpoint.
  • Figurative language . Metaphors, similes, analogies, comparisons can paint a picture for an audience and will help you convince other people to see things your way.

Use our tips on how to write an essay about a book to create an impressive persuasive paper that can convince your friends to read more and benefit from it.

Don’t have the inspiration to write the essay about book? Well, our writers strive to help you out! Order a perfect essay and enjoy reading your favourite book!

1 Star

Essays About Stereotyping – The Positive Side

how to write an essay on a book you never read

Writing a Research Paper on Abortion

how to write an essay on a book you never read

Preparing to Write a Depression Research Paper

  • Newsletters
  • Account Activating this button will toggle the display of additional content Account Sign out

The Loss of Things I Took for Granted

Ten years into my college teaching career, students stopped being able to read effectively..

Recent years have seen successive waves of book bans in Republican-controlled states, aimed at pulling any text with “woke” themes from classrooms and library shelves. Though the results sometimes seem farcical, as with the banning of Art Spiegelman’s Maus due to its inclusion of “cuss words” and explicit rodent nudity, the book-banning agenda is no laughing matter. Motivated by bigotry, it has already done demonstrable harm and promises to do more. But at the same time, the appropriate response is, in principle, simple. Named individuals have advanced explicit policies with clear goals and outcomes, and we can replace those individuals with people who want to reverse those policies. That is already beginning to happen in many places, and I hope those successes will continue until every banned book is restored.

If and when that happens, however, we will not be able to declare victory quite yet. Defeating the open conspiracy to deprive students of physical access to books will do little to counteract the more diffuse confluence of forces that are depriving students of the skills needed to meaningfully engage with those books in the first place. As a college educator, I am confronted daily with the results of that conspiracy-without-conspirators. I have been teaching in small liberal arts colleges for over 15 years now, and in the past five years, it’s as though someone flipped a switch. For most of my career, I assigned around 30 pages of reading per class meeting as a baseline expectation—sometimes scaling up for purely expository readings or pulling back for more difficult texts. (No human being can read 30 pages of Hegel in one sitting, for example.) Now students are intimidated by anything over 10 pages and seem to walk away from readings of as little as 20 pages with no real understanding. Even smart and motivated students struggle to do more with written texts than extract decontextualized take-aways. Considerable class time is taken up simply establishing what happened in a story or the basic steps of an argument—skills I used to be able to take for granted.

Since this development very directly affects my ability to do my job as I understand it, I talk about it a lot. And when I talk about it with nonacademics, certain predictable responses inevitably arise, all questioning the reality of the trend I describe. Hasn’t every generation felt that the younger cohort is going to hell in a handbasket? Haven’t professors always complained that educators at earlier levels are not adequately equipping their students? And haven’t students from time immemorial skipped the readings?

The response of my fellow academics, however, reassures me that I’m not simply indulging in intergenerational grousing. Anecdotally, I have literally never met a professor who did not share my experience. Professors are also discussing the issue in academic trade publications , from a variety of perspectives. What we almost all seem to agree on is that we are facing new obstacles in structuring and delivering our courses, requiring us to ratchet down expectations in the face of a ratcheting down of preparation. Yes, there were always students who skipped the readings, but we are in new territory when even highly motivated honors students struggle to grasp the basic argument of a 20-page article. Yes, professors never feel satisfied that high school teachers have done enough, but not every generation of professors has had to deal with the fallout of No Child Left Behind and Common Core. Finally, yes, every generation thinks the younger generation is failing to make the grade— except for the current cohort of professors, who are by and large more invested in their students’ success and mental health and more responsive to student needs than any group of educators in human history. We are not complaining about our students. We are complaining about what has been taken from them.

If we ask what has caused this change, there are some obvious culprits. The first is the same thing that has taken away almost everyone’s ability to focus—the ubiquitous smartphone. Even as a career academic who studies the Quran in Arabic for fun, I have noticed my reading endurance flagging. I once found myself boasting at a faculty meeting that I had read through my entire hourlong train ride without looking at my phone. My colleagues agreed this was a major feat, one they had not achieved recently. Even if I rarely attain that high level of focus, though, I am able to “turn it on” when demanded, for instance to plow through a big novel during a holiday break. That’s because I was able to develop and practice those skills of extended concentration and attentive reading before the intervention of the smartphone. For children who were raised with smartphones, by contrast, that foundation is missing. It is probably no coincidence that the iPhone itself, originally released in 2007, is approaching college age, meaning that professors are increasingly dealing with students who would have become addicted to the dopamine hit of the omnipresent screen long before they were introduced to the more subtle pleasures of the page.

The second go-to explanation is the massive disruption of school closures during COVID-19. There is still some debate about the necessity of those measures, but what is not up for debate any longer is the very real learning loss that students suffered at every level. The impact will inevitably continue to be felt for the next decade or more, until the last cohort affected by the mass “pivot to online” finally graduates. I doubt that the pandemic closures were the decisive factor in themselves, however. Not only did the marked decline in reading resilience start before the pandemic, but the students I am seeing would have already been in high school during the school closures. Hence they would be better equipped to get something out of the online format and, more importantly, their basic reading competence would have already been established.

Less discussed than these broader cultural trends over which educators have little control are the major changes in reading pedagogy that have occurred in recent decades—some motivated by the ever-increasing demand to “teach to the test” and some by fads coming out of schools of education. In the latter category is the widely discussed decline in phonics education in favor of the “balanced literacy” approach advocated by education expert Lucy Calkins (who has more recently come to accept the need for more phonics instruction). I started to see the results of this ill-advised change several years ago, when students abruptly stopped attempting to sound out unfamiliar words and instead paused until they recognized the whole word as a unit. (In a recent class session, a smart, capable student was caught short by the word circumstances when reading a text out loud.) The result of this vibes-based literacy is that students never attain genuine fluency in reading. Even aside from the impact of smartphones, their experience of reading is constantly interrupted by their intentionally cultivated inability to process unfamiliar words.

For all the flaws of the balanced literacy method, it was presumably implemented by people who thought it would help. It is hard to see a similar motivation in the growing trend toward assigning students only the kind of short passages that can be included in a standardized test. Due in part to changes driven by the infamous Common Core standards , teachers now have to fight to assign their students longer readings, much less entire books, because those activities won’t feed directly into students getting higher test scores, which leads to schools getting more funding. The emphasis on standardized tests was always a distraction at best, but we have reached the point where it is actively cannibalizing students’ educational experience—an outcome no one intended or planned, and for which there is no possible justification.

We can’t go back in time and do the pandemic differently at this point, nor is there any realistic path to putting the smartphone genie back in the bottle. (Though I will note that we as a society do at least attempt to keep other addictive products out of the hands of children.) But I have to think that we can, at the very least, stop actively preventing young people from developing the ability to follow extended narratives and arguments in the classroom. Regardless of their profession or ultimate educational level, they will need those skills. The world is a complicated place. People—their histories and identities, their institutions and work processes, their fears and desires—are simply too complex to be captured in a worksheet with a paragraph and some reading comprehension questions. Large-scale prose writing is the best medium we have for capturing that complexity, and the education system should not be in the business of keeping students from learning how to engage effectively with it.

This is a matter not of snobbery, but of basic justice. I recognize that not everyone centers their lives on books as much as a humanities professor does. I think they’re missing out, but they’re adults and they can choose how to spend their time. What’s happening with the current generation is not that they are simply choosing TikTok over Jane Austen. They are being deprived of the ability to choose—for no real reason or benefit. We can and must stop perpetrating this crime on our young people.

comscore beacon

  • Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Guest Essay

The Most Important Writing Exercise I’ve Ever Assigned

An illustration of several houses. One person walks away from a house with a second person isolated in a window.

By Rachel Kadish

Ms. Kadish is the author of the novel “The Weight of Ink.”

“Write down a phrase you find abhorrent — something you yourself would never say.”

My students looked startled, but they cooperated. They knew I wouldn’t collect this exercise; what they wrote would be private unless they chose to share it. All that was required of them was participation.

In silence they jotted down a few words. So far, so good. We hadn’t yet reached the hard request: Spend 10 minutes writing a monologue in the first person that’s spoken by a fictitious character who makes the upsetting statement. This portion typically elicits nervous glances. When that happens, I remind students that their statement doesn’t represent them and that speaking as if they’re someone else is a basic skill of fiction writers. The troubling statement, I explain, must appear in the monologue, and it shouldn’t be minimized, nor should students feel the need to forgive or account for it. What’s required is simply that somewhere in the monologue there be an instant — even a fleeting phrase — in which we can feel empathy for the speaker. Perhaps she’s sick with worry over an ill grandchild. Perhaps he’s haunted by a love he let slip away. Perhaps she’s sleepless over how to keep her business afloat and her employees paid. Done right, the exercise delivers a one-two punch: repugnance for a behavior or worldview coupled with recognition of shared humanity.

For more than two decades, I’ve taught versions of this fiction-writing exercise. I’ve used it in universities, middle schools and private workshops, with 7-year-olds and 70-year-olds. But in recent years openness to this exercise and to the imaginative leap it’s designed to teach has shrunk to a pinprick. As our country’s public conversation has gotten angrier, I’ve noticed that students’ approach to the exercise has become more brittle, regardless of whether students lean right or left.

Each semester, I wonder whether the aperture through which we allow empathy has so drastically narrowed as to foreclose a full view of our fellow human beings. Maybe there are times so contentious or so painful that people simply withdraw to their own silos. I’ve certainly felt that inward pull myself. There are times when a leap into someone else’s perspective feels impossible.

But leaping is the job of the writer, and there’s no point it doing it halfway. Good fiction pulls off a magic trick of absurd power: It makes us care. Responding to the travails of invented characters — Ahab or Amaranta, Sethe or Stevens, Zooey or Zorba — we might tear up or laugh, or our hearts might pound. As readers, we become invested in these people, which is very different from agreeing with or even liking them. In the best literature, characters are so vivid, complicated, contradictory and even maddening that we’ll follow them far from our preconceptions; sometimes we don’t return.

Unflinching empathy, which is the muscle the lesson is designed to exercise, is a prerequisite for literature strong enough to wrestle with the real world. On the page it allows us to spot signs of humanity; off the page it can teach us to start a conversation with the strangest of strangers, to thrive alongside difference. It can even affect those life-or-death choices we make instinctively in a crisis. This kind of empathy has nothing to do with being nice, and it’s not for the faint of heart.

Even within the safety of the page, it’s tempting to dodge empathy’s challenge, instead demonizing villains and idealizing heroes, but that’s when the needle on art’s moral compass goes inert. Then we’re navigating blind: confident that we know what the bad people look like and that they’re not us — and therefore we’re at no risk of error.

Our best writers, in contrast, portray humans in their full complexity. This is what Gish Jen is doing in the short story “Who’s Irish?” and Rohinton Mistry in the novel “A Fine Balance.” Line by line, these writers illuminate the inner worlds of characters who cause harm — which is not the same as forgiving them. No one would ever say that Toni Morrison forgives the character Cholly Breedlove, who rapes his daughter in “The Bluest Eye.” What Ms. Morrison accomplishes instead is the boldest act of moral and emotional understanding I’ve ever seen on the page.

In the classroom exercise, the upsetting phrases my students scribble might be personal (“You’ll never be a writer,” “You’re ugly”) or religious or political. Once a student wrote a phrase condemning abortion as another student across the table wrote a phrase defending it. Sometimes there are stereotypes, slurs — whatever the students choose to grapple with. Of course, it’s disturbing to step into the shoes of someone whose words or deeds repel us. Writing these monologues, my graduate students, who know what “first person” means, will dodge and write in third, with the distanced “he said” instead of “I said.”

But if they can withstand the challenges of first person, sometimes something happens. They emerge shaken and eager to expand on what they’ve written. I look up from tidying my notes to discover students lingering after dismissal with that alert expression that says the exercise made them feel something they needed to feel.

Over the years, as my students’ statements became more political and as jargon (“deplorables,” “snowflakes”) supplanted the language of personal experience, I adapted the exercise. Worrying that I’d been too sanguine about possible pitfalls, I made it entirely silent, so no student would have to hear another’s troubling statement or fear being judged for their own. Any students who wanted to share their monologues with me could stay after class rather than read to the group. Later, I added another caveat: If your troubling statement is so offensive, you can’t imagine the person who says it as a full human being, choose something less troubling. Next, I narrowed the parameters: No politics. The pandemic’s virtual classes made risk taking harder; I moved the exercise deeper into the semester so students would feel more at ease.

After one session, a student stayed behind in the virtual meeting room. She’d failed to include empathy in her monologue about a character whose politics she abhorred. Her omission bothered her. I was impressed by her honesty. She’d constructed a caricature and recognized it. Most of us don’t.

For years, I’ve quietly completed the exercise alongside my students. Some days nothing sparks. When it goes well, though, the experience is disquieting. The hard part, it turns out, isn’t the empathy itself but what follows: the annihilating notion that people whose fears or joys or humor I appreciate may themselves be indifferent to all my cherished conceptions of the world.

Then the 10-minute timer sounds, and I haul myself back to the business of the classroom — shaken by the vastness of the world but more curious about the people in it. I put my trust in that curiosity. What better choice does any of us have? And in the sanctuary of my classroom I keep trying, handing along what literature handed me: the small, sturdy magic trick any of us can work, as long as we’re willing to risk it.

Rachel Kadish is the author of the novel “The Weight of Ink.”

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , X and Threads .

Things you buy through our links may earn Vox Media a commission

The Day I Put $50,000 in a Shoe Box and Handed It to a Stranger

I never thought i was the kind of person to fall for a scam..

Portrait of Charlotte Cowles

On a Tuesday evening this past October, I put $50,000 in cash in a shoe box, taped it shut as instructed, and carried it to the sidewalk in front of my apartment, my phone clasped to my ear. “Don’t let anyone hurt me,” I told the man on the line, feeling pathetic.

“You won’t be hurt,” he answered. “Just keep doing exactly as I say.”

Three minutes later, a white Mercedes SUV pulled up to the curb. “The back window will open,” said the man on the phone. “Do not look at the driver or talk to him. Put the box through the window, say ‘thank you,’ and go back inside.”

The man on the phone knew my home address, my Social Security number, the names of my family members, and that my 2-year-old son was playing in our living room. He told me my home was being watched, my laptop had been hacked, and we were in imminent danger. “I can help you, but only if you cooperate,” he said. His first orders: I could not tell anyone about our conversation, not even my spouse, or talk to the police or a lawyer.

Now I know this was all a scam — a cruel and violating one but painfully obvious in retrospect. Here’s what I can’t figure out: Why didn’t I just hang up and call 911? Why didn’t I text my husband, or my brother (a lawyer), or my best friend (also a lawyer), or my parents, or one of the many other people who would have helped me? Why did I hand over all that money — the contents of my savings account, strictly for emergencies — without a bigger fight?

Spring Fashion Issue

We want moore.

package-table-of-contents-photo

When I’ve told people this story, most of them say the same thing: You don’t seem like the type of person this would happen to. What they mean is that I’m not senile, or hysterical, or a rube. But these stereotypes are actually false. Younger adults — Gen Z, millennials, and Gen X — are 34 percent more likely to report losing money to fraud compared with those over 60, according to a recent report from the Federal Trade Commission. Another study found that well-educated people or those with good jobs were just as vulnerable to scams as everyone else.

Still, how could I have been such easy prey? Scam victims tend to be single, lonely, and economically insecure with low financial literacy. I am none of those things. I’m closer to the opposite. I’m a journalist who had a weekly column in the “Business” section of the New York Times. I’ve written a personal-finance column for this magazine for the past seven years. I interview money experts all the time and take their advice seriously. I’m married and talk to my friends, family, and colleagues every day.

And while this is harder to quantify — how do I even put it? — I’m not someone who loses her head. My mother-in-law has described me as even-keeled; my own mom has called me “maddeningly rational.” I am listed as an emergency contact for several friends — and their kids. I vote, floss, cook, and exercise. In other words, I’m not a person who panics under pressure and falls for a conspiracy involving drug smuggling, money laundering, and CIA officers at my door. Until, suddenly, I was.

That morning — it was October 31 — I dressed my toddler in a pizza costume for Halloween and kissed him good-bye before school. I wrote some work emails. At about 12:30 p.m., my phone buzzed. The caller ID said it was Amazon. I answered. A polite woman with a vague accent told me she was calling from Amazon customer service to check some unusual activity on my account. The call was being recorded for quality assurance. Had I recently spent $8,000 on MacBooks and iPads?

I had not. I checked my Amazon account. My order history showed diapers and groceries, no iPads. The woman, who said her name was Krista, told me the purchases had been made under my business account. “I don’t have a business account,” I said. “Hmm,” she said. “Our system shows that you have two.”

Krista and I concurred that I was the victim of identity theft, and she said she would flag the fraudulent accounts and freeze their activity. She provided me with a case-ID number for future reference and recommended that I check my credit cards. I did, and everything looked normal. I thanked her for her help.

Then Krista explained that Amazon had been having a lot of problems with identity theft and false accounts lately. It had become so pervasive that the company was working with a liaison at the Federal Trade Commission and was referring defrauded customers to him. Could she connect me?

“Um, sure?” I said.

Krista transferred the call to a man who identified himself as Calvin Mitchell. He said he was an investigator with the FTC, gave me his badge number, and had me write down his direct phone line in case I needed to contact him again. He also told me our call was being recorded. He asked me to verify the spelling of my name. Then he read me the last four digits of my Social Security number, my home address, and my date of birth to confirm that they were correct. The fact that he had my Social Security number threw me. I was getting nervous.

“I’m glad we’re speaking,” said Calvin. “Your personal information is linked to a case that we’ve been working on for a while now, and it’s quite serious.”

He told me that 22 bank accounts, nine vehicles, and four properties were registered to my name. The bank accounts had wired more than $3 million overseas, mostly to Jamaica and Iraq. Did I know anything about this? “No,” I said. Did I know someone named Stella Suk-Yee Kwong? “I don’t think so,” I said. He texted me a photo of her ID, which he claimed had been found in a car rented under my name that was abandoned on the southern border of Texas with blood and drugs in the trunk. A home in New Mexico affiliated with the car rental had subsequently been raided, he added, and authorities found more drugs, cash, and bank statements registered to my name and Social Security number. He texted me a drug-bust photo of bags of pills and money stacked on a table. He told me that there were warrants out for my arrest in Maryland and Texas and that I was being charged with cybercrimes, money laundering, and drug trafficking.

My head swam. I Googled my name along with “warrant” and “money laundering,” but nothing came up. Were arrest warrants public? I wasn’t sure. Google led me to truthfinder.com, which asked for my credit-card information — nope. “I’m in deep shit,” I texted my husband. “My identity was stolen and it seems really bad.”

Calvin wanted to know if I knew anyone who might be the culprit or if I had any connections to Iraq or Jamaica. “No,” I said. “This is the first I’m hearing about any of this, and it’s a lot to take in.” He asked if I had ever used public or unsecured Wi-Fi. “I don’t know. Maybe?” I said. “I used the airport Wi-Fi recently.”

“Ah,” he said. “That’s unfortunate. It’s how many of these breaches start.” I was embarrassed, like I’d left my fly unzipped. How could I have been so thoughtless? But also — didn’t everyone use the airport Wi-Fi?

Calvin told me to listen carefully. “The first thing you must do is not tell anyone what is going on. Everyone around you is a suspect.”

I almost laughed. I told him I was quite sure that my husband, who works for an affordable-housing nonprofit and makes meticulous spreadsheets for our child-care expenses, was not a secret drug smuggler. “I believe you, but even so, your communications are probably under surveillance,” Calvin said. “You cannot talk to him about this.” I quickly deleted the text messages I had sent my husband a few minutes earlier. “These are sophisticated criminals with a lot of money at stake,” he continued. “You should assume you are in danger and being watched. You cannot take any chances.”

I felt suspended between two worlds — the one I knew and the one this man was describing. If I had nothing to do with any of these allegations, how much could they truly affect me? I thought of an old This American Life episode about a woman whose Social Security card was stolen. No matter how many times she closed her bank accounts and opened new ones, her identity thief kept draining them, destroying her credit and her sanity. (It turned out to be her boyfriend.) I remembered another story about a man who got stuck on a no-fly list after his personal information was used by a terrorist group. It dawned on me that being connected to major federal offenses, even falsely, could really fuck up my life.

Calvin wanted to know how much money I currently had in my bank accounts. I told him that I had two — checking and savings — with a combined balance of a little over $80,000. As a freelancer in a volatile industry, I keep a sizable emergency fund, and I also set aside cash to pay my taxes at the end of the year, since they aren’t withheld from my paychecks.

His voice took on a more urgent tone. “You must have worked very hard to save all that money,” he said. “Do not share your bank-account information with anyone. I am going to help you keep your money safe.” He said that he would transfer me to his colleague at the CIA who was the lead investigator on my case and gave me a nine-digit case number for my records. (I Googled the number. Nothing.) He said the CIA agent would tell me what to do next, and he wished me luck.

how to write an essay on a book you never read

If it was a scam , I couldn’t see the angle. It had occurred to me that the whole story might be made up or an elaborate mistake. But no one had asked me for money or told me to buy crypto; they’d only encouraged me not to share my banking information. They hadn’t asked for my personal details; they already knew them. I hadn’t been told to click on anything.

Still, I had not seen a shred of evidence. I checked my bank accounts, credit cards, and credit score; nothing looked out of the ordinary. I knew I should probably talk to a lawyer or maybe call the police, though I was doubtful that they would help. What was I going to say — “My identity was stolen, and I think I’m somehow in danger”? I had no proof. I was also annoyed that my workday had been hijacked. It was 2 p.m., and I had already pushed back one deadline and postponed two work calls. I had to get myself out of this.

The next man who got on the line had a deeper voice and a slight British accent flecked with something I couldn’t identify. He told me his name was Michael Sarano and that he worked for the CIA on cases involving the FTC. He gave me his badge number. “I’m going to need more than that,” I said. “I have no reason to believe that any of what you’re saying is real.”

“I completely understand,” he said calmly. He told me to go to the FTC home page and look up the main phone number. “Now hang up the phone, and I will call you from that number right now.” I did as he said. The FTC number flashed on my screen, and I picked up. “How do I know you’re not just spoofing this?” I asked.

“It’s a government number,” he said, almost indignant. “It cannot be spoofed.” I wasn’t sure if this was true and tried Googling it, but Michael was already onto his next point. He told me the call was being recorded, so I put him on speaker and began recording on my end, too. He wanted to know if I had told anyone what was going on.

I admitted that I had texted my husband. “You must reassure him that everything is fine,” Michael said. “In many cases like this, we have to investigate the spouse as well, and the less he knows, the less he is implicated. From now on, you have to follow protocol if you want us to help you.”

“I don’t think I should lie to my husband,” I said, feeling stupid.

“You are being investigated for major federal crimes,” he said. “By keeping your husband out of this, you are protecting him.” He then repeated the point Calvin had made about my phone and computer being hacked and monitored by the criminals who had stolen my identity.

By that point, my husband had sent me a series of concerned texts. “Don’t worry. It will be okay,” I wrote back. It felt gross to imagine a third party reading along.

Michael snowed me with the same stories Calvin had. They were consistent: the car on the Texas border, the property in New Mexico, the drugs, the bank accounts. He asked if I shared my residence with anyone besides my husband and son. Then he asked more questions about my family members, including my parents, my brother, and my sister-in-law. He knew their names and where they lived. I told him they had nothing to do with this. In fact, I was now sure I wanted to consult a lawyer.

“If you talk to an attorney, I cannot help you anymore,” Michael said sternly. “You will be considered noncooperative. Your home will be raided, and your assets will be seized. You may be arrested. It’s your choice.” This seemed ludicrous. I pictured officers tramping in, taking my laptop, going through our bookshelves, questioning our neighbors, scaring my son. It was a nonstarter.

“Can I just come to your office and sort this out in person?” I said. “It’s getting late, and I need to take my son trick-or-treating soon.”

“My office is in Langley,” he said. “We don’t have enough time. We need to act immediately. I’m going to talk you through the process. It’s going to sound crazy, but we must follow protocol if we’re going to catch the people behind this.”

He explained that the CIA would need to freeze all the assets in my name, including my actual bank accounts. In the eyes of the law, there was no difference between the “real” and the fraudulent ones, he said. They would also deactivate my compromised Social Security number and get me a new one. Then, by monitoring any activity under my old Social Security number and accounts, they would catch the criminals who were using my identity and I would get my life back. But until then, I would need to use only cash for my day-to-day expenses.

It was far-fetched. Ridiculous. But also not completely out of the realm of possibility. “Do I have any other options?” I asked.

“Unfortunately, no,” he said. “You must follow my directions very carefully. We do not have much time.”

He asked me how much cash I thought I would need to support myself for a year if necessary. My assets could be frozen for up to two years if the investigation dragged on, he added. There could be a trial; I might need to testify. These things take time. “I don’t know, $50,000?” I said. I wondered how I would receive paychecks without a bank account. Would I have to take time off from work? I did some mental calculations of how much my husband could float us and for how long.

“Okay,” he said. “You need to go to the bank and get that cash out now. You cannot tell them what it is for. In one of my last cases, the identity thief was someone who worked at the bank.”

Michael told me to keep the phone on speaker so we would remain in contact. “It’s important that I monitor where this money goes from now on. Remember, all of your assets are part of this investigation,” he said. Then he told me that one of his colleagues would meet me at my apartment at 5 p.m. to guide me through the next steps.

“You can’t send a complete stranger to my home,” I said, my voice rising. “My 2-year-old son will be here.”

“Let me worry about that,” he said. “It’s my job. But if you don’t cooperate, I cannot keep you safe. It is your choice.”

It’s impossible to explain why I accepted this logic. But I had been given marching orders and a deadline. My son would be home soon, and I had to fix this mess. I put on sneakers in case I needed to run. I brought a backpack for the cash. I felt both terrified and absurd.

It was jarring to see trick-or-treaters in my Brooklyn neighborhood, people going about their lives. The air was crisp, and dead leaves swirled on the ground. I was on high alert for anyone who might be following me. At one point, a man in sunglasses and a hoodie trailed me for a few blocks. At Michael’s suggestion, I ducked into a parking garage until he passed.

When I reached the bank, I told the guard I needed to make a large cash withdrawal and she sent me upstairs. Michael was on speakerphone in my pocket. I asked the teller for $50,000. The woman behind the thick glass window raised her eyebrows, disappeared into a back room, came back with a large metal box of $100 bills, and counted them out with a machine. Then she pushed the stacks of bills through the slot along with a sheet of paper warning me against scams. I thanked her and left.

Michael was bursting with praise. “You did a great job,” he said. “I have to go for a moment to see about the details of your case; I’m going to have you speak to my colleague if you have any questions.” He put a woman on the line. She was younger, with an accent I couldn’t identify. She told me to go home and await further instructions.

As I walked back to my apartment, something jolted me out of my trance, and I became furious. No government agency would establish this as “protocol.” It was preposterous. “I need to speak with Michael,” I told the woman on the phone. He got on right away. “I don’t even believe that you’re a CIA agent,” I said. “What you’re asking me to do is completely unreasonable.”

He sighed. “I’m sending you a photo of my badge right now,” he said. “I don’t know what else to tell you. You can trust me, and I will help you. Or you can hang up and put yourself and your family in danger. Do you really want to take that risk with a young child?”

My Two Cents

How to protect yourself against scams, what charlotte cowles wishes she’d known..

I waited for a stoplight at a busy intersection. I could see my apartment window from where I stood. My son was playing inside with a neighbor’s daughter and their nanny. A picture of Michael’s badge appeared on my phone. I had no way of verifying it; it could easily have been Photoshopped. “I don’t trust you at all,” I said to Michael. “But it doesn’t seem like I have any other choice.”

When I got home, Michael told me to get a box, put the cash in it, take a picture of it, then tape it shut. I found a floral-printed shoe box that had once contained a pair of slippers I’d bought for myself — a frivolous purchase that now seemed mortifying. Michael told me to label it with my name, my case number, my address, a locker number he read to me, and my signature. Then he directed me to take another picture of the labeled box and text it to him.

“My colleague will be there soon. He is an undercover CIA agent, and he will secure the money for you,” he said. What exactly would that entail? I asked. “Tonight, we will close down your Social Security number, and you will lose access to your bank accounts,” he explained. “Tomorrow, you’ll need to go to the Social Security office and get a new Social Security number. We’ll secure this money for you in a government locker and hand-deliver a Treasury check for the same amount. You can cash the check and use it for your expenses until the investigation is over.”

“Why can’t I just use this cash?” I asked. “Why do you have to take it and give me a check?”

“Because all of your assets under your current identity are part of the investigation,” he said. “You are being charged with money laundering. If we secure this cash and then issue you a government check under your new Social Security number, that will be considered clean money.”

“I’ll need to see your colleague’s badge,” I said. “I’m not just going to give $50,000 of my money to someone I don’t know.”

“Undercover agents don’t carry badges,” he said, as if I’d asked the CIA to bring me a Happy Meal. “They’re undercover. Remember, you are probably being watched. The criminals cannot know that a CIA agent is there.”

In a twisted way, this made some amount of sense to me. Or maybe I had lost my grip on reality so completely that I was willing to resign myself to this new version of it. Most important, I didn’t know what else to do. Even if Michael wasn’t working for the CIA (which struck me as more and more likely), he was sending a man to our address. I felt a sickening dread that he might ask to come inside. If giving him this money would make him go away, I was ready to do it. I’d been on the phone for nearly five hours. I wanted to take my son trick-or-treating. I was exhausted.

Michael seemed to sense that I was flagging and asked if I’d had lunch. I hadn’t. He told me to eat something but keep him on the line; his agent was on the way to my address but running late. “You can meet him outside if that would make you more comfortable,” Michael said, and I felt relieved. While I gnawed on a granola bar at my desk, he got chatty and asked about my job. I told him I was going to Washington, D.C., later that week. “Oh, great. You could come to my office in Langley,” he said. “Where are you staying?”

A little after 6 p.m., Michael told me to go downstairs. His colleague was arriving. My husband had just come home from work and was reading to our son. “What’s going on? Is everything okay?” he asked as I put my coat on. I motioned to the phone and shushed him. Then I whispered, “I have to go downstairs and meet a guy who’s helping with the identity-theft case. I’ll explain more later.” He frowned and silently mouthed, “What?” I told him I had to go.

I met the SUV at the curb and put the money in the back seat. It was 6:06 p.m. Even if I’d tried to see who was driving, the windows were tinted and it was dusk. He maybe wore a baseball cap. When I turned around, I could see the backlit faces of my husband and son watching from our apartment nine stories above.

As I walked back inside, Michael texted me a photo of a Treasury check made out to me for $50,000 and told me a hard copy would be hand-delivered to me in the morning. He was working on setting up my appointment with the Social Security office. “You will receive a confirmation text shortly,” he said. “Stay on the line until you do.” I felt oddly comforted by this. An appointment would give me something legitimate, an actual connection to a government agency.

I took my son trick-or-treating, my phone on speaker in my pocket. I felt numb, almost in a fugue state, smiling and chatting with my neighbors and their kids. At one point, I checked to see if Michael was still there; his female colleague answered and said he’d be back soon. Then, when we got home and I checked again, the line was dead. I panicked and called back. The woman answered. “Michael is busy,” she said. “He’ll call you in the morning.”

I was confused. Did this mean I didn’t have a Social Security number at all anymore? I pictured myself floating, identity-less. “Do I have an appointment at the Social Security office?” I asked.

“Michael will call you tomorrow,” she repeated. “He hasn’t been able to secure your appointment yet. The Social Security office is closed now.”

I went into my bedroom and shut the door, feeling my face grow hot. I had a physical sensation of scales falling from my eyes; the room shimmered around me, spots raining from the ceiling. I saw the whole day peel away, like the layers of an onion — Michael, the FTC officer, the Amazon call — revealing my real life, raw and exposed, at the center. “Oh my God,” I said, my hands tingling. “You are lying to me. Michael was lying. You just took my money and I’m never getting it back.” That wasn’t true, the woman said. She understood that I was upset. She was sorry. Everything would be fine. “You’re a fucking liar,” I hissed, and hung up.

Through choking sobs, I told my husband what had happened. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, incredulous. “I would have stopped you.” That I’d been trying to protect him suddenly seemed so idiotic I couldn’t even say it out loud. Our son looked on, confused. “Mama’s sad,” he announced, clinging to my leg. We put him to bed and then I called my parents and my brother. At their urging, I called 911. Around 10:30 p.m., three police officers came over and took my statement. I struggled to recount what I’d done; it seemed like a bad dream. I felt like a fool.

“No government agency will ever ask you for money,” one cop informed me, as if I’d never heard it before. I wanted to scream, “I know. ” Instead, I said, “It didn’t really feel like he was asking.”

The police told me not to worry; the scammers wouldn’t be back. “They got what they wanted,” another officer said, as though it would reassure me. I gave them the photos and recordings I had. They promised to check traffic cameras for the car that had taken the money.

When I woke up the next morning, a few seconds passed before I remembered the previous day. I was my old self, in my old bed, milky dawn light on the walls. Then it all came crashing back, a fresh humiliation, and I curled into the fetal position. I felt violated, unreliable; I couldn’t trust myself. Were my tendencies toward people-pleasing, rule following, and conflict aversion far worse than I’d ever thought, even pathological? I imagined other people’s reactions. She’s always been a little careless. She seems unhinged. I considered keeping the whole thing a secret. I worried it would harm my professional reputation. I still do.

In the days that followed, I kept revisiting the fake world of that afternoon, slipping through a portal into an alternate life. I would get paranoid that someone was reading my texts, watching me as I took my son to school, or using my Social Security number to wire money and rent cars. It was a relief that I wasn’t actually in trouble with the law, but then again — I’d lost $50,000 and I wasn’t getting it back. I checked my accounts and credit cards obsessively. I called my bank. They gave me instructions to freeze my credit, file reports with the FBI and FTC, and run anti-virus software on my laptop to check for malware, which I did. I cried a lot. My husband felt helpless; he still doesn’t like to talk about it. Instead, he researched new locks for our doors and looked into security cameras. One night I shook him awake, convinced that someone was trying to break in. “It’s only the wind,” he said. “We’re safe.”

Fifty thousand dollars is a lot of money. It took me years to save, stashing away a few thousand every time I got paid for a big project. Part of it was money I had received from my grandfather, an inheritance he took great pains to set up for his grandchildren before his death. Sometimes I imagine how I would have spent it if I had to get rid of it in a day. I could have paid for over a year’s worth of child care up front. I could have put it toward the master’s degree I’ve always wanted. I could have housed multiple families for months. Perhaps, inadvertently, I am; I occasionally wonder what the scammers did with it.

Because I had set it aside for emergencies and taxes, it was money I tried to pretend I didn’t have — it wasn’t for spending. Initially, I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to afford my taxes this year, but then my accountant told me I could write off losses due to theft. So from a financial standpoint, I’ll survive, as long as I don’t have another emergency — a real one — anytime soon.

When I did tell friends what had happened, it seemed like everyone had a horror story. One friend’s dad, a criminal-defense attorney, had been scammed out of $1.2 million. Another person I know, a real-estate developer, was duped into wiring $450,000 to someone posing as one of his contractors. Someone else knew a Wall Street executive who had been conned into draining her 401(k) by some guy she met at a bar.

I felt a guilty sense of consolation whenever I heard about a scam involving someone I respected. If this could happen to them, maybe I wasn’t such a moron. As a journalist, it’s my instinct to research and talk to experts, so I dove into books and podcasts about scams, desperate to make sense of my own. I had known that fraud was on the rise but was shocked to learn the numbers — financial losses ballooned by more than 30 percent in 2022. I read that self-laceration is typical; half of victims blame themselves for being gullible, and most experience serious anxiety, depression, or other stress-related health problems afterward. I heard about victim support groups. I went to therapy.

When I discovered that Katie Gatti Tassin, a personal-finance expert who writes the popular Money With Katie newsletter, lost $8,000 five years ago to a grandmotherly-sounding woman pretending to call from Tassin’s credit union, I called her to ask how she’d coped. “Everyone was so patronizing,” she told me. “The response was basically ‘It’s your fault that this happened.’”

If I had to pinpoint a moment that made me think my scammers were legitimate, it was probably when they read me my Social Security number. Now I know that all kinds of personal information — your email address, your kids’ names and birthdays, even your pets’ names — are commonly sold on the dark web. Of course, the scammers could also have learned about my son from a 30-second perusal of my Instagram feed.

It was my brother, the lawyer, who pointed out that what I had experienced sounded a lot like a coerced confession. “I read enough transcripts of bad interrogations in law school to understand that anyone can be convinced that they have a very narrow set of terrible options,” he said. When I posed this theory to Saul Kassin, a psychology professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who studies coerced confessions, he agreed. “If someone is trying to get you to be compliant, they do it incrementally, in a series of small steps that take you farther and farther from what you know to be true,” he said. “It’s not about breaking the will. They were altering the sense of reality.” And when you haven’t done anything wrong, the risk of cooperating feels minimal, he added. An innocent person thinks everything will get sorted out. It also mattered that I was kept on the phone for so long. People start to break down cognitively after a few hours of interrogation. “At that point, they’re not thinking straight. They feel the need to put an end to the situation at all costs,” Kassin said.

I wondered how often scammers are caught and about the guy who’d driven the car to my apartment. But when I asked experts, they doubted he’d be a meaningful lead. One pointed out that he might have been a courier who was told to come pick up a box.

I still don’t believe that what happened to me could happen to anyone, but I’m starting to realize that I’m not uniquely fallible. Several friends felt strongly that if the scammers hadn’t mentioned my son, I would never have fallen for this. They’re right that I’d be willing to do — or pay — anything to protect him. Either way, I have to accept that someone waged psychological warfare on me, and I lost. For now, I just don’t answer my phone.

More From the spring 2024 fashion issue

  • Bring Back These ’00s Trends
  • Packing for Paris With Alex Consani
  • Where New York City Tweens Actually Like to Shop  
  • remove interruptions
  • newsletter pick
  • spring fashion
  • spring 2024 fashion issue
  • best of the cut
  • new york magazine
  • personal finance
  • first person
  • audio article

The Cut Shop

Most viewed stories.

  • Fani Willis Didn’t Stand a Chance
  • An Extremely Thorough Guide to ‘Who TF Did I Marry’
  • How I Got Scammed Out of $50,000  
  • The Mom Who Left Her Husband at 20 Weeks Pregnant
  • ‘I Think My Husband Is Trashing My Novel on Goodreads!’
  • The Lure of Divorce  

Editor’s Picks

how to write an essay on a book you never read

Most Popular

What is your email.

This email will be used to sign into all New York sites. By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy and to receive email correspondence from us.

Sign In To Continue Reading

Create your free account.

Password must be at least 8 characters and contain:

  • Lower case letters (a-z)
  • Upper case letters (A-Z)
  • Numbers (0-9)
  • Special Characters (!@#$%^&*)

As part of your account, you’ll receive occasional updates and offers from New York , which you can opt out of anytime.

AI Writes Scientific Papers That Sound Great—but Aren’t Accurate

Logo Photo Illustration

F irst came the students, who wanted help with their homework and essays. Now, ChatGPT is luring scientists, who are under pressure to publish papers in reputable scientific journals.

AI is already disrupting the archaic world of scientific publishing. When Melissa Kacena, vice chair of orthopaedic surgery at Indiana University School of Medicine, reviews articles submitted for publication in journals, she now knows to look out for ones that might have been written by the AI program. “I have a rule of thumb now that if I pull up 10 random references cited in the paper, and if more than one isn’t accurate, then I reject the paper,” she says.

But despite the pitfalls, there is also promise. Writing review articles, for example, is a task well suited to AI: it involves sifting through the existing research on a subject, analyzing the results, reaching a conclusion about the state of the science on the topic, and providing some new insight. ChatGPT can do all of those things well.

Kacena decided to see who is better at writing review articles: people or ChatGPT. For her study published in Current Osteoporosis Reports , she sorted nine students and the AI program into three groups and asked each group to write a review article on a different topic. For one group, she asked the students to write review articles on the topics; for another, she instructed ChatGPT to write articles on the same topics; and for the last group, she gave each of the students their own ChatGPT account and told them to work together with the AI program to write articles. That allowed her to compare articles written by people, by AI, and a combination of people and AI. She asked faculty member colleagues and the students to fact check each of the articles, and compared the three types of articles on measures like accuracy, ease of reading, and use of appropriate language.

Read More : To Make a Real Difference in Health Care, AI Will Need to Learn Like We Do

The results were eye-opening. The articles written by ChatGPT were easy to read and were even better written than the students'. But up to 70% of the cited references were inaccurate: they were either incoherently merged from several different studies or completely fictitious. The AI versions were also more likely to be plagiarized.

“ChatGPT was pretty convincing with some of the phony statements it made, to be honest,” says Kacena. “It used the proper syntax and integrated them with proper statements in a paragraph, so sometimes there were no warning bells. It was only because the faculty members had a good understanding of the data, or because the students fact checked everything, that they were detected.”

There were some advantages to the AI-generated articles. The algorithm was faster and more efficient in processing all the required data, and in general, ChatGPT used better grammar than the students. But it couldn't always read the room: AI tended to use more flowery language that wasn’t always appropriate for scientific journals (unless the students had told ChatGPT to write it from the perspective of a graduate-level science student.)

Read More : The 100 Most Influential People in AI

That reflects a truth about the use of AI: it's only as good as the information it receives. While ChatGPT isn’t quite ready to author scientific journal articles, with the proper programming and training, it could improve and become a useful tool for researchers. “Right now it’s not great by itself, but it can be made to work,” says Kacena. For example, if queried, the algorithm was good at recommending ways to summarize data in figures and graphical depictions. “The advice it gave on those were spot on, and exactly what I would have done,” she says.

The more feedback the students provided on ChatGPT's work, the better it learned—and that represents its greatest promise. In the study, some students found that when they worked together with ChatGPT to write the article, the program continued to improve and provide better results if they told it what things it was doing right, and what was less helpful. That means that addressing problems like questionable references and plagiarism could potentially be fixed. ChatGPT could be programmed, for example, to not merge references and to treat each scientific journal article as its own separate reference, and to limit copying consecutive words to avoid plagiarism.

With more input and some fixes, Kacena believes that AI could help researchers smooth out the writing process and even gain scientific insights. "I think ChatGPT is here to stay, and figuring out how to make it better, and how to use it in an ethical and conscientious and scientifically sound manner, is going to be really important,” she says.

More Must-Reads From TIME

  • Meet the 2024 Women of the Year
  • Greta Gerwig's Next Big Swing 
  • East Palestine, One Year After Train Derailment
  • In the Belly of MrBeast
  • The Closers: 18 People Working to End the Racial Wealth Gap
  • How Long Should You Isolate With COVID-19?
  • The Best Romantic Comedies to Watch on Netflix
  • Want Weekly Recs on What to Watch, Read, and More? Sign Up for Worth Your Time

Contact us at [email protected]

You May Also Like

Forget the ‘reading rules’ – and other lessons from a life with books

A writing professor reflects on the mistakes we make when we turn reading into a chore.

During the final days of 2023, my Instagram feed was filled with posts from readers attempting to squeeze in a few last books to meet their Goodreads Challenge goal: three more novels to 50, one last title after Christmas to clear 100, and speed-reading my last two to hit my goal.

I thought of these posts — and the surrounding debates in bookish circles over whether audiobooks or graphic novels “count” as reading — while working my way through “ Why We Read: On Bookworms, Libraries and Just One More Page Before Lights Out ,” a warm and funny memoir in essays from the appropriately named Shannon Reed.

Covering topics ranging from the deliciousness of that twist in “Gone Girl” and the joy of Amish romance novels to the semester she spent decoding George Saunders’s “Lincoln in the Bardo,” Reed — who teaches writing and contemporary fiction at the University of Pittsburgh — chronicles her lifelong relationships with books and reading.

Underlying each essay, though, is a conviction that people should read what they want to read. The latest Emily Henry book, “Moby-Dick” and tomes on U.S. history, she explains, all offer value to the reader.

“There are simply too many rules about reading,” she writes. “Worse, the higher up the ladder of being a Good Reader … people go, the more rules they seem to have internalized.”

These rules, such as reading the right literary books and eschewing genre fiction, make reading a duty instead of a joyful exercise. It’s a message that anyone obsessing over meeting their Goodreads goal could use: Throw out the expectations about reading properly, and do what makes you happy.

But every bookworm, even those not hemmed in by constraints, will find an essay, perhaps many, to enjoy in “Why We Read . ” Its witty and joyful installments document Reed’s early years reading, her time teaching high school and then university students, and the books that helped her through tough times. As someone who never leaves the house without at least one book in my bag, I found myself nodding along, thinking, “That’s me!” at countless passages.

Can novels make us better people?

The collection opens with Reed reflecting on how she turned to books as a hearing-impaired child. The books she devoured gave her a place where she felt entirely at home. Family trips to national parks were spent reading Nancy Drew mysteries, not taking in the scenery around her. Nights were spent trying to squeeze in just one more page before falling asleep.

“You have an evening companion: your book. You’re reading. There’s nothing else to do except sleep, which has no appeal, not until you know what happens after Jo cuts off all of her hair,” she writes in lines that instantly transported me to the first time I read “Little Women.”

Years later, Reed works as a teacher helping existing book lovers find more to read. In one particularly lovely moment, she explains to a low-income student that all the books at the public library are available free. The student, blown away after showing Reed her newfound treasures, whispers, “All my best friends are at the library.”

In one of the collection’s strongest essays, Reed recounts teaching “The Diary of Young Girl” as a substitute early in her career. In it, she criticizes the way books and literature are often taught, showing that it can take the fun out of reading. Simultaneously, she demonstrates how much she has learned from leading class discussions, even after teaching the same texts dozens of times. When a student brings a class to silence by admitting she didn’t think she would have the courage to protect Anne Frank and her family, “every one of us grasped that protecting innocent fellow humans was the only morally correct choice. Yet only one of us was willing to admit what had to be true: that if this [had] been asked of most of us, we wouldn’t have done it.” That discussion, she theorizes, stayed with her students long after any book they simply took a test on would have.

Another standout essay focuses on Reed’s experience reading Atul Gawande’s “ Being Mortal” as her father died and then again seven years later after experiencing the covid-19 pandemic. The book devastates her while leaving her with a greater appreciation of the small moments of her life. It’s a potent reminder of the power of finding the right book at the right time.

Despite these dark topics, Reed, a semifinalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor, intersperses her essays with funny lists gently mocking bibliophiles and genre conventions, such as “Signs You May Be an Adult Character in a YA Novel” (“Your kid’s friends think you’re the best”) and “Signs You May Be a Character in a Popular Children’s Book” (“You would like a hug”).

“Why We Read” would be a delightful addition to any bookworm’s shelves. In exploring the comfort and companionship books offer us, Reed gives her reader those gifts, as well.

Elizabeth Held is a writer in D.C. Her weekly newsletter, “ What To Read If ,” recommends a wide range of books.

Why We Read

On Bookworms, Libraries and Just One More Page Before Lights Out

By Shannon Reed

Hanover Square. 329 pp. $27.99

More from Book World

Best books of 2023: See our picks for the 10 best books of 2023 or dive into the staff picks that Book World writers and editors treasured in 2023. Check out the complete lists of 50 notable works for fiction and the top 50 non-fiction books of last year.

Find your favorite genre: These four new memoirs invite us to sit with the pleasures and pains of family. Lovers of hard facts should check out our roundup of some of the summer’s best historical books . Audiobooks more your thing? We’ve got you covered there, too . We also predicted which recent books will land on Barack Obama’s own summer 2023 list . And if you’re looking forward to what’s still ahead, we rounded up some of the buzziest releases of the summer .

Still need more reading inspiration? Every month, Book World’s editors and critics share their favorite books that they’ve read recently . You can also check out reviews of the latest in fiction and nonfiction .

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

how to write an essay on a book you never read

'ZDNET Recommends': What exactly does it mean?

ZDNET's recommendations are based on many hours of testing, research, and comparison shopping. We gather data from the best available sources, including vendor and retailer listings as well as other relevant and independent reviews sites. And we pore over customer reviews to find out what matters to real people who already own and use the products and services we’re assessing.

When you click through from our site to a retailer and buy a product or service, we may earn affiliate commissions. This helps support our work, but does not affect what we cover or how, and it does not affect the price you pay. Neither ZDNET nor the author are compensated for these independent reviews. Indeed, we follow strict guidelines that ensure our editorial content is never influenced by advertisers.

ZDNET's editorial team writes on behalf of you, our reader. Our goal is to deliver the most accurate information and the most knowledgeable advice possible in order to help you make smarter buying decisions on tech gear and a wide array of products and services. Our editors thoroughly review and fact-check every article to ensure that our content meets the highest standards. If we have made an error or published misleading information, we will correct or clarify the article. If you see inaccuracies in our content, please report the mistake via this form .

Create your own e-book using AI for just $30

myaiebook-stack-social

Create endless books with AI for just $30. 

Have you always dreamed of writing a book, but don't have the time and no idea where to start? Thanks to the advances in artificial intelligence, you can now  create your e-book from scratch with just three simple clicks using My AI eBook Creation Pro. 

Right now a lifetime subscription is currently available to new users for only $30, saving you over 90%.

 width=

My AI eBook Creation Pro: Lifetime Subscription

My AI eBook Creation Pro is powered by the AI in ChatGPT, so there is no software to download and install. You need no writing or AI experience whatsoever, and the interface is very intuitive. Breathe life into your story, then let ChatGPT AI swiftly and seamlessly transform it into a polished e-book.

The program still allows for personalization and customization, while also being user-friendly. Make your book engaging and captivating by tweaking any aspect of it that you wish.

If you find just the thought of completing an entire book overwhelming, then My AI eBook Creation Pro could be a good option for you. Now you can ditch all those complicated AI writing platforms and devote your efforts to developing ideas for your story.

With a lifetime subscription, create, sell, and profit as many times as you like. You'll need a desktop or laptop computer to access the platform and updates are included.

Get a  lifetime subscription to My AI eBook Creation Pro while it's still available to new users for $30.

ZDNET Recommends

 width=

Learn Python, AI and ChatGPT with this course bundle for just $30

 width=

This new AI Assistant from Adobe lets you chat with your PDFs at no additional cost

 width=

The best smart notebooks you can buy: Expert tested

TOEFL iBT ®  Test

The premier test of academic English communication

Learn more by selecting any step in your TOEFL iBT ®  journey.

TOEFL ® TestReady™

No other English language test provider has a prep offering like this — designed for you, with you. TOEFL ® TestReady ™ combines the best TOEFL iBT prep offerings with exclusive features and deeper insights to enhance your English communication skills. All feedback, recommendations, personalized insights and tips are developed by the same teams that write and produce the TOEFL iBT test.

Whether you’re just embarking on your TOEFL iBT journey or aiming to boost your scores, TOEFL TestReady can help you get further, faster, with tailored study solutions for your skill level and goals.

Your Free TOEFL TestReady Account

Create or log in to your free account now to get instant access to your personalized, one-stop prep portal and explore all of the benefits TOEFL TestReady has to offer.

What’s included?

Research shows that performance in TOEFL TestReady can help you accurately predict your score on test day. The better your performance in the portal, the more likely it is for you to achieve a higher TOEFL iBT score 1 .

Free Practice Test

Practice for your TOEFL iBT test anytime, anywhere, for free, with a full-length practice test.

  • AI-powered automated scoring
  • Performance feedback for all 4 sections
  • Personalized feedback and tips for Speaking and Writing responses

Free Activity of the Day

Log in every day to challenge yourself with a free activity from one of the 4 test sections, such as a Reading passage and related questions. This activity rotates daily.

Free Tailored Study Plan

Not sure when to start preparing for the TOEFL iBT test? Answer 5 short survey questions to generate a free interactive study plan to fit your schedule and help you stay organized, track your progress and focus on the skills you need to boost.

TOEFL Practice Online (TPO) tests simulate the real TOEFL iBT testing experience.

  • Review and answer authentic test questions.
  • Receive scores and performance feedback within 24 hours.
  • Choose from volumes that include complete tests, half tests or speaking tests.

Section Tests

Practice a section in test mode and receive a score, performance feedback and additional insights.

  • Receive estimated section score and CEFR level
  • Get personalized feedback on Speaking and Writing responses
  • Review correct and incorrect answers in the Reading and Listening sections

Section Practice

Practice a complete section at your own pace and receive immediate scores, feedback and insights to help you improve.

  • Reading and Listening: learn why your response was correct/ incorrect as well as why other response options were correct/incorrect.
  • Speaking: receive feedback on speech rate, rhythm, pronunciation, grammar, and more, plus transcripts of your responses and exemplars for comparison.
  • Writing: get specific feedback on grammar, usage, mechanics and more. Includes exemplars for comparison.

Focused Practice

Boost your skills and confidence by focusing on sets of specific question types with immediate scores, feedback and insights.

Guides & Books

Best-selling guides and books to help you prepare for the TOEFL iBT test.

The Official Guide to the TOEFL iBT ® Test

This guide is a comprehensive, all-in-one reference to help you prepare for the test and get your best score. It is available in eBook and paperback formats and includes:

  • Four full-length practice tests
  • Interactive versions of all four tests, in addition to the book versions
  • valuable tips
  • scoring criteria
  • hundreds of sample questions for all four test sections

Official TOEFL iBT ® Tests, Volumes 1 & 2

Get 10 authentic, full-length TOEFL iBT tests with previous test questions. Available in paperback or eBook formats, each volume offers five practice tests and includes:

  • Interactive online versions of all five tests
  • Sample Speaking and Writing responses
  • Audio files and written transcripts for all listening passages

Learn about TOEFL iBT courses to help you prepare for your test.

Official TOEFL iBT ® Prep Course

Build the skills you need to communicate in English in an academic environment with this self-paced course. With the 6-month subscription, you’ll be able to:

  • Do in-depth lessons and activities across the 4 skills — Reading, Listening, Speaking and Writing
  • Take pre- and post-tests to help you evaluate your performance
  • Receive score ranges for the Speaking and Writing post-tests, using the same automated scoring as in the actual TOEFL iBT test

You can choose one of two options:

  • The Prep Course — standard course
  • The Prep Course PLUS — everything in the standard course, plus additional scoring and feedback, including score ranges for Speaking and Writing activities and tests, and written feedback on your Speaking responses

TOEFL ® Test Preparation: The Insider's Guide

With this free self-paced course, you can learn and practice whenever it’s most convenient for you. It includes:

  • An introduction to the test and each section
  • Short quizzes
  • Collaborative discussion boards
  • Tips from expert instructors
  • Scaled-score range for Speaking and Writing practice questions
  • Information and sample questions for the new Writing for an Academic Discussion task

Value Packs

Save money when you purchase multiple prep offerings bundled together into an expertly curated package. Find discounts on test registrations, practice tests, guides, books, additional score reports and more.

Performance Insights, Feedback and Guidance

As you engage with TOEFL TestReady prep offerings, robust AI algorithms serve up valuable information to help you maximize your score potential.

Feel confident on test day! The overwhelming majority of learners we surveyed reported that the new test prep offerings and features within TOEFL TestReady boosted their confidence, improved their skills and increased their readiness for the TOEFL iBT test 2 .

Curated Prep Recommendations

Close skill gaps and focus your time more effectively and efficiently with curated prep recommendations. Receive evolving guidance on where to focus your efforts and which prep offerings to try next based on insights drawn from your past performance.

Continuous Progress Tracking

Monitor your progress in real time with tracking of overall performance, section performance and question type performance. Your personal Insights page showcases your skill trends, as well as an estimated TOEFL iBT score and CEFR level to help you gauge your readiness.

1 Source: Statistics gathered from 765 users who also took the TOEFL iBT test (China, India, and the U.S.)

2 Source: Survey of 765 users across China, India and the U.S.

IMAGES

  1. Marvelous How To Write An Essay About A Book ~ Thatsnotus

    how to write an essay on a book you never read

  2. Quick Way To Write Essay

    how to write an essay on a book you never read

  3. Using Quotes in an Essay: Ultimate Beginner's Guide

    how to write an essay on a book you never read

  4. Literary Essay

    how to write an essay on a book you never read

  5. How To Write An Essay Examples

    how to write an essay on a book you never read

  6. 005 Essay Example Idhow To Write A Book ~ Thatsnotus

    how to write an essay on a book you never read

VIDEO

  1. Tracy Lawrence

  2. I’ve NEVER Read a Book for Entertainment… #contest #sigma #shorts

  3. The Book you Never Read

  4. Write a book you want to read #booktube #authorlife #authortube #booktubers #fantasybook #publisher

  5. Write an Essay Properly ! #essay #speaking #writing #eassywriting

  6. What popular books will you never read? #bookworm #booktok #books #popularbooks #reading

COMMENTS

  1. How to Write an Essay on a Book You Didn't Read

    The first thing to do is to carefully read the requirements for your essay in order to understand what information you need to pay attention to. Then, you will move on to skimming through the book. And the first tip is to always take notes while reading. If you write down the key information and ideas it will significantly simplify the process ...

  2. Have Not Read The Book

    Stay general about the book (summary and informative sites can help you do this). Then, when he time is right, find a key detail somewhere in the text and insert it to support your critical analysis. This will make it appear as though you've read the book and remembered salient points, even when you haven't. Use a writing service.

  3. How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read

    Carrying this book around recently I've caught more than a little flak, not least from my kids, who once thought of me as a literary intellectual, or at the very least as a guy who espoused the ...

  4. PDF Strategies for Essay Writing

    When you write an essay for a course you are taking, you are being asked not only to create a product (the essay) but, more importantly, to go through a process of thinking more deeply about a question or problem related to the course. By writing about a source or collection of sources, you will have the chance to wrestle with some of the

  5. How To Write an A+ Essay And Never Read The Book!

    Middle School, High School, and College are CRaZy! There is so much pressure and stress put on students! Over the years some of us have figured out little tr...

  6. 9 Essay Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

    Make sure that by the end of your essay, your reader knows what your opinion is. 3. The polemic. Try not to make your reader think of you shouting at them from a soapbox. The direct opposite of the "weighing scales" approach is the polemic. In this kind of essay, your reader is in no doubt at all about what your point of view is ...

  7. How to Write an Essay About a Book: the Essential Guide

    Learning the different book title writing styles for each paper format is very important, especially when writing a college essay about a book. How to write an essay about a book. Writing a book essay can be tricky, so here are the steps that will guide you: Read the book and locate literary devices; The first step is to read the book and take ...

  8. A Step-By-Step Guide to Writing an Essay on a Book

    Tools for Writing an Essay on a Book. When writing an essay on a book there are certain tools that can help make the process easier. Knowing some of these basic terms and tools can help you write a better essay and make it much more enjoyable. Outlining. Creating an outline is one of the most important steps in writing an essay.

  9. The Beginner's Guide to Writing an Essay

    Come up with a thesis. Create an essay outline. Write the introduction. Write the main body, organized into paragraphs. Write the conclusion. Evaluate the overall organization. Revise the content of each paragraph. Proofread your essay or use a Grammar Checker for language errors. Use a plagiarism checker.

  10. Essay Writing: How to Write an Outstanding Essay

    The basic steps for how to write an essay are: Generate ideas and pick a type of essay to write. Outline your essay paragraph by paragraph. Write a rough first draft without worrying about details like word choice or grammar. Edit your rough draft, and revise and fix the details. Review your essay for typos, mistakes, and any other problems.

  11. 5 tips on how to write an essay without reading the whole book

    For most essays, all you need to do it put the page number in parentheses at the end of the sentence with the quote. The more citations and page numbers that appear in the essay, the more the ...

  12. How to write a good essay when you haven't read the book?

    Take any main idea you want and develop 3 BPs proving your point by using the PDF file of the novel and ctrl + F key words from the main idea or thesis, then use whichever quote pops up as supporting evidence. You can usually fit any quote to any main idea. This is coming from a certified procrastinator, someone who hates reading and has done ...

  13. Writing An Essay On A Book

    Read the assigned book. The best way to capture the essence of a book as you seek to know how to write an essay on a book is to read the work. You cannot capture the message of the book with the first reading; hove well you are at it. You have to read the work severally, identifying different aspects that make the work stand out or fail in one ...

  14. Writing an essay about a book I didn't read...

    14. [deleted] • 10 yr. ago. my second proudest moment in university was when I wrote a paper on Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart," without having read it and recieved an A-. My proudest moment in case you're wondering is when I didn't want to write a paper, so I submitted a gif as a .doc file so it could look like a corrupted file and buy ...

  15. How to Write About Books That You Haven`t Read

    This is a way to train your brain to think really quickly, to focus on details, and to switch from one task to the other. Besides, if you`re trying to write a review on a book you know nothing about, this is a good challenge for your intuition. Read the title, the first and the last couple of pages, and try to guess what the plot might actually be.

  16. Writing an Essay without Reading the Book?

    This process may take between 30 minutes and two hours, depending on the length of the book, but it will be time well spent. This reading will give you the basic information you need, and is significantly shorter than reading the whole text. Once you have a basic idea of the plot of the story and its principle characters, it is time to start ...

  17. How to Start an Essay: 7 Tips for a Knockout Essay Introduction

    You might have an outline already and know what you want to write, but struggle to find the right words to get it going. Don't worry; you aren't the first person to grapple with starting an essay, and you certainly won't be the last. Writing an essay isn't the same as writing a book. Or writing a poem. Or writing a scientific research ...

  18. A Professor's Guide to Writing Essays: The No-Nonsense Plan for Better

    What I am going to do is give you a plan for how you should approach writing essays. This plan works. If you follow it and practice it, you will learn to write much better essays - all types of essays. Because all essays are essentially the same. Most teachers and books will tell you differently. But I think they are wrong.

  19. Essays About Books: Top 5 Examples and Writing Prompts

    Books offer unlimited benefits if well used, but not when abused, and as the writer said, "no book can be good if studied negligently.". 5. Long Essay on Books by Ram. "Books are important because they provide a few things that are key to an open and intelligent society.".

  20. What Not to Do When Writing a Novel

    What Not to Do When Writing a Novel. If you want to write a New York Times bestseller, or at least publish a book, there's plenty of sound advice out there on how to write a novel. It's also worth considering the common pitfalls that tend to ensnare new writers so that you know what not to do. If you want to write a *New York Times ...

  21. 7 Ideas for Writers Who Have No Idea What to Write About

    Write about it all. 3. Do the "Write ~ Reward" dance. To force myself to write when I think I have nothing to write about, I say: "Laurie, after you've worked on the editor's assignment client's stuff for 30 minutes, then you can reward yourself by blogging for an hour.". I don't consider blogging writing.

  22. Hints On Writing Persuasive Essays About Books

    School years are the time when students have to read a lot of stories, novels, poems and book review are often assigned to review and evaluate the content and the ideas of various literary works. Writing a winning essay about books can help you improve your understanding of the text and get a high grade.. Read about effective ways to create an effective persuasive essay about an exciting piece ...

  23. Literacy crisis in college students: Essay from a professor on students

    Ten years into my college teaching career, students stopped being able to read effectively. Recent years have seen successive waves of book bans in Republican-controlled states, aimed at pulling ...

  24. How to Write an Essay: A Beginner's Guide

    It is the only guide to essay-writing you will ever need and is ideal for high-school and college students This book provides detailed instructions on the four main essay types: argumentative, expository, descriptive and narrative. "How to Write an Essay: A Beginner's Guide" explains all the necessary techniques to enable your essay to be ...

  25. Opinion

    Ms. Kadish is the author of the novel "The Weight of Ink." "Write down a phrase you find abhorrent — something you yourself would never say." My students looked startled, but they ...

  26. How I Fell for an Amazon Scam Call and Handed Over $50,000

    On a Tuesday evening this past October, I put $50,000 in cash in a shoe box, taped it shut as instructed, and carried it to the sidewalk in front of my apartment, my phone clasped to my ear. "Don't let anyone hurt me," I told the man on the line, feeling pathetic. "You won't be hurt," he answered.

  27. Here's What Happens When ChatGPT Writes a Scientific Article

    The results were eye-opening. The articles written by ChatGPT were easy to read and were even better written than the students'. But up to 70% of the cited references were inaccurate: they were ...

  28. Forget the 'reading rules'

    February 8, 2024 at 12:00 p.m. EST. (Hanover Square) During the final days of 2023, my Instagram feed was filled with posts from readers attempting to squeeze in a few last books to meet their ...

  29. Create your own e-book using AI for just $30

    Create your own e-book using AI for just $30. Using ChatGPT, My AI eBook Creation Pro helps you write an entire e-book with just three clicks -- no writing or technical experience required ...

  30. TOEFL TestReady

    No other English language test provider has a prep offering like this — designed for you, with you. TOEFL ® TestReady ™ combines the best TOEFL iBT prep offerings with exclusive features and deeper insights to enhance your English communication skills. All feedback, recommendations, personalized insights and tips are developed by the same teams that write and produce the TOEFL iBT test.