How to write a book report?

Book reports may be required by teachers who want to know whether their students have read the books assigned and how well they understand those books. If they are not required, students may as well write one or two for themselves, for writing book reports helps students to improve their reading comprehension and their ability to analyze and evaluate books. Moreover, it is very good practice.

Generally speaking, a book report consists of the following three main parts: information about the author and his times, a summary of the book, and comments on it.

A brief account of the author’s life should be given together with a description of his times. The latter should include the circumstances that led to the writing of the book under discussion and the historical and social background related to the content of the book. To make these things clear, the writer perhaps needs to read some reference material, such as biographies of the author and histories of the period described in the book.

A summary should be self-contained, clear, and easy to understand. Above all, it should be objective. Comments on and criticisms of the book should not be mixed with the summary; they can be left to the third part. The summary of a novel or a play is usually written in the present tense, while that of nonfiction, in the tense of the original work: for

example, the past tense should be used for a history, and the present for a scientific work.

Comments on and evaluation of the book form the third and most important part of a book report. In this part the writer expresses his or her own views on the book, names its merits and demerits, and discusses its relevance to the present time. The discussion should of course center on the content of the book, but the author’s style and techniques of presentation, if interesting, can also be touched upon.

How to write a summary?

A summary is a brief restatement of the essential thought of a longer composition, a novel or a play. It reproduces the theme of the original with as few words as possible. When one writes a summary, one should not interpret or comment. All one has to do is to give the gist of the author’s exact and essential meaning.

When you write a summary, you should do the following:

1. You should use fewer words.

A. Omit the details. Only the important points should be included; all the details that explain the main points can be left out.

B. Reduce the examples.

C. Simplify the descriptions. If there are ten sentences describing a person or an object, it will be enough to keep one or two in the summary.

D. Eliminate all repetitions.

E. Compress wordy sentences and change phrases to words.

2. The summary should be all in your own words. It must not be a patchwork made up of phrases and sentences quoted from the original passage.

3. You should follow the logical order of the original passage. Ideas and facts need not be rearranged.

4. The summary should be self-contained, that is, it must convey the message of the original fully and clearly, so that your reader needs no reference to the original to understand what its main ideas are.

 

第二篇：Training report 英语实训报告

Training report

Recently, we have gone on a hotel English training. It lasted for two weeks, from June 8th to June 21st . During these days, the teacher let us finish different tasks about hotel English and we worked in pairs. These tasks were divided into two parts,

including written part and oral part. The written part could help us learn to write better and the oral part offered a chance to us to improve our oral levels. We really learned a lot from the training.

These tasks were mainly about the Front Office, the Housekeeping Department and Food and Beverage Department. From the Front Office part, at the beginning, we not only knew how to make the room reservations, but also learned to how to check in, how to extend the stay and change the rooms.Then, we learned a lot of things about how to deal with unexpected things, such as dealing with the complaint and on the guest’s requirements. In addition, we learned some things about foreign currency exchange and checking out. After learning the Front Office part, we learned much knowledge about the Housekeeping Department, including cleaning the room, turn-down service, maintenance service ,laundry service and other housekeeping

services. Except the two departments, we also learned Food and Beverage Department. This part covers much knowledge about different kinds of food and wines. We had a simple understanding of the department.

After the training, I draw a conclusion. As a staff of the hotel, no matter which department we work in, we need to pay attention to the following aspects. First of all, we need to be patient and polite because our behaviors have a rather important

influence on the development of the hotel. As the old saying goes, the guest is the god and is always right. So we have to learn to put ourselves in the guests’ shoes. In this way, we can understand the guests better and serve them better. Secondly, it is

necessary for us to master some useful skills, such as helping the guests solve some problems and dealing with emergencies. What’s more, we should be careful and try our best not to bring the unnecessary trouble to the guests which can help us make the guests satisfied.

In a word, we really learn a lot from the training. To a certain extent, it not only helps us review the knowledge that we have learned, but also let us learn some new things about hotel English. What’s more, the training makes us know how to cooperate with others and work more efficiently.