Child Abuse
Book Critique Guidelines
Pick a nonfiction book related to child maltreatment. The book I picked and was approved for is: A Child Called “It” by Dave Pelzer. The ebook can be found on google.
Basic Guidelines
Times New Roman 12 point font
1 inch margins (left, right, top, and bottom) and page number/header at 1/2 inch top margin
Must be a minimum of 7 pages (excluding Title Page and Reference Page)
You need a minimum of 2 scholarly journal articles sources within your paper. Make sure that when you use your sources they provide something significant to the point you are making and you are not using them as unnecessary filler.
Your sources cannot be older than 2014.
Must be in American Psychological Association (APA) format
Grammar, spelling, and sentence structure counts towards your grade
Double space your paper (remove extra spacing between paragraphs)
Do not use quotes in your paper. You must paraphrase.
Do not bold text or right justify (aligning text to the right)
If you do not know or understand, ask for clarification
Do not wait until the last minute to read the book and work on the assignment
If you need help finding sources or using the library’s website, you can call, email, or chat with the reference librarians (information can be found on the library’s main page)
Avoid redundancy, wordiness, colloquial expressions, and contractions
It is very important that every word that you include in your paper has a purpose. Do not include unnecessary fillers within the paper.
Write in a manner that anyone reading your paper will understand the point you are trying to make
Book Critique Guidelines
You will have to analyze, evaluate, and apply what you have read.
You will need a thesis statement which will reflect the main point of your critique.
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Include scholarly sources to support your point.
Content Information Guidelines
Include the four section headings provided below in your paper.
Summary
Your summary should be no more than a 2 page. Make sure that the summary lets me know that you read the book. It is a good idea to take notes and jot down your thoughts as you are reading. You should be able to write your summary without having to continually flip through the book. If you are continuously flipping through the book or trying to give a chapter by chapter summary of the book, this gives the professor the impression that you either did not read the book thoroughly or you are incapable of comprehending what you have read. Your summary should not appear to be a bunch of paraphrasing taking from the book. It should be your summary of the book. Do not use first person in this section.
Book Review
This section of the book should be 1 page long in essay and paragraph format that is clearly written and organized. The main purpose of this section is to address your thoughts on the book itself. For this section, you can discuss things such as what you liked and/or disliked about the book, what you feel was missing from the book, whether the book appealed to you on an emotional level and why or why not, character(s) you liked or disliked, etc. You do not and cannot address all of these things because you only have one page. Remember that when you are writing paragraphs, they should be structured well and information in each paragraph should be related to each other. Make sure that you are detailed in explaining why your feel the way you do. You can use first person in this section.
Critical Analysis and Support
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Your critical analysis should be 3 pages in essay and paragraph format. This section is the substance of your book critique. In the critical analysis and support section choose one main point within the book to discuss. Each of you should take away something different from the book you are reading. For example while reading a book on child sexual abuse, one student might focus on the challenges of victims and come up with solutions for helping them heal. Another student might read the same book and believe that the best way to deal with the issue is focus on treating the abuser. A third student might point out that the book indicated how important outsiders (teachers, friends, neighbors, etc.) are to recognizing and reporting signs of child sexual abuse. You can get this from reading one sentence that stood out to you in the book or from the overall theme of the book.
Your main point will be considered your thesis statement so it should be written well and concise, and it should be the first sentence. An example of your thesis statement using one of the examples above could be: As the book demonstrated, the school environment plays an important role in potentially recognizing and reporting signs of child sexual abuse; therefore it is important that both students and teachers are trained each year about the subject. The thesis statement will be unique to how the book impacted you.
This section of the book critique can be considered a mini-research paper because you have a point that you are trying to make (thesis statement) that you will have support with specific examples from the book (through paraphrasing with pages numbers) and academic journal articles (through paraphrasing). With the first part of my thesis statement, I will have to focus on how the book demonstrated the importance of schools in child sexual abuse cases. The second part of the thesis statement is your solution and requires you to go beyond the information in the book.
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This part is where you will need academic sources to support you. For this part if I feel that schools should develop programs focused on peer-to-peer relationships for recognizing and reporting child sexual abuse, I will have to discuss what type of program I think is best, why I think it is best, and be able to support it academically.
In this section 80% of the analysis is you, while support material (from the text or academic sources) should make up only 20%. The reason for this is that you must show you understand the topic, can critically think, and can effectively use sources as support material only. Do not use first person in this section.
Conclusion
The conclusion should be a 1 page.