For your first major paper you will be writing a literary analysis. Unlike a research paper, a literary analysis does not ask you to work with information outside the primary text. Instead, a literary analysis is an intense and thorough investigation of the primary text for the purpose of understanding and conveying to others the internal complexities of that text. This exercise requires you to pick and expound upon the importance of specific attributes of your text. You will need to make a claim, or argument, about an attribute and how it relates to the overall text. This claim will then be support by a wealth of specific evidence from the text demonstrating why your claim is valid.
Starting Out:
Start by thoroughly reading your chosen text. Make notes of things that strike you as interesting, important, or confusing.
Map out the plot. Determine what happens when and why, and what the central or key events are.
Map out the structure. Determine what kind of text this is and what genre(s) it falls into. From what point of view is the story told and what we can determine about the narrator(s).
Map out the characters. Describe each character and figure out the relationships between the characters. Identify the protagonist and antagonist, and whether any characters are foils of one another, etc.
Map out themes, tropes, and other patterns. Determine what refrains are repeated throughout the text.
Map out the language. Writers always choose their words and sentence/line structure carefully. Determine how the words and sentence/line patterns they use contribute to the overall themes and ideas in the text. Are some passages “faster” than others? “Slower?” Is the language elevated (big words) or simple? Where are things described in detail and where are things glossed over? If there is dialogue, how does it convey how the characters are feeling and do the characters communicate through the dialogue (or does one character say something that the other character doesn’t understand). How does the choice of specific words create a tone or mood?
The Central Question:
Once you’ve gone through all the work of investigation, you will probably have several questions about the text. A central question is a specific question about one attribute of the text. A central question cannot be broad enough to include all resources and it cannot be narrow enough to be limited to fact. Asking when Melville was born is a question of fact. Asking whether “Annabel Lee” is a good poem is not specific. Additionally, a central question will add to the overall understanding of the text. It will take a small, sometimes inconspicuous detail and show how that detail makes the text as a whole more meaningful. A good central question for Moby Dick is “How does the repeated image of whiteness add to the overall theme of uncertainty?” Once you come up with a central question you must go back through your text and find all the details that inform your question. You then can analyze these details and come up with a claim.
Making a Claim, Writing the Introduction:
Now that you’ve come up with a central question you are ready to move forward to making a claim. A claim is your argument about a specific attribute of the text. It states what you think the importance of that attribute to the text is. Your claim should be in the introduction of the text. It is also known as a thesis statement. Your introduction should be built around this claim and should tell the reader what your claim is, why your claim is valuable to a deeper understanding of the text, and how you intend to prove or support your claim in the paper. The introduction is basically a map for reading the rest of the paper and instructs the reader about why your paper is important.
Evidence, Writing the Body:
After your introduction comes the presentation of evidence. Evidence is all the details from the text that support your claim. Evidence is not general; it is specific. It is important to remember that your claim is only as good as your evidence. Your paper is on trial and a successful paper offers plentiful evidence to support its claim(s). Equally important is explaining your evidence. You cannot expect your reader to make the same leaps in logic that you do so you must show them why and how a specific detail supports your claim. In general, you should group your evidence together in ways that make sense. In our example of whiteness and Moby Dick, you might talk in one paragraph about the white whale and in another paragraph about the absence of white people on the ship. Your conclusion will help to pull together the evidence in your different paragraphs by elaborating on the thread (your claim) that links everything together.
Requirements:
Your paper will need to be between 1000-1250 words (about 4-5 full pages) and be formatted in proper MLA format and must include a Works Cited page (which does not count towards your page count). If you are unfamiliar with MLA format, you need to go to the MLA module and read over how to do this. There are also numerous videos on YouTube that you can watch.For your first major paper you will be writing a literary analysis. Unlike a research paper, a literary analysis does not ask you to work with information outside the primary text. Instead, a literary analysis is an intense and thorough investigation of the primary text for the purpose of understanding and conveying to others the internal complexities of that text. This exercise requires you to pick and expound upon the importance of specific attributes of your text. You will need to make a claim, or argument, about an attribute and how it relates to the overall text. This claim will then be support by a wealth of specific evidence from the text demonstrating why your claim is valid.
Starting Out:
Start by thoroughly reading your chosen text. Make notes of things that strike you as interesting, important, or confusing.
Map out the plot. Determine what happens when and why, and what the central or key events are.
Map out the structure. Determine what kind of text this is and what genre(s) it falls into. From what point of view is the story told and what we can determine about the narrator(s).
Map out the characters. Describe each character and figure out the relationships between the characters. Identify the protagonist and antagonist, and whether any characters are foils of one another, etc.
Map out themes, tropes, and other patterns. Determine what refrains are repeated throughout the text.
Map out the language. Writers always choose their words and sentence/line structure carefully. Determine how the words and sentence/line patterns they use contribute to the overall themes and ideas in the text. Are some passages “faster” than others? “Slower?” Is the language elevated (big words) or simple? Where are things described in detail and where are things glossed over? If there is dialogue, how does it convey how the characters are feeling and do the characters communicate through the dialogue (or does one character say something that the other character doesn’t understand). How does the choice of specific words create a tone or mood?
The Central Question:
Once you’ve gone through all the work of investigation, you will probably have several questions about the text. A central question is a specific question about one attribute of the text. A central question cannot be broad enough to include all resources and it cannot be narrow enough to be limited to fact. Asking when Melville was born is a question of fact. Asking whether “Annabel Lee” is a good poem is not specific. Additionally, a central question will add to the overall understanding of the text. It will take a small, sometimes inconspicuous detail and show how that detail makes the text as a whole more meaningful. A good central question for Moby Dick is “How does the repeated image of whiteness add to the overall theme of uncertainty?” Once you come up with a central question you must go back through your text and find all the details that inform your question. You then can analyze these details and come up with a claim.
Making a Claim, Writing the Introduction:
Now that you’ve come up with a central question you are ready to move forward to making a claim. A claim is your argument about a specific attribute of the text. It states what you think the importance of that attribute to the text is. Your claim should be in the introduction of the text. It is also known as a thesis statement. Your introduction should be built around this claim and should tell the reader what your claim is, why your claim is valuable to a deeper understanding of the text, and how you intend to prove or support your claim in the paper. The introduction is basically a map for reading the rest of the paper and instructs the reader about why your paper is important.
Evidence, Writing the Body:
After your introduction comes the presentation of evidence. Evidence is all the details from the text that support your claim. Evidence is not general; it is specific. It is important to remember that your claim is only as good as your evidence. Your paper is on trial and a successful paper offers plentiful evidence to support its claim(s). Equally important is explaining your evidence. You cannot expect your reader to make the same leaps in logic that you do so you must show them why and how a specific detail supports your claim. In general, you should group your evidence together in ways that make sense. In our example of whiteness and Moby Dick, you might talk in one paragraph about the white whale and in another paragraph about the absence of white people on the ship. Your conclusion will help to pull together the evidence in your different paragraphs by elaborating on the thread (your claim) that links everything together.
Requirements:
Your paper will need to be between 1000-1250 words (about 4-5 full pages) and be formatted in proper MLA format and must include a Works Cited page (which does not count towards your page count). If you are unfamiliar with MLA format, you need to go to the MLA module and read over how to do this. There are also numerous videos on YouTube that you can watch.For your first major paper you will be writing a literary analysis. Unlike a research paper, a literary analysis does not ask you to work with information outside the primary text. Instead, a literary analysis is an intense and thorough investigation of the primary text for the purpose of understanding and conveying to others the internal complexities of that text. This exercise requires you to pick and expound upon the importance of specific attributes of your text. You will need to make a claim, or argument, about an attribute and how it relates to the overall text. This claim will then be support by a wealth of specific evidence from the text demonstrating why your claim is valid.
Starting Out:
Start by thoroughly reading your chosen text. Make notes of things that strike you as interesting, important, or confusing.
Map out the plot. Determine what happens when and why, and what the central or key events are.
Map out the structure. Determine what kind of text this is and what genre(s) it falls into. From what point of view is the story told and what we can determine about the narrator(s).
Map out the characters. Describe each character and figure out the relationships between the characters. Identify the protagonist and antagonist, and whether any characters are foils of one another, etc.
Map out themes, tropes, and other patterns. Determine what refrains are repeated throughout the text.
Map out the language. Writers always choose their words and sentence/line structure carefully. Determine how the words and sentence/line patterns they use contribute to the overall themes and ideas in the text. Are some passages “faster” than others? “Slower?” Is the language elevated (big words) or simple? Where are things described in detail and where are things glossed over? If there is dialogue, how does it convey how the characters are feeling and do the characters communicate through the dialogue (or does one character say something that the other character doesn’t understand). How does the choice of specific words create a tone or mood?
The Central Question:
Once you’ve gone through all the work of investigation, you will probably have several questions about the text. A central question is a specific question about one attribute of the text. A central question cannot be broad enough to include all resources and it cannot be narrow enough to be limited to fact. Asking when Melville was born is a question of fact. Asking whether “Annabel Lee” is a good poem is not specific. Additionally, a central question will add to the overall understanding of the text. It will take a small, sometimes inconspicuous detail and show how that detail makes the text as a whole more meaningful. A good central question for Moby Dick is “How does the repeated image of whiteness add to the overall theme of uncertainty?” Once you come up with a central question you must go back through your text and find all the details that inform your question. You then can analyze these details and come up with a claim.
Making a Claim, Writing the Introduction:
Now that you’ve come up with a central question you are ready to move forward to making a claim. A claim is your argument about a specific attribute of the text. It states what you think the importance of that attribute to the text is. Your claim should be in the introduction of the text. It is also known as a thesis statement. Your introduction should be built around this claim and should tell the reader what your claim is, why your claim is valuable to a deeper understanding of the text, and how you intend to prove or support your claim in the paper. The introduction is basically a map for reading the rest of the paper and instructs the reader about why your paper is important.
Evidence, Writing the Body:
After your introduction comes the presentation of evidence. Evidence is all the details from the text that support your claim. Evidence is not general; it is specific. It is important to remember that your claim is only as good as your evidence. Your paper is on trial and a successful paper offers plentiful evidence to support its claim(s). Equally important is explaining your evidence. You cannot expect your reader to make the same leaps in logic that you do so you must show them why and how a specific detail supports your claim. In general, you should group your evidence together in ways that make sense. In our example of whiteness and Moby Dick, you might talk in one paragraph about the white whale and in another paragraph about the absence of white people on the ship. Your conclusion will help to pull together the evidence in your different paragraphs by elaborating on the thread (your claim) that links everything together.
Requirements:
Your paper will need to be between 1000-1250 words (about 4-5 full pages) and be formatted in proper MLA format and must include a Works Cited page (which does not count towards your page count). If you are unfamiliar with MLA format, you need to go to the MLA module and read over how to do this. There are also numerous videos on YouTube that you can watch.For your first major paper you will be writing a literary analysis. Unlike a research paper, a literary analysis does not ask you to work with information outside the primary text. Instead, a literary analysis is an intense and thorough investigation of the primary text for the purpose of understanding and conveying to others the internal complexities of that text. This exercise requires you to pick and expound upon the importance of specific attributes of your text. You will need to make a claim, or argument, about an attribute and how it relates to the overall text. This claim will then be support by a wealth of specific evidence from the text demonstrating why your claim is valid.
Starting Out:
Start by thoroughly reading your chosen text. Make notes of things that strike you as interesting, important, or confusing.
Map out the plot. Determine what happens when and why, and what the central or key events are.
Map out the structure. Determine what kind of text this is and what genre(s) it falls into. From what point of view is the story told and what we can determine about the narrator(s).
Map out the characters. Describe each character and figure out the relationships between the characters. Identify the protagonist and antagonist, and whether any characters are foils of one another, etc.
Map out themes, tropes, and other patterns. Determine what refrains are repeated throughout the text.
Map out the language. Writers always choose their words and sentence/line structure carefully. Determine how the words and sentence/line patterns they use contribute to the overall themes and ideas in the text. Are some passages “faster” than others? “Slower?” Is the language elevated (big words) or simple? Where are things described in detail and where are things glossed over? If there is dialogue, how does it convey how the characters are feeling and do the characters communicate through the dialogue (or does one character say something that the other character doesn’t understand). How does the choice of specific words create a tone or mood?
The Central Question:
Once you’ve gone through all the work of investigation, you will probably have several questions about the text. A central question is a specific question about one attribute of the text. A central question cannot be broad enough to include all resources and it cannot be narrow enough to be limited to fact. Asking when Melville was born is a question of fact. Asking whether “Annabel Lee” is a good poem is not specific. Additionally, a central question will add to the overall understanding of the text. It will take a small, sometimes inconspicuous detail and show how that detail makes the text as a whole more meaningful. A good central question for Moby Dick is “How does the repeated image of whiteness add to the overall theme of uncertainty?” Once you come up with a central question you must go back through your text and find all the details that inform your question. You then can analyze these details and come up with a claim.
Making a Claim, Writing the Introduction:
Now that you’ve come up with a central question you are ready to move forward to making a claim. A claim is your argument about a specific attribute of the text. It states what you think the importance of that attribute to the text is. Your claim should be in the introduction of the text. It is also known as a thesis statement. Your introduction should be built around this claim and should tell the reader what your claim is, why your claim is valuable to a deeper understanding of the text, and how you intend to prove or support your claim in the paper. The introduction is basically a map for reading the rest of the paper and instructs the reader about why your paper is important.
Evidence, Writing the Body:
After your introduction comes the presentation of evidence. Evidence is all the details from the text that support your claim. Evidence is not general; it is specific. It is important to remember that your claim is only as good as your evidence. Your paper is on trial and a successful paper offers plentiful evidence to support its claim(s). Equally important is explaining your evidence. You cannot expect your reader to make the same leaps in logic that you do so you must show them why and how a specific detail supports your claim. In general, you should group your evidence together in ways that make sense. In our example of whiteness and Moby Dick, you might talk in one paragraph about the white whale and in another paragraph about the absence of white people on the ship. Your conclusion will help to pull together the evidence in your different paragraphs by elaborating on the thread (your claim) that links everything together.
Requirements:
Your paper will need to be between 1000-1250 words (about 4-5 full pages) and be formatted in proper MLA format and must include a Works Cited page (which does not count towards your page count). If you are unfamiliar with MLA format, you need to go to the MLA module and read over how to do this. There are also numerous videos on YouTube that you can watch.For your first major paper you will be writing a literary analysis. Unlike a research paper, a literary analysis does not ask you to work with information outside the primary text. Instead, a literary analysis is an intense and thorough investigation of the primary text for the purpose of understanding and conveying to others the internal complexities of that text. This exercise requires you to pick and expound upon the importance of specific attributes of your text. You will need to make a claim, or argument, about an attribute and how it relates to the overall text. This claim will then be support by a wealth of specific evidence from the text demonstrating why your claim is valid.
Starting Out:
Start by thoroughly reading your chosen text. Make notes of things that strike you as interesting, important, or confusing.
Map out the plot. Determine what happens when and why, and what the central or key events are.
Map out the structure. Determine what kind of text this is and what genre(s) it falls into. From what point of view is the story told and what we can determine about the narrator(s).
Map out the characters. Describe each character and figure out the relationships between the characters. Identify the protagonist and antagonist, and whether any characters are foils of one another, etc.
Map out themes, tropes, and other patterns. Determine what refrains are repeated throughout the text.
Map out the language. Writers always choose their words and sentence/line structure carefully. Determine how the words and sentence/line patterns they use contribute to the overall themes and ideas in the text. Are some passages “faster” than others? “Slower?” Is the language elevated (big words) or simple? Where are things described in detail and where are things glossed over? If there is dialogue, how does it convey how the characters are feeling and do the characters communicate through the dialogue (or does one character say something that the other character doesn’t understand). How does the choice of specific words create a tone or mood?
The Central Question:
Once you’ve gone through all the work of investigation, you will probably have several questions about the text. A central question is a specific question about one attribute of the text. A central question cannot be broad enough to include all resources and it cannot be narrow enough to be limited to fact. Asking when Melville was born is a question of fact. Asking whether “Annabel Lee” is a good poem is not specific. Additionally, a central question will add to the overall understanding of the text. It will take a small, sometimes inconspicuous detail and show how that detail makes the text as a whole more meaningful. A good central question for Moby Dick is “How does the repeated image of whiteness add to the overall theme of uncertainty?” Once you come up with a central question you must go back through your text and find all the details that inform your question. You then can analyze these details and come up with a claim.
Making a Claim, Writing the Introduction:
Now that you’ve come up with a central question you are ready to move forward to making a claim. A claim is your argument about a specific attribute of the text. It states what you think the importance of that attribute to the text is. Your claim should be in the introduction of the text. It is also known as a thesis statement. Your introduction should be built around this claim and should tell the reader what your claim is, why your claim is valuable to a deeper understanding of the text, and how you intend to prove or support your claim in the paper. The introduction is basically a map for reading the rest of the paper and instructs the reader about why your paper is important.
Evidence, Writing the Body:
After your introduction comes the presentation of evidence. Evidence is all the details from the text that support your claim. Evidence is not general; it is specific. It is important to remember that your claim is only as good as your evidence. Your paper is on trial and a successful paper offers plentiful evidence to support its claim(s). Equally important is explaining your evidence. You cannot expect your reader to make the same leaps in logic that you do so you must show them why and how a specific detail supports your claim. In general, you should group your evidence together in ways that make sense. In our example of whiteness and Moby Dick, you might talk in one paragraph about the white whale and in another paragraph about the absence of white people on the ship. Your conclusion will help to pull together the evidence in your different paragraphs by elaborating on the thread (your claim) that links everything together.
Requirements:
Your paper will need to be between 1000-1250 words (about 4-5 full pages) and be formatted in proper MLA format and must include a Works Cited page (which does not count towards your page count). If you are unfamiliar with MLA format, you need to go to the MLA module and read over how to do this. There are also numerous videos on YouTube that you can watch.For your first major paper you will be writing a literary analysis. Unlike a research paper, a literary analysis does not ask you to work with information outside the primary text. Instead, a literary analysis is an intense and thorough investigation of the primary text for the purpose of understanding and conveying to others the internal complexities of that text. This exercise requires you to pick and expound upon the importance of specific attributes of your text. You will need to make a claim, or argument, about an attribute and how it relates to the overall text. This claim will then be support by a wealth of specific evidence from the text demonstrating why your claim is valid.
Starting Out:
Start by thoroughly reading your chosen text. Make notes of things that strike you as interesting, important, or confusing.
Map out the plot. Determine what happens when and why, and what the central or key events are.
Map out the structure. Determine what kind of text this is and what genre(s) it falls into. From what point of view is the story told and what we can determine about the narrator(s).
Map out the characters. Describe each character and figure out the relationships between the characters. Identify the protagonist and antagonist, and whether any characters are foils of one another, etc.
Map out themes, tropes, and other patterns. Determine what refrains are repeated throughout the text.
Map out the language. Writers always choose their words and sentence/line structure carefully. Determine how the words and sentence/line patterns they use contribute to the overall themes and ideas in the text. Are some passages “faster” than others? “Slower?” Is the language elevated (big words) or simple? Where are things described in detail and where are things glossed over? If there is dialogue, how does it convey how the characters are feeling and do the characters communicate through the dialogue (or does one character say something that the other character doesn’t understand). How does the choice of specific words create a tone or mood?
The Central Question:
Once you’ve gone through all the work of investigation, you will probably have several questions about the text. A central question is a specific question about one attribute of the text. A central question cannot be broad enough to include all resources and it cannot be narrow enough to be limited to fact. Asking when Melville was born is a question of fact. Asking whether “Annabel Lee” is a good poem is not specific. Additionally, a central question will add to the overall understanding of the text. It will take a small, sometimes inconspicuous detail and show how that detail makes the text as a whole more meaningful. A good central question for Moby Dick is “How does the repeated image of whiteness add to the overall theme of uncertainty?” Once you come up with a central question you must go back through your text and find all the details that inform your question. You then can analyze these details and come up with a claim.
Making a Claim, Writing the Introduction:
Now that you’ve come up with a central question you are ready to move forward to making a claim. A claim is your argument about a specific attribute of the text. It states what you think the importance of that attribute to the text is. Your claim should be in the introduction of the text. It is also known as a thesis statement. Your introduction should be built around this claim and should tell the reader what your claim is, why your claim is valuable to a deeper understanding of the text, and how you intend to prove or support your claim in the paper. The introduction is basically a map for reading the rest of the paper and instructs the reader about why your paper is important.
Evidence, Writing the Body:
After your introduction comes the presentation of evidence. Evidence is all the details from the text that support your claim. Evidence is not general; it is specific. It is important to remember that your claim is only as good as your evidence. Your paper is on trial and a successful paper offers plentiful evidence to support its claim(s). Equally important is explaining your evidence. You cannot expect your reader to make the same leaps in logic that you do so you must show them why and how a specific detail supports your claim. In general, you should group your evidence together in ways that make sense. In our example of whiteness and Moby Dick, you might talk in one paragraph about the white whale and in another paragraph about the absence of white people on the ship. Your conclusion will help to pull together the evidence in your different paragraphs by elaborating on the thread (your claim) that links everything together.
Requirements:
Your paper will need to be between 1000-1250 words (about 4-5 full pages) and be formatted in proper MLA format and must include a Works Cited page (which does not count towards your page count). If you are unfamiliar with MLA format, you need to go to the MLA module and read over how to do this. There are also numerous videos on YouTube that you can watch.For your first major paper you will be writing a literary analysis. Unlike a research paper, a literary analysis does not ask you to work with information outside the primary text. Instead, a literary analysis is an intense and thorough investigation of the primary text for the purpose of understanding and conveying to others the internal complexities of that text. This exercise requires you to pick and expound upon the importance of specific attributes of your text. You will need to make a claim, or argument, about an attribute and how it relates to the overall text. This claim will then be support by a wealth of specific evidence from the text demonstrating why your claim is valid.
Starting Out:
Start by thoroughly reading your chosen text. Make notes of things that strike you as interesting, important, or confusing.
Map out the plot. Determine what happens when and why, and what the central or key events are.
Map out the structure. Determine what kind of text this is and what genre(s) it falls into. From what point of view is the story told and what we can determine about the narrator(s).
Map out the characters. Describe each character and figure out the relationships between the characters. Identify the protagonist and antagonist, and whether any characters are foils of one another, etc.
Map out themes, tropes, and other patterns. Determine what refrains are repeated throughout the text.
Map out the language. Writers always choose their words and sentence/line structure carefully. Determine how the words and sentence/line patterns they use contribute to the overall themes and ideas in the text. Are some passages “faster” than others? “Slower?” Is the language elevated (big words) or simple? Where are things described in detail and where are things glossed over? If there is dialogue, how does it convey how the characters are feeling and do the characters communicate through the dialogue (or does one character say something that the other character doesn’t understand). How does the choice of specific words create a tone or mood?
The Central Question:
Once you’ve gone through all the work of investigation, you will probably have several questions about the text. A central question is a specific question about one attribute of the text. A central question cannot be broad enough to include all resources and it cannot be narrow enough to be limited to fact. Asking when Melville was born is a question of fact. Asking whether “Annabel Lee” is a good poem is not specific. Additionally, a central question will add to the overall understanding of the text. It will take a small, sometimes inconspicuous detail and show how that detail makes the text as a whole more meaningful. A good central question for Moby Dick is “How does the repeated image of whiteness add to the overall theme of uncertainty?” Once you come up with a central question you must go back through your text and find all the details that inform your question. You then can analyze these details and come up with a claim.
Making a Claim, Writing the Introduction:
Now that you’ve come up with a central question you are ready to move forward to making a claim. A claim is your argument about a specific attribute of the text. It states what you think the importance of that attribute to the text is. Your claim should be in the introduction of the text. It is also known as a thesis statement. Your introduction should be built around this claim and should tell the reader what your claim is, why your claim is valuable to a deeper understanding of the text, and how you intend to prove or support your claim in the paper. The introduction is basically a map for reading the rest of the paper and instructs the reader about why your paper is important.
Evidence, Writing the Body:
After your introduction comes the presentation of evidence. Evidence is all the details from the text that support your claim. Evidence is not general; it is specific. It is important to remember that your claim is only as good as your evidence. Your paper is on trial and a successful paper offers plentiful evidence to support its claim(s). Equally important is explaining your evidence. You cannot expect your reader to make the same leaps in logic that you do so you must show them why and how a specific detail supports your claim. In general, you should group your evidence together in ways that make sense. In our example of whiteness and Moby Dick, you might talk in one paragraph about the white whale and in another paragraph about the absence of white people on the ship. Your conclusion will help to pull together the evidence in your different paragraphs by elaborating on the thread (your claim) that links everything together.
Requirements:
Your paper will need to be between 1000-1250 words (about 4-5 full pages) and be formatted in proper MLA format and must include a Works Cited page (which does not count towards your page count). If you are unfamiliar with MLA format, you need to go to the MLA module and read over how to do this. There are also numerous videos on YouTube that you can watch.For your first major paper you will be writing a literary analysis. Unlike a research paper, a literary analysis does not ask you to work with information outside the primary text. Instead, a literary analysis is an intense and thorough investigation of the primary text for the purpose of understanding and conveying to others the internal complexities of that text. This exercise requires you to pick and expound upon the importance of specific attributes of your text. You will need to make a claim, or argument, about an attribute and how it relates to the overall text. This claim will then be support by a wealth of specific evidence from the text demonstrating why your claim is valid.
Starting Out:
Start by thoroughly reading your chosen text. Make notes of things that strike you as interesting, important, or confusing.
Map out the plot. Determine what happens when and why, and what the central or key events are.
Map out the structure. Determine what kind of text this is and what genre(s) it falls into. From what point of view is the story told and what we can determine about the narrator(s).
Map out the characters. Describe each character and figure out the relationships between the characters. Identify the protagonist and antagonist, and whether any characters are foils of one another, etc.
Map out themes, tropes, and other patterns. Determine what refrains are repeated throughout the text.
Map out the language. Writers always choose their words and sentence/line structure carefully. Determine how the words and sentence/line patterns they use contribute to the overall themes and ideas in the text. Are some passages “faster” than others? “Slower?” Is the language elevated (big words) or simple? Where are things described in detail and where are things glossed over? If there is dialogue, how does it convey how the characters are feeling and do the characters communicate through the dialogue (or does one character say something that the other character doesn’t understand). How does the choice of specific words create a tone or mood?
The Central Question:
Once you’ve gone through all the work of investigation, you will probably have several questions about the text. A central question is a specific question about one attribute of the text. A central question cannot be broad enough to include all resources and it cannot be narrow enough to be limited to fact. Asking when Melville was born is a question of fact. Asking whether “Annabel Lee” is a good poem is not specific. Additionally, a central question will add to the overall understanding of the text. It will take a small, sometimes inconspicuous detail and show how that detail makes the text as a whole more meaningful. A good central question for Moby Dick is “How does the repeated image of whiteness add to the overall theme of uncertainty?” Once you come up with a central question you must go back through your text and find all the details that inform your question. You then can analyze these details and come up with a claim.
Making a Claim, Writing the Introduction:
Now that you’ve come up with a central question you are ready to move forward to making a claim. A claim is your argument about a specific attribute of the text. It states what you think the importance of that attribute to the text is. Your claim should be in the introduction of the text. It is also known as a thesis statement. Your introduction should be built around this claim and should tell the reader what your claim is, why your claim is valuable to a deeper understanding of the text, and how you intend to prove or support your claim in the paper. The introduction is basically a map for reading the rest of the paper and instructs the reader about why your paper is important.
Evidence, Writing the Body:
After your introduction comes the presentation of evidence. Evidence is all the details from the text that support your claim. Evidence is not general; it is specific. It is important to remember that your claim is only as good as your evidence. Your paper is on trial and a successful paper offers plentiful evidence to support its claim(s). Equally important is explaining your evidence. You cannot expect your reader to make the same leaps in logic that you do so you must show them why and how a specific detail supports your claim. In general, you should group your evidence together in ways that make sense. In our example of whiteness and Moby Dick, you might talk in one paragraph about the white whale and in another paragraph about the absence of white people on the ship. Your conclusion will help to pull together the evidence in your different paragraphs by elaborating on the thread (your claim) that links everything together.
Requirements:
Your paper will need to be between 1000-1250 words (about 4-5 full pages) and be formatted in proper MLA format and must include a Works Cited page (which does not count towards your page count). If you are unfamiliar with MLA format, you need to go to the MLA module and read over how to do this. There are also numerous videos on YouTube that you can watch.For your first major paper you will be writing a literary analysis. Unlike a research paper, a literary analysis does not ask you to work with information outside the primary text. Instead, a literary analysis is an intense and thorough investigation of the primary text for the purpose of understanding and conveying to others the internal complexities of that text. This exercise requires you to pick and expound upon the importance of specific attributes of your text. You will need to make a claim, or argument, about an attribute and how it relates to the overall text. This claim will then be support by a wealth of specific evidence from the text demonstrating why your claim is valid.
Starting Out:
Start by thoroughly reading your chosen text. Make notes of things that strike you as interesting, important, or confusing.
Map out the plot. Determine what happens when and why, and what the central or key events are.
Map out the structure. Determine what kind of text this is and what genre(s) it falls into. From what point of view is the story told and what we can determine about the narrator(s).
Map out the characters. Describe each character and figure out the relationships between the characters. Identify the protagonist and antagonist, and whether any characters are foils of one another, etc.
Map out themes, tropes, and other patterns. Determine what refrains are repeated throughout the text.
Map out the language. Writers always choose their words and sentence/line structure carefully. Determine how the words and sentence/line patterns they use contribute to the overall themes and ideas in the text. Are some passages “faster” than others? “Slower?” Is the language elevated (big words) or simple? Where are things described in detail and where are things glossed over? If there is dialogue, how does it convey how the characters are feeling and do the characters communicate through the dialogue (or does one character say something that the other character doesn’t understand). How does the choice of specific words create a tone or mood?
The Central Question:
Once you’ve gone through all the work of investigation, you will probably have several questions about the text. A central question is a specific question about one attribute of the text. A central question cannot be broad enough to include all resources and it cannot be narrow enough to be limited to fact. Asking when Melville was born is a question of fact. Asking whether “Annabel Lee” is a good poem is not specific. Additionally, a central question will add to the overall understanding of the text. It will take a small, sometimes inconspicuous detail and show how that detail makes the text as a whole more meaningful. A good central question for Moby Dick is “How does the repeated image of whiteness add to the overall theme of uncertainty?” Once you come up with a central question you must go back through your text and find all the details that inform your question. You then can analyze these details and come up with a claim.
Making a Claim, Writing the Introduction:
Now that you’ve come up with a central question you are ready to move forward to making a claim. A claim is your argument about a specific attribute of the text. It states what you think the importance of that attribute to the text is. Your claim should be in the introduction of the text. It is also known as a thesis statement. Your introduction should be built around this claim and should tell the reader what your claim is, why your claim is valuable to a deeper understanding of the text, and how you intend to prove or support your claim in the paper. The introduction is basically a map for reading the rest of the paper and instructs the reader about why your paper is important.
Evidence, Writing the Body:
After your introduction comes the presentation of evidence. Evidence is all the details from the text that support your claim. Evidence is not general; it is specific. It is important to remember that your claim is only as good as your evidence. Your paper is on trial and a successful paper offers plentiful evidence to support its claim(s). Equally important is explaining your evidence. You cannot expect your reader to make the same leaps in logic that you do so you must show them why and how a specific detail supports your claim. In general, you should group your evidence together in ways that make sense. In our example of whiteness and Moby Dick, you might talk in one paragraph about the white whale and in another paragraph about the absence of white people on the ship. Your conclusion will help to pull together the evidence in your different paragraphs by elaborating on the thread (your claim) that links everything together.
Requirements:
Your paper will need to be between 1000-1250 words (about 4-5 full pages) and be formatted in proper MLA format and must include a Works Cited page (which does not count towards your page count). If you are unfamiliar with MLA format, you need to go to the MLA module and read over how to do this. There are also numerous videos on YouTube that you can watch.For your first major paper you will be writing a literary analysis. Unlike a research paper, a literary analysis does not ask you to work with information outside the primary text. Instead, a literary analysis is an intense and thorough investigation of the primary text for the purpose of understanding and conveying to others the internal complexities of that text. This exercise requires you to pick and expound upon the importance of specific attributes of your text. You will need to make a claim, or argument, about an attribute and how it relates to the overall text. This claim will then be support by a wealth of specific evidence from the text demonstrating why your claim is valid.
Starting Out:
Start by thoroughly reading your chosen text. Make notes of things that strike you as interesting, important, or confusing.
Map out the plot. Determine what happens when and why, and what the central or key events are.
Map out the structure. Determine what kind of text this is and what genre(s) it falls into. From what point of view is the story told and what we can determine about the narrator(s).
Map out the characters. Describe each character and figure out the relationships between the characters. Identify the protagonist and antagonist, and whether any characters are foils of one another, etc.
Map out themes, tropes, and other patterns. Determine what refrains are repeated throughout the text.
Map out the language. Writers always choose their words and sentence/line structure carefully. Determine how the words and sentence/line patterns they use contribute to the overall themes and ideas in the text. Are some passages “faster” than others? “Slower?” Is the language elevated (big words) or simple? Where are things described in detail and where are things glossed over? If there is dialogue, how does it convey how the characters are feeling and do the characters communicate through the dialogue (or does one character say something that the other character doesn’t understand). How does the choice of specific words create a tone or mood?
The Central Question:
Once you’ve gone through all the work of investigation, you will probably have several questions about the text. A central question is a specific question about one attribute of the text. A central question cannot be broad enough to include all resources and it cannot be narrow enough to be limited to fact. Asking when Melville was born is a question of fact. Asking whether “Annabel Lee” is a good poem is not specific. Additionally, a central question will add to the overall understanding of the text. It will take a small, sometimes inconspicuous detail and show how that detail makes the text as a whole more meaningful. A good central question for Moby Dick is “How does the repeated image of whiteness add to the overall theme of uncertainty?” Once you come up with a central question you must go back through your text and find all the details that inform your question. You then can analyze these details and come up with a claim.
Making a Claim, Writing the Introduction:
Now that you’ve come up with a central question you are ready to move forward to making a claim. A claim is your argument about a specific attribute of the text. It states what you think the importance of that attribute to the text is. Your claim should be in the introduction of the text. It is also known as a thesis statement. Your introduction should be built around this claim and should tell the reader what your claim is, why your claim is valuable to a deeper understanding of the text, and how you intend to prove or support your claim in the paper. The introduction is basically a map for reading the rest of the paper and instructs the reader about why your paper is important.
Evidence, Writing the Body:
After your introduction comes the presentation of evidence. Evidence is all the details from the text that support your claim. Evidence is not general; it is specific. It is important to remember that your claim is only as good as your evidence. Your paper is on trial and a successful paper offers plentiful evidence to support its claim(s). Equally important is explaining your evidence. You cannot expect your reader to make the same leaps in logic that you do so you must show them why and how a specific detail supports your claim. In general, you should group your evidence together in ways that make sense. In our example of whiteness and Moby Dick, you might talk in one paragraph about the white whale and in another paragraph about the absence of white people on the ship. Your conclusion will help to pull together the evidence in your different paragraphs by elaborating on the thread (your claim) that links everything together.
Requirements:
Your paper will need to be between 1000-1250 words (about 4-5 full pages) and be formatted in proper MLA format and must include a Works Cited page (which does not count towards your page count). If you are unfamiliar with MLA format, you need to go to the MLA module and read over how to do this. There are also numerous videos on YouTube that you can watch.For your first major paper you will be writing a literary analysis. Unlike a research paper, a literary analysis does not ask you to work with information outside the primary text. Instead, a literary analysis is an intense and thorough investigation of the primary text for the purpose of understanding and conveying to others the internal complexities of that text. This exercise requires you to pick and expound upon the importance of specific attributes of your text. You will need to make a claim, or argument, about an attribute and how it relates to the overall text. This claim will then be support by a wealth of specific evidence from the text demonstrating why your claim is valid.
Starting Out:
Start by thoroughly reading your chosen text. Make notes of things that strike you as interesting, important, or confusing.
Map out the plot. Determine what happens when and why, and what the central or key events are.
Map out the structure. Determine what kind of text this is and what genre(s) it falls into. From what point of view is the story told and what we can determine about the narrator(s).
Map out the characters. Describe each character and figure out the relationships between the characters. Identify the protagonist and antagonist, and whether any characters are foils of one another, etc.
Map out themes, tropes, and other patterns. Determine what refrains are repeated throughout the text.
Map out the language. Writers always choose their words and sentence/line structure carefully. Determine how the words and sentence/line patterns they use contribute to the overall themes and ideas in the text. Are some passages “faster” than others? “Slower?” Is the language elevated (big words) or simple? Where are things described in detail and where are things glossed over? If there is dialogue, how does it convey how the characters are feeling and do the characters communicate through the dialogue (or does one character say something that the other character doesn’t understand). How does the choice of specific words create a tone or mood?
The Central Question:
Once you’ve gone through all the work of investigation, you will probably have several questions about the text. A central question is a specific question about one attribute of the text. A central question cannot be broad enough to include all resources and it cannot be narrow enough to be limited to fact. Asking when Melville was born is a question of fact. Asking whether “Annabel Lee” is a good poem is not specific. Additionally, a central question will add to the overall understanding of the text. It will take a small, sometimes inconspicuous detail and show how that detail makes the text as a whole more meaningful. A good central question for Moby Dick is “How does the repeated image of whiteness add to the overall theme of uncertainty?” Once you come up with a central question you must go back through your text and find all the details that inform your question. You then can analyze these details and come up with a claim.
Making a Claim, Writing the Introduction:
Now that you’ve come up with a central question you are ready to move forward to making a claim. A claim is your argument about a specific attribute of the text. It states what you think the importance of that attribute to the text is. Your claim should be in the introduction of the text. It is also known as a thesis statement. Your introduction should be built around this claim and should tell the reader what your claim is, why your claim is valuable to a deeper understanding of the text, and how you intend to prove or support your claim in the paper. The introduction is basically a map for reading the rest of the paper and instructs the reader about why your paper is important.
Evidence, Writing the Body:
After your introduction comes the presentation of evidence. Evidence is all the details from the text that support your claim. Evidence is not general; it is specific. It is important to remember that your claim is only as good as your evidence. Your paper is on trial and a successful paper offers plentiful evidence to support its claim(s). Equally important is explaining your evidence. You cannot expect your reader to make the same leaps in logic that you do so you must show them why and how a specific detail supports your claim. In general, you should group your evidence together in ways that make sense. In our example of whiteness and Moby Dick, you might talk in one paragraph about the white whale and in another paragraph about the absence of white people on the ship. Your conclusion will help to pull together the evidence in your different paragraphs by elaborating on the thread (your claim) that links everything together.
Requirements:
Your paper will need to be between 1000-1250 words (about 4-5 full pages) and be formatted in proper MLA format and must include a Works Cited page (which does not count towards your page count). If you are unfamiliar with MLA format, you need to go to the MLA module and read over how to do this. There are also numerous videos on YouTube that you can watch.For your first major paper you will be writing a literary analysis. Unlike a research paper, a literary analysis does not ask you to work with information outside the primary text. Instead, a literary analysis is an intense and thorough investigation of the primary text for the purpose of understanding and conveying to others the internal complexities of that text. This exercise requires you to pick and expound upon the importance of specific attributes of your text. You will need to make a claim, or argument, about an attribute and how it relates to the overall text. This claim will then be support by a wealth of specific evidence from the text demonstrating why your claim is valid.
Starting Out:
Start by thoroughly reading your chosen text. Make notes of things that strike you as interesting, important, or confusing.
Map out the plot. Determine what happens when and why, and what the central or key events are.
Map out the structure. Determine what kind of text this is and what genre(s) it falls into. From what point of view is the story told and what we can determine about the narrator(s).
Map out the characters. Describe each character and figure out the relationships between the characters. Identify the protagonist and antagonist, and whether any characters are foils of one another, etc.
Map out themes, tropes, and other patterns. Determine what refrains are repeated throughout the text.
Map out the language. Writers always choose their words and sentence/line structure carefully. Determine how the words and sentence/line patterns they use contribute to the overall themes and ideas in the text. Are some passages “faster” than others? “Slower?” Is the language elevated (big words) or simple? Where are things described in detail and where are things glossed over? If there is dialogue, how does it convey how the characters are feeling and do the characters communicate through the dialogue (or does one character say something that the other character doesn’t understand). How does the choice of specific words create a tone or mood?
The Central Question:
Once you’ve gone through all the work of investigation, you will probably have several questions about the text. A central question is a specific question about one attribute of the text. A central question cannot be broad enough to include all resources and it cannot be narrow enough to be limited to fact. Asking when Melville was born is a question of fact. Asking whether “Annabel Lee” is a good poem is not specific. Additionally, a central question will add to the overall understanding of the text. It will take a small, sometimes inconspicuous detail and show how that detail makes the text as a whole more meaningful. A good central question for Moby Dick is “How does the repeated image of whiteness add to the overall theme of uncertainty?” Once you come up with a central question you must go back through your text and find all the details that inform your question. You then can analyze these details and come up with a claim.
Making a Claim, Writing the Introduction:
Now that you’ve come up with a central question you are ready to move forward to making a claim. A claim is your argument about a specific attribute of the text. It states what you think the importance of that attribute to the text is. Your claim should be in the introduction of the text. It is also known as a thesis statement. Your introduction should be built around this claim and should tell the reader what your claim is, why your claim is valuable to a deeper understanding of the text, and how you intend to prove or support your claim in the paper. The introduction is basically a map for reading the rest of the paper and instructs the reader about why your paper is important.
Evidence, Writing the Body:
After your introduction comes the presentation of evidence. Evidence is all the details from the text that support your claim. Evidence is not general; it is specific. It is important to remember that your claim is only as good as your evidence. Your paper is on trial and a successful paper offers plentiful evidence to support its claim(s). Equally important is explaining your evidence. You cannot expect your reader to make the same leaps in logic that you do so you must show them why and how a specific detail supports your claim. In general, you should group your evidence together in ways that make sense. In our example of whiteness and Moby Dick, you might talk in one paragraph about the white whale and in another paragraph about the absence of white people on the ship. Your conclusion will help to pull together the evidence in your different paragraphs by elaborating on the thread (your claim) that links everything together.
Requirements:
Your paper will need to be between 1000-1250 words (about 4-5 full pages) and be formatted in proper MLA format and must include a Works Cited page (which does not count towards your page count). If you are unfamiliar with MLA format, you need to go to the MLA module and read over how to do this. There are also numerous videos on YouTube that you can watch.For your first major paper you will be writing a literary analysis. Unlike a research paper, a literary analysis does not ask you to work with information outside the primary text. Instead, a literary analysis is an intense and thorough investigation of the primary text for the purpose of understanding and conveying to others the internal complexities of that text. This exercise requires you to pick and expound upon the importance of specific attributes of your text. You will need to make a claim, or argument, about an attribute and how it relates to the overall text. This claim will then be support by a wealth of specific evidence from the text demonstrating why your claim is valid.
Starting Out:
Start by thoroughly reading your chosen text. Make notes of things that strike you as interesting, important, or confusing.
Map out the plot. Determine what happens when and why, and what the central or key events are.
Map out the structure. Determine what kind of text this is and what genre(s) it falls into. From what point of view is the story told and what we can determine about the narrator(s).
Map out the characters. Describe each character and figure out the relationships between the characters. Identify the protagonist and antagonist, and whether any characters are foils of one another, etc.
Map out themes, tropes, and other patterns. Determine what refrains are repeated throughout the text.
Map out the language. Writers always choose their words and sentence/line structure carefully. Determine how the words and sentence/line patterns they use contribute to the overall themes and ideas in the text. Are some passages “faster” than others? “Slower?” Is the language elevated (big words) or simple? Where are things described in detail and where are things glossed over? If there is dialogue, how does it convey how the characters are feeling and do the characters communicate through the dialogue (or does one character say something that the other character doesn’t understand). How does the choice of specific words create a tone or mood?
The Central Question:
Once you’ve gone through all the work of investigation, you will probably have several questions about the text. A central question is a specific question about one attribute of the text. A central question cannot be broad enough to include all resources and it cannot be narrow enough to be limited to fact. Asking when Melville was born is a question of fact. Asking whether “Annabel Lee” is a good poem is not specific. Additionally, a central question will add to the overall understanding of the text. It will take a small, sometimes inconspicuous detail and show how that detail makes the text as a whole more meaningful. A good central question for Moby Dick is “How does the repeated image of whiteness add to the overall theme of uncertainty?” Once you come up with a central question you must go back through your text and find all the details that inform your question. You then can analyze these details and come up with a claim.
Making a Claim, Writing the Introduction:
Now that you’ve come up with a central question you are ready to move forward to making a claim. A claim is your argument about a specific attribute of the text. It states what you think the importance of that attribute to the text is. Your claim should be in the introduction of the text. It is also known as a thesis statement. Your introduction should be built around this claim and should tell the reader what your claim is, why your claim is valuable to a deeper understanding of the text, and how you intend to prove or support your claim in the paper. The introduction is basically a map for reading the rest of the paper and instructs the reader about why your paper is important.
Evidence, Writing the Body:
After your introduction comes the presentation of evidence. Evidence is all the details from the text that support your claim. Evidence is not general; it is specific. It is important to remember that your claim is only as good as your evidence. Your paper is on trial and a successful paper offers plentiful evidence to support its claim(s). Equally important is explaining your evidence. You cannot expect your reader to make the same leaps in logic that you do so you must show them why and how a specific detail supports your claim. In general, you should group your evidence together in ways that make sense. In our example of whiteness and Moby Dick, you might talk in one paragraph about the white whale and in another paragraph about the absence of white people on the ship. Your conclusion will help to pull together the evidence in your different paragraphs by elaborating on the thread (your claim) that links everything together.
Requirements:
Your paper will need to be between 1000-1250 words (about 4-5 full pages) and be formatted in proper MLA format and must include a Works Cited page (which does not count towards your page count). If you are unfamiliar with MLA format, you need to go to the MLA module and read over how to do this. There are also numerous videos on YouTube that you can watch.For your first major paper you will be writing a literary analysis. Unlike a research paper, a literary analysis does not ask you to work with information outside the primary text. Instead, a literary analysis is an intense and thorough investigation of the primary text for the purpose of understanding and conveying to others the internal complexities of that text. This exercise requires you to pick and expound upon the importance of specific attributes of your text. You will need to make a claim, or argument, about an attribute and how it relates to the overall text. This claim will then be support by a wealth of specific evidence from the text demonstrating why your claim is valid.
Starting Out:
Start by thoroughly reading your chosen text. Make notes of things that strike you as interesting, important, or confusing.
Map out the plot. Determine what happens when and why, and what the central or key events are.
Map out the structure. Determine what kind of text this is and what genre(s) it falls into. From what point of view is the story told and what we can determine about the narrator(s).
Map out the characters. Describe each character and figure out the relationships between the characters. Identify the protagonist and antagonist, and whether any characters are foils of one another, etc.
Map out themes, tropes, and other patterns. Determine what refrains are repeated throughout the text.
Map out the language. Writers always choose their words and sentence/line structure carefully. Determine how the words and sentence/line patterns they use contribute to the overall themes and ideas in the text. Are some passages “faster” than others? “Slower?” Is the language elevated (big words) or simple? Where are things described in detail and where are things glossed over? If there is dialogue, how does it convey how the characters are feeling and do the characters communicate through the dialogue (or does one character say something that the other character doesn’t understand). How does the choice of specific words create a tone or mood?
The Central Question:
Once you’ve gone through all the work of investigation, you will probably have several questions about the text. A central question is a specific question about one attribute of the text. A central question cannot be broad enough to include all resources and it cannot be narrow enough to be limited to fact. Asking when Melville was born is a question of fact. Asking whether “Annabel Lee” is a good poem is not specific. Additionally, a central question will add to the overall understanding of the text. It will take a small, sometimes inconspicuous detail and show how that detail makes the text as a whole more meaningful. A good central question for Moby Dick is “How does the repeated image of whiteness add to the overall theme of uncertainty?” Once you come up with a central question you must go back through your text and find all the details that inform your question. You then can analyze these details and come up with a claim.
Making a Claim, Writing the Introduction:
Now that you’ve come up with a central question you are ready to move forward to making a claim. A claim is your argument about a specific attribute of the text. It states what you think the importance of that attribute to the text is. Your claim should be in the introduction of the text. It is also known as a thesis statement. Your introduction should be built around this claim and should tell the reader what your claim is, why your claim is valuable to a deeper understanding of the text, and how you intend to prove or support your claim in the paper. The introduction is basically a map for reading the rest of the paper and instructs the reader about why your paper is important.
Evidence, Writing the Body:
After your introduction comes the presentation of evidence. Evidence is all the details from the text that support your claim. Evidence is not general; it is specific. It is important to remember that your claim is only as good as your evidence. Your paper is on trial and a successful paper offers plentiful evidence to support its claim(s). Equally important is explaining your evidence. You cannot expect your reader to make the same leaps in logic that you do so you must show them why and how a specific detail supports your claim. In general, you should group your evidence together in ways that make sense. In our example of whiteness and Moby Dick, you might talk in one paragraph about the white whale and in another paragraph about the absence of white people on the ship. Your conclusion will help to pull together the evidence in your different paragraphs by elaborating on the thread (your claim) that links everything together.
Requirements:
Your paper will need to be between 1000-1250 words (about 4-5 full pages) and be formatted in proper MLA format and must include a Works Cited page (which does not count towards your page count). If you are unfamiliar with MLA format, you need to go to the MLA module and read over how to do this. There are also numerous videos on YouTube that you can watch.For your first major paper you will be writing a literary analysis. Unlike a research paper, a literary analysis does not ask you to work with information outside the primary text. Instead, a literary analysis is an intense and thorough investigation of the primary text for the purpose of understanding and conveying to others the internal complexities of that text. This exercise requires you to pick and expound upon the importance of specific attributes of your text. You will need to make a claim, or argument, about an attribute and how it relates to the overall text. This claim will then be support by a wealth of specific evidence from the text demonstrating why your claim is valid.
Starting Out:
Start by thoroughly reading your chosen text. Make notes of things that strike you as interesting, important, or confusing.
Map out the plot. Determine what happens when and why, and what the central or key events are.
Map out the structure. Determine what kind of text this is and what genre(s) it falls into. From what point of view is the story told and what we can determine about the narrator(s).
Map out the characters. Describe each character and figure out the relationships between the characters. Identify the protagonist and antagonist, and whether any characters are foils of one another, etc.
Map out themes, tropes, and other patterns. Determine what refrains are repeated throughout the text.
Map out the language. Writers always choose their words and sentence/line structure carefully. Determine how the words and sentence/line patterns they use contribute to the overall themes and ideas in the text. Are some passages “faster” than others? “Slower?” Is the language elevated (big words) or simple? Where are things described in detail and where are things glossed over? If there is dialogue, how does it convey how the characters are feeling and do the characters communicate through the dialogue (or does one character say something that the other character doesn’t understand). How does the choice of specific words create a tone or mood?
The Central Question:
Once you’ve gone through all the work of investigation, you will probably have several questions about the text. A central question is a specific question about one attribute of the text. A central question cannot be broad enough to include all resources and it cannot be narrow enough to be limited to fact. Asking when Melville was born is a question of fact. Asking whether “Annabel Lee” is a good poem is not specific. Additionally, a central question will add to the overall understanding of the text. It will take a small, sometimes inconspicuous detail and show how that detail makes the text as a whole more meaningful. A good central question for Moby Dick is “How does the repeated image of whiteness add to the overall theme of uncertainty?” Once you come up with a central question you must go back through your text and find all the details that inform your question. You then can analyze these details and come up with a claim.
Making a Claim, Writing the Introduction:
Now that you’ve come up with a central question you are ready to move forward to making a claim. A claim is your argument about a specific attribute of the text. It states what you think the importance of that attribute to the text is. Your claim should be in the introduction of the text. It is also known as a thesis statement. Your introduction should be built around this claim and should tell the reader what your claim is, why your claim is valuable to a deeper understanding of the text, and how you intend to prove or support your claim in the paper. The introduction is basically a map for reading the rest of the paper and instructs the reader about why your paper is important.
Evidence, Writing the Body:
After your introduction comes the presentation of evidence. Evidence is all the details from the text that support your claim. Evidence is not general; it is specific. It is important to remember that your claim is only as good as your evidence. Your paper is on trial and a successful paper offers plentiful evidence to support its claim(s). Equally important is explaining your evidence. You cannot expect your reader to make the same leaps in logic that you do so you must show them why and how a specific detail supports your claim. In general, you should group your evidence together in ways that make sense. In our example of whiteness and Moby Dick, you might talk in one paragraph about the white whale and in another paragraph about the absence of white people on the ship. Your conclusion will help to pull together the evidence in your different paragraphs by elaborating on the thread (your claim) that links everything together.
Requirements:
Your paper will need to be between 1000-1250 words (about 4-5 full pages) and be formatted in proper MLA format and must include a Works Cited page (which does not count towards your page count). If you are unfamiliar with MLA format, you need to go to the MLA module and read over how to do this. There are also numerous videos on YouTube that you can watch.For your first major paper you will be writing a literary analysis. Unlike a research paper, a literary analysis does not ask you to work with information outside the primary text. Instead, a literary analysis is an intense and thorough investigation of the primary text for the purpose of understanding and conveying to others the internal complexities of that text. This exercise requires you to pick and expound upon the importance of specific attributes of your text. You will need to make a claim, or argument, about an attribute and how it relates to the overall text. This claim will then be support by a wealth of specific evidence from the text demonstrating why your claim is valid.
Starting Out:
Start by thoroughly reading your chosen text. Make notes of things that strike you as interesting, important, or confusing.
Map out the plot. Determine what happens when and why, and what the central or key events are.
Map out the structure. Determine what kind of text this is and what genre(s) it falls into. From what point of view is the story told and what we can determine about the narrator(s).
Map out the characters. Describe each character and figure out the relationships between the characters. Identify the protagonist and antagonist, and whether any characters are foils of one another, etc.
Map out themes, tropes, and other patterns. Determine what refrains are repeated throughout the text.
Map out the language. Writers always choose their words and sentence/line structure carefully. Determine how the words and sentence/line patterns they use contribute to the overall themes and ideas in the text. Are some passages “faster” than others? “Slower?” Is the language elevated (big words) or simple? Where are things described in detail and where are things glossed over? If there is dialogue, how does it convey how the characters are feeling and do the characters communicate through the dialogue (or does one character say something that the other character doesn’t understand). How does the choice of specific words create a tone or mood?
The Central Question:
Once you’ve gone through all the work of investigation, you will probably have several questions about the text. A central question is a specific question about one attribute of the text. A central question cannot be broad enough to include all resources and it cannot be narrow enough to be limited to fact. Asking when Melville was born is a question of fact. Asking whether “Annabel Lee” is a good poem is not specific. Additionally, a central question will add to the overall understanding of the text. It will take a small, sometimes inconspicuous detail and show how that detail makes the text as a whole more meaningful. A good central question for Moby Dick is “How does the repeated image of whiteness add to the overall theme of uncertainty?” Once you come up with a central question you must go back through your text and find all the details that inform your question. You then can analyze these details and come up with a claim.
Making a Claim, Writing the Introduction:
Now that you’ve come up with a central question you are ready to move forward to making a claim. A claim is your argument about a specific attribute of the text. It states what you think the importance of that attribute to the text is. Your claim should be in the introduction of the text. It is also known as a thesis statement. Your introduction should be built around this claim and should tell the reader what your claim is, why your claim is valuable to a deeper understanding of the text, and how you intend to prove or support your claim in the paper. The introduction is basically a map for reading the rest of the paper and instructs the reader about why your paper is important.
Evidence, Writing the Body:
After your introduction comes the presentation of evidence. Evidence is all the details from the text that support your claim. Evidence is not general; it is specific. It is important to remember that your claim is only as good as your evidence. Your paper is on trial and a successful paper offers plentiful evidence to support its claim(s). Equally important is explaining your evidence. You cannot expect your reader to make the same leaps in logic that you do so you must show them why and how a specific detail supports your claim. In general, you should group your evidence together in ways that make sense. In our example of whiteness and Moby Dick, you might talk in one paragraph about the white whale and in another paragraph about the absence of white people on the ship. Your conclusion will help to pull together the evidence in your different paragraphs by elaborating on the thread (your claim) that links everything together.
Requirements:
Your paper will need to be between 1000-1250 words (about 4-5 full pages) and be formatted in proper MLA format and must include a Works Cited page (which does not count towards your page count). If you are unfamiliar with MLA format, you need to go to the MLA module and read over how to do this. There are also numerous videos on YouTube that you can watch.For your first major paper you will be writing a literary analysis. Unlike a research paper, a literary analysis does not ask you to work with information outside the primary text. Instead, a literary analysis is an intense and thorough investigation of the primary text for the purpose of understanding and conveying to others the internal complexities of that text. This exercise requires you to pick and expound upon the importance of specific attributes of your text. You will need to make a claim, or argument, about an attribute and how it relates to the overall text. This claim will then be support by a wealth of specific evidence from the text demonstrating why your claim is valid.
Starting Out:
Start by thoroughly reading your chosen text. Make notes of things that strike you as interesting, important, or confusing.
Map out the plot. Determine what happens when and why, and what the central or key events are.
Map out the structure. Determine what kind of text this is and what genre(s) it falls into. From what point of view is the story told and what we can determine about the narrator(s).
Map out the characters. Describe each character and figure out the relationships between the characters. Identify the protagonist and antagonist, and whether any characters are foils of one another, etc.
Map out themes, tropes, and other patterns. Determine what refrains are repeated throughout the text.
Map out the language. Writers always choose their words and sentence/line structure carefully. Determine how the words and sentence/line patterns they use contribute to the overall themes and ideas in the text. Are some passages “faster” than others? “Slower?” Is the language elevated (big words) or simple? Where are things described in detail and where are things glossed over? If there is dialogue, how does it convey how the characters are feeling and do the characters communicate through the dialogue (or does one character say something that the other character doesn’t understand). How does the choice of specific words create a tone or mood?
The Central Question:
Once you’ve gone through all the work of investigation, you will probably have several questions about the text. A central question is a specific question about one attribute of the text. A central question cannot be broad enough to include all resources and it cannot be narrow enough to be limited to fact. Asking when Melville was born is a question of fact. Asking whether “Annabel Lee” is a good poem is not specific. Additionally, a central question will add to the overall understanding of the text. It will take a small, sometimes inconspicuous detail and show how that detail makes the text as a whole more meaningful. A good central question for Moby Dick is “How does the repeated image of whiteness add to the overall theme of uncertainty?” Once you come up with a central question you must go back through your text and find all the details that inform your question. You then can analyze these details and come up with a claim.
Making a Claim, Writing the Introduction:
Now that you’ve come up with a central question you are ready to move forward to making a claim. A claim is your argument about a specific attribute of the text. It states what you think the importance of that attribute to the text is. Your claim should be in the introduction of the text. It is also known as a thesis statement. Your introduction should be built around this claim and should tell the reader what your claim is, why your claim is valuable to a deeper understanding of the text, and how you intend to prove or support your claim in the paper. The introduction is basically a map for reading the rest of the paper and instructs the reader about why your paper is important.
Evidence, Writing the Body:
After your introduction comes the presentation of evidence. Evidence is all the details from the text that support your claim. Evidence is not general; it is specific. It is important to remember that your claim is only as good as your evidence. Your paper is on trial and a successful paper offers plentiful evidence to support its claim(s). Equally important is explaining your evidence. You cannot expect your reader to make the same leaps in logic that you do so you must show them why and how a specific detail supports your claim. In general, you should group your evidence together in ways that make sense. In our example of whiteness and Moby Dick, you might talk in one paragraph about the white whale and in another paragraph about the absence of white people on the ship. Your conclusion will help to pull together the evidence in your different paragraphs by elaborating on the thread (your claim) that links everything together.
Requirements:
Your paper will need to be between 1000-1250 words (about 4-5 full pages) and be formatted in proper MLA format and must include a Works Cited page (which does not count towards your page count). If you are unfamiliar with MLA format, you need to go to the MLA module and read over how to do this. There are also numerous videos on YouTube that you can watch.
