Writing about
Literature--The Basics
Conventions
for Writing about Literature
Developing
and Supporting a Thesis
CONVENTIONS FOR
WRITING ABOUT LITERATURE
Authors' names. Use the full name on the first mention (Robert Coover). Thereafter, you may use last name (Coover) except when desiring
stylistic variety.
Foreign Languages. Italicize or underline all foreign terms.
Reproduce by hand or in type all accent marks. If the word has been naturalized
(made common in English usage), you do not need to italicize it although you
still need to incorporate the accent marks. Do not italicize quotations that
are entirely in another language.
Shortened Titles. If you wish to use a
shortened title for a piece, use the full title on the first mention followed
by its shortened title in parentheses. This shortened title is usually one or
two key words, but might also letters.
Example: "Ashputtle; or, The Mother's Ghost" ("Ashputtle")
Example: Writing Essays about Literature (WEL)
Example: Romeo and Juliet (R&J)
Tense. Describe fictional events, whether in drama, poetry, or prose
fiction, in the present tense.
Titles. Use quotation marks for titles of works included within larger
works. This includes short stories; short poems; songs; chapter titles;
articles in journals, magazines, and newspapers; and published works such as
dissertations and master's theses.
Examples: "The Lottery" in The Story and Its Writer
or "Analyzing Literature" in Writing Essays about Literature.
Titles. Underline or
italicize (but not both) the titles of works pubhlished
independently, such as books, plays, long poems published as books,
periodicals, pamphlets, novels, movies, works of art, works of music, and radio
and television programs. An exception is sacred writings such as the Bible,
books of the Bible, the Koran, and the Talmud. (Note: in webpages,
italics are often used because of webpage-building tools.)
Examples: Catch-22
(the book), Catch-22 (the film), The Company of Wolves (the film
but not the short story "The Company of Wolves"). An alternative
construction: Catch-22.
Title Case. Capitalize the first
letter of all words in a title except articles, short prepositions, and
conjunctions. Captalize the first word of a title and
the first words after a colon.
Example: Burning Your Boat:
The Collected Short Stories
Example: The Art of the
Tale: An International Anthology of Short Stories
Your Own Work. Do
not underline, italicize, or put in quotation marks the titles of your
own work. Likewise, do not place your titles in bold or all uppercase letters.
Simply place your title in title case. Also note the use of the author's full
name in the title.
Correct example: Luck in D.H.
Lawrence's "The Rocking-Horse Winner"
Incorrect: LUCK IN D.H. LAWRENCE'S "THE ROCKING-HORSE WINNER"
Incorrect: Luck in D.H. Lawrence's "The Rocking-Horse Winner"
Incorrect: Luck in D.H. Lawrence's "The Rocking-Horse Winner"
DEVELOPING/SUPPORTING
A THESIS
An effective thesis:
Limits the topic.
Indicates how it will
be treated in the paper.
Your
introduction, sometimes only the first paragraph in shorter works, should
contain a unifying thesis--one which clearly states one central idea which all
of your body paragraphs support.
Poor thesis: In Margaret Atwood's
The Handmaid's Tale, Offred is interestingly
developed through point-of-view, tone, and plot.
Beside the large scope of this
project, notice how this thesis doesn't have a specific theory about Offred's character or a justification for choosing those
three elements for the analysis (why not dialogue? Or symbolism? Or any other
elements?). It is also very generic: what character isn't developed through
these elements? Interesting means nothing.
A strong
thesis makes a point, one that you as the writer of the essay must prove. It
should take evidence from the text, and other sources, to support your
analysis. It should not be obvious. Nor should it be so broad as to try to
cover everything about the work.
Better thesis: In Margaret
Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Offred's sexual
encounters with the Commander illustrate how she separates her body and soul in
order to survive being a Handmaid.
This thesis makes claims that the author of the essay must "prove":
that there is a separation between Offred's body and
soul are separated, that this separation occurs during specific sexual encounters, and that this separation allows her to survive.
Thesis Construction
In examining your protocols'
thesis statements, one of the things you should keep in mind is avoiding
"the obvious." In other words, if your statement is immediately
obvious to anyone who has read the story, you probably haven't constructed a
strong thesis for an analytical essay.
You need to reconstruct your
thesis, and probably your evidence, to move beyond the obvious. (Note: obvious
is a key word here.) The following have been reworded to provide a uniform
structure for the comparison of ideas. However, please note that this is only
one way to introduce your thesis statement, and a rather conventional one at
that.
A poor thesis: In Guy De Maupassant's "The Necklace," Mathilde
Loisel's life changes after she loses the necklace.
(This is obvious, a fact.)
A poor thesis: In Guy De Mauppsant's "The Necklace," Mathilde
Loisel is a spoiled brat. (Not only judges the
character, but is rather obvious.)
A poor thesis: In Shirley
Jackson's "The Lottery," the black box represents death. (An
analysis, yes, but obvious.)
A poor thesis: In Shirley
Jackson's "The Lottery," the names of the characters, such as Mr.
Graves and Mr. Summers, foreshadow the sinister end of the story. (Too narrow
and self-explanatory--and doesn't it reword the question? Why read the paper?)
A poor thesis: In Guy De Mauppasant's "The Necklace," the paste necklace
symbolizes Mathilde because both are fake. (Good point, but seems obvious. Why is this
important--what new angle that isn't apparent to everyone will you use?)
A poor thesis: In Shirley
Jackson's "The Lottery" there is a lot of foreshadowing that reveals
the sinister feel of the story. (Basically just restates the prompt--doesn't
say anything.)
A poor thesis: In Shirley
Jackson's "The Lottery" unfolds, we see Tessie's
attitude change as we learn about the lottery. (Says nothing.)
A better thesis: In Shirley
Jackson's "The Lottery" the objects in the story all foreshadow the
story's dark undertone. (It narrows to only the objects in the story, but
doesn't create a list of what exactly the author is talking about, so I have to
read the essay.)
A better thesis: In Guy De Mauppasant's "The Necklace," Mathilde's
life is defined in the moment after the ball, when she looks in the mirror and
discovers the loss of the necklace. (Deals with one scene's effect on the
character and as part of the whole story, but doesn't tell me how her life
defined, so I have to read the essay.)
Although
many of you have interesting and worthwhile ideas, you can work on refining
your thesis to reflect a higher level of critical analysis rather than broadly
identifying commonly-held assertions about the text. For instance, if it is
obvious that "The Necklace" represents what Mathilde
does not have, your thesis should
specify what lack is rather than assert the story's general meaning.
Furthermore, a higher level of critical analysis speculates as to why Mathilde's lack of (?) is important to the tale.
Some questions to ask yourself if
you're wondering about the strength of your thesis:
· After constructing it, do you think "Gee, that's
obvious."
· Can people "get it" based on the thesis alone--if so, it's
probably not analytical enough.
· Is the thesis so broad so as to say nothing--or is it so specific that I
know all your points just by reading the thesis.
· Do you use the words "interesting,"
"brilliant," "good," "unique,"
"boring," bad," "sucks" or any other qualitative term.
These words, in and of themselves, mean nothing. Do not use them! Instead, ask
yourself what you specifically mean by interesting, and how does the work
achieve that effect?
One very
common error involves comparison/contrast: don't just list a few items that the characters
or stories have in common or not; you also need to tie together the items (tell
us what these similarities and differences demonsrate
about the characters or stories).
A successful analysis convices the reader that your thesis is reasonable and
supported with textual evidence, not merely your opinion or reaction to the
story. In developing a thesis, remember that you are expected to not merely
present information but to argue a point. Arguing about a point refers to
supporting your analytical assertions (your topic sentences, which support your
thesis) with relevant textual evidence (either specific references or quotes)
in the body of the essay. Your paper can't just focus on telling the reader
what you liked or disliked about the work; you need to convince her that your
interpretation is valid--and never assume that the reader already agrees with
your interpretation.
Supporting Evidence:
1)
Quotes: keep them
as brief as possible and make sure that you introduce and integrate them into
the text of your paper carefully. Quotation marks must always appear around any
passage taken word-for-word from the original, and quoted material must be 100%
accurate. Block format can be used for lengthy quotations (a quote that is more
than four lines long). Just remember that too many quotes (over approximately
20% of the paper) will make your paper seem like just a collection of the
author's own words rather than your analysis of a work. Check style guides and
handbooks for how to introduce, integrate, and format quotes. (See accompany
webpage for more specific information on using Quotations
& Paraphrase.)
2) Textual references: keep them as specific as
possible, so the reader can easily recall which part of the story you are
referring to. For example, instead of writing "Jig's references to things
that surround her reveal she is does not want the abortion" as your
textual support, write, "after Jig says that desired things taste like
licorice (page number), her reference to absinthe illustrates her true feelings
for her situation." You must then go on to explain: what are Jig's true
feelings about the situation, and why does this reference to absinthe tell you
that?