The Craft of a Literature Paper
From UCSB English Department Knowledge Base
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A literature paper shares many features with other, more general kinds of writing, but it also constitutes a special genre of analysis. The writing of a literature paper is a specific craft that one must learn and practice. The following abstract is meant to help you understand the point and procedures of writing a literature paper, and to suggest ways to help you write more effectively.
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[edit] Topic
A literature paper addresses a certain issue about a literary text. It states a thesis about a specific topic, and elaborates an extended argument to establish its thesis. From this definition follow three basic ideas:
[edit] Your paper's central focus is a statement about the text
Implicitly or explicitly, all literature papers make statements about a text, whether your topic centers around a character, a theme, or a formal problem. Because characters, themes, and literary forms are all textual features, your discussion will always address a textual issue.
It is important to consider what this means for your paper. It does not necessarily mean that you always have to speak of "the text" as such. You may very well make your central point in terms of a character or a thematic problem (for example: "George Sedley's death is necessary to the development of Amelia's autonomy in Thackeray's Vanity Fair"; or "Aeneas' abandonment of Dido is the only appropriate action for a hero characterized by the Roman standard of humanitas."). You should always keep in mind, however, that all statements about your topic are ultimately grounded, not in some independent "reality," but in the literary text under examination.
[edit] A literature paper presents an argument
A good argument develops in a logical, organized fashion (the English word "argument" comes from the Latin arguere, "to make clear, to assert, to prove"). This means that you may or may not wish to follow the order of events as they unravel in the text (from the Latin textus, "woven thing," from texere, "to weave"). Your argument and ideas --not the sequence of the text -- determines your paper's sequence and development.
[edit] Your paper will be made of descriptive and analytical statements
Remember that, in a literature paper, you are speaking about the text as an object --i .e., you are concerned not only with what the text says, but how it says it, how it produces the effect of meaning. In commenting on your citations and evidence, you will not only underscore what they say, but explain how they say it. An analogy from art criticism may be helpful to understand what this means. In describing Rembrandt's "Man with the Golden Helmet," it would be accurate to say that the helmet shines like gold, but it would be more analytical to point out that the use of white paint in heavy blotches produces the illusion of a sparkling gold helmet.
[edit] Structure
An essay has three parts: an introduction, development, and a conclusion.
[edit] Introduction
Your introduction presents the topic and general lines of your argument. It prepares your reader for the development of the paper by providing a general sense of the direction it will take. An introduction is usually one paragraph long. It is often the most difficult paragraph to write, and hence the last paragraph to reach its final form. Never assume that your topic is clear from the assignment question. Always state the topic and give the broad outlines of your argument. Your thesis statement should usually appear as the last sentence in the first paragraph.
[edit] Development
The development fills out the body of your paper. It is a chain of paragraphs, logically arranged to prove the major thesis of your paper.
Each paragraph centers around one main idea.
The main idea is always stated somewhere in the paragraph -- usually as the topic sentence at the beginning of the paragraph. To construct a convincing argument, each idea or paragraph should lead to the next through the course of the whole paper.
[edit] Conclusion
Your conclusion re-states the major thesis of the paper, and concisely sums up its argument one final time. This re-statement of your thesis is always more detailed than your introduction, for the simple reason that by the end of your paper you will have presented a great deal of evidence and argumentation. The conclusion reflects this wealth of detail and pulls it together in a clear and full statement about the text.
[edit] Beginning Writing
[edit] Audience and Originality
Assume the reader of your paper to be a complete stranger who is nevertheless familiar with the text or texts you are discussing. Given this assumption, you will avoid plot summary and paraphrase as superfluous to your argument. In the very rare cases where some paraphrase is absolutely necessary to orient your reader, you should keep it concise.
Be original. Avoid discussing issues that have been extensively covered in class. Above all, make sure that you do not rely upon or refer to class discussions as if they were familiar to your reader (who, you will remember, is an utter stranger). If your argument at some point absolutely must overlap with something covered in class, treat it as if the idea had never been discussed before -- i.e.: support the ideas with the same kind of evidence and argumentation as for any other part of the paper.
[edit] Preparation and Research
Go through the text carefully and repeatedly, marking or copying out passage about which you feel you have something to say. Once you have collected this material, study it and organize it into groups that address specific parts of your topic. Finally, make a tentative outline of the order in which you will present your material. Always outline your argument, however briefly.
[edit] The First Draft
Just start writing. Reflect on your main idea, consult your outline, and start pushing your pen. Do not be surprised if your ideas change in the course of writing -- most ideas only take shape in their expression. Work hard to express yourself with precision: use your dictionary and thesaurus (with caution), but most of all, use your head. Remain open to new ideas and think hard as you write. Work through your entire outline.
[edit] Re-assessment
Read your first draft critically. Now is the time to decide what your paper is really about. Which of your ideas are most important, and worthy of extended development and central placement? Re-think your argument around these ideas. Make a new outline of the paper's argument (you might want to do this by working on an introduction or conclusion at this point). Now you are ready to begin the process of (re-)writing.
[edit] Writing/Re-writing
Writing is rewriting, just as the reading of literature involves the re-reading (and re-re-reading) of literary texts. A well written paper must go through a number of carefully written and corrected drafts.
Once you have studied and reorganized your first draft, you are in the position to write a new version of your argument, including an introduction and conclusion.
[edit] Paragraphs
Paragraphs are the building-blocks of your argument: your entire paper stands or falls on the strength of your paragraphs. The greatest part of the time and effort you spend on a paper will be directed to writing clear paragraphs. Once you have a draft of your paper, go back and read every one of your paragraphs individually. One rule cannot be overstressed: Make sure that every paragraph is organized around one idea. A paragraph can be thought of as a miniature paper, with its own kind of introduction, development, and conclusion.
[edit] Topic Sentence
It is absolutely crucial to your writing that every paragraph contain a direct statement of its one main idea. It is best to grab your reader's attention with a clear, direct statement. This may sound simple, but it is difficult to do. A clear, direct paper can be the height of elegance.
[edit] Evidence and commentary
These are the heart of your paper. Establish or elaborate the main idea of your paragraph by carefully choosing your best citations. It is rare that one ever can -- or should -- use all the accumulated evidence. Use only your strongest examples. Most often, your evidence will consist of citations. Never assume that a quote can speak for itself: every citation needs a specific commentary. Make sure that you work all the citations into your sentences in such a way that your own sentences retain their grammatical sense. If you absolutely must cite at length (and this rarely is the case), indent the citation one inch from the left margin (see MLA for other questions on format).
[edit] Concluding sentence
Pull every paragraph together with a clear statement of what your evidence indicates. Never depend on a quote to do this for you. Conclude every paragraph in your own words. Very often this will be a general statement that pulls together the particulars of your evidence and commentary.
[edit] Style
Style in writing is to a certain extent a matter of taste. There are, however, some guidelines that can help you to write more clear and exact prose. Consider these as you write and re-write your paper:
- Stay close to the text. Concentrate on analysis and commentary. Avoid paraphrase: describe how the text produces meaning.
- State your ideas simply and in whole, positive statements. Avoid making major points through denial: say what you mean--do not just deny a "false" statement.
- Avoid sentence fragments, run-ons, and comma splices.
- A sentence fragment is a portion of a sentence that is punctuated as though it were a complete statement. Example: "Like the one I am writing now".
- A run-on sentence occurs when main clauses are joined without a coordinating conjunction (e.g. "and") or any punctuation mark. Example: "In many students' papers there are sentences like this one it makes me furious."
- A comma splice occurs when main clauses are joined only by a comma. Example: "Some students write sentence fragments, others try to cover up a run-on sentence by placing a comma between two complete sentences."
- Avoid sweeping generalizations, overstatements, assertions you cannot support, and comments that are off the point (e.g.; "William Shakespeare was the greatest poet and playwright in the history of English literature"). A well-argued paper about a specific topic is the goal--not a lot of B.S. about a grandiose topic. Be clinical, not grand, especially in your opening paragraph. As a general rule: if you cannot prove it, do not say it.
- Write bluntly and concisely. Do not allow your sentences to run on in mazes of subordinate clauses. Be blunt. See if a good adjective can take the place of an entire clause. Use only words that say exactly what you mean. Struggle for concision.
- Do not hedge or equivocate in your statements. You are writing and thinking with imprecision when you use "it seems," "kind of," "in a sense," "sort of," "somewhat," "in a way," "rather," quite," etc. Writing sort of like this can sometimes seem to kind of weaken your argument somewhat.
- Avoid writing in the first person. Avoid using "I" or statements that speak of "this paper." The text, not you, is the subject of your paper. Keep yourself in the wings. Also be careful about introducing "the reader" and the infamous "one," which are usually transparent masks for "I" or invitations to bogus psychological hypothesizing.
- Avoid speaking about the author. Remember, you are writing about the text and not the author. Above all, avoid hypothesizing about the author's intentions in writing the text.
- Use active verbs and the active voice. The passive voice, by definition, does not specify who or what is acting. This leads easily to unclarity -- and boredom. Active verbs spice up a paper.
- Writing that often uses "thus" and "therefore" can sound stilted and lack a good flow of argument. In a brief paper, pointers such as "earlier in this paper" and "later in the paper" will be unnecessary if your argument has a clear sequence.
- Do not play the confidence-man. "Certainly," "surely," "obviously," "really," "of course," usually indicate that your argument is too weak to stand on its own with simple declarative sentences.
- Demonstrate importance, do not just assert it. Few things are more boring than the phrase. "It is important ...."
- Avoid slang ("This is an awesome sentence") and contractions ("don't" for "do not," "won't" for "will not," etc.). Do not sound "talky."
- Avoid split infinitives. Infinitives are two words that should stay together (because they are a verb construction): "to go," "to see," etc. It is more elegant to say "to see quickly" or "quickly to see" than to use the split infinitive; "to quickly see."
- 'Avoid dangling prepositions. This means ending a sentence with a word such as: to, for, from, about, of, at, by, etc. It is more elegant and correct to write, "I knew the people about whom he was speaking," than to write, "I knew the people who he was speaking about."
- Avoid the word "thing" in all its forms.
- Make sure that the antecedents of subordinate clauses are clearly indicated. It is usually best to keep them next to each other, since it avoids nonsense, such as: "The man went home, who had a cough." (Homes seldom get chest colds. Say instead: "The man, who had a cough, went home."
[edit] Conventions
Literature papers are a special genre of writing, and they follow a number of academic conventions to help their readers. if you are an English major, you may wish to invest in the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. Here are some of the more useful conventions:
- Always speak of the text in the present tense. This not because literature is timeless and eternal (it is not), but because the events it describes do not simply occur in "reality." Tom Jones never was a fornicator--Tom Jones is a fornicator.
- The title of your paper should be descriptive and accurate. Do not bother with "An Analysis of ..." or "An Investigation of ..." -- it can be taken for granted that your paper is an analysis. "Misogyny in Sanctuary" is a better title than "An Investigation of Misogyny in Sanctuary."
- Quotations. In a brief paper, footnote (or endnote) only the first occurrence of any text's citation. All other references can be limited to page references in the body of the text. If you are citing more than one text by the same author, you can abbreviate the title when you mention the page number.
- In the U.S., quotation marks are double ("quote"). Quotation marks may additionally be used to indicate words used ironically or with some reservation ("scare quotes"). Do not use quotation marks for words used as words themselves -- rather, you should use italics. Use single quotation marks to enclose quotes within another quotation.
- All necessary punctuation in a citation goes inside the quotation marks, with the exception of colons and semi-colons.
- If you edit a citation, indicate this with an ellipsis (three dots separated by spaces). You can usually omit ellipses at the beginning or end of citations.
- Page references follow the quotation and precede the period at the end of the sentence. Example: The play is over when he says, "Let us go" (123).
- Citations from plays are often indicated by act, scene, and line. Example: (II, ii, 423).
- Notes. End- or footnote numbers come at the end of a sentence, after all punctuation. If you are using a works cited list, consult the MLA Handbook for the differences in form. The following example is the form for a footnote citation:
- First and last name of author. Title Underlined or Italics (Place of publication: Publisher, year), page#.
- Example: John Doe, My Life (Hicksville: Penguin, 1995), 123-7.
- Typing and Printing. Double-space your paper and number its pages. Leave one-inch margins all around (for my insightful comments). Use only left (not full, or left and right) margin justification (full justification usually prints poorly). Avoid big or overly ornate fonts (no Courier). Always keep a copy of the paper for yourself after submitting it.
- The titles of longer works are underlined or italicized (novels, plays, poetry collections). Individual poems and short stories appear in double quotes ("The Raven," "The Fall of the House of Usher").
- Foreign words that appear outside of a quotation mark must be underlined or italicized, mes amis.
- Verse lines can either be indented (if you are quoting more than four full lines of typed text), or put into quotation marks with slashes.
- Examples:
- Anne Sexton writes: "As for me, I am a watercolor. /I wash off." (II. 47-8).
- Anne Sexton writes:
She has always been there, my darling.
She is, in fact, exquisite.
Fireworks in the dull middle of February
and as real as a cast-iron pot.
Let's face it, I have been momentary.
A luxury. A bright red sloop in the harbor.
My hair rising like smoke from the car window. (11. 5-11)
- Anne Sexton writes: "As for me, I am a watercolor. /I wash off." (II. 47-8).
- Examples:
- If you use dashes to make asides--such as this one--use two dashes and no spaces.
If you need additional help with structure and style questions, please visit me in office hours, or go to CLAS. Many of the tutors there are graduate students in English who are familiar with MLA format and are ready to field any grammatical questions you may have.
--MarthineSatris 18:29, 4 September 2007 (PDT)
