The Literary Paper

Joel Peckham

Once during the semester you will be asked to write a literary paper on a poem, short story, novel, or play of your choice. The papers will be 5 to 8 pages in length and may include researched materials (though research is not necessary, it is a good idea). Though there are many legitimate approaches to literary analysis, the following explanation of how to go about writing a literary research paper is one of the best I've seen:

Add something of your own, however modest, to the conversation about a work of literature. The minimum contribution is making up your own mind on an issue that people argue about (that is, at a minimum, conduct a debate between two sides, pointing out strengths and weakness, and come to a reasoned conclusion). What you intend to contribute is formulated in your thesis (a narrowed topic plus your position on the topic). Stating the thesis in question form, at least at the beginning, can help you to focus.

In the paper, you state your thesis and support it with evidence drawn from the work and, if you're writing a researched paper, with other readers' ideas (secondary sources) which you use because 1) they agree with your ideas in helpful ways (though sometimes you may state them in order to go beyond them) or 2) they disagree with your ideas, and you can show why they are wrong and yours are right.

1. Choose a work. It helps to pick one that you really like. Works from outside our anthology must be cleared with me. You would be wise to discuss the choice of any work with me.

2. Become thoroughly familiar with the work through diligent active reading-read until you have the whole work in your head at one time.

3. Formulate a tentative thesis by following one of two processes:

a. Read the work until an issue seizes you. I can't give you a thesis, but I can tell you where to look for one:

1) Notice any repetition. Look for systems (eg., of colors).
2) Examine the work through the perspective of any literary term: character or symbol or image, etc.
3) Identify an aspect of the work you think you might understand better than others; that is, you have a hunch that you can support through analysis and, if appropriate, research.
4) Identify something you don't understand. Explain to a reader how you came to understand the meaning of that aspect of the work.
5) Compare any two aspects-character, image, symbol, etc.- found in a work, or two aspects of different works, or two versions of a work (a short story version with a play version, for instance). Be sure you are comparing to make a point, which is your thesis.
6) Compare this work to a work of art or music from the same period, again, be sure you are comparing to make a point.
7)Read the work in the light of a particular philosophical idea important to this time period; show how it is influenced by it or responds to it.
8) Read the work in the light of a particular theoretical framework (Jungian or Freudian Psycho-analysis, Feminism, Marxism, Neo-Marxism, New-Historicism, Structuralism, etc.); show how this theoretical perspective helps us to understand the text

b. Read secondary sources until
1) something you read makes you think of something else that you want to pursue.
2) you agree with what someone says but believe you can go further.
3) you disagree and can both show why another's ideas are weak and you can offer a better alternative.

4. Caution: Avoid biographical topics.

5. You have time and space to do an interpretation of a whole work only if that work is short, that is, a poem or short story. Focus on only one aspect of a longer work, even a long or particularly complex poem or short story.

6. Research the secondary sources using the internet or the library. Read carefully until you think you understand the sources thoroughly. Assume at first that the best specific sources are articles and that, at first, books are most helpful in providing general background information on your author and her writing.

Attention: Recall ASAP books that are checked out by taking the call number, author and title to the Circulation Desk. Books should be return within ten days. Use Interlibrary Loan ASAP when you have identified a book or article our library doesn't own. IL takes two days to three weeks.

7. Revise your thesis as necessary and do more research, if necessary.

8. If at any time it becomes clear that what your hypothesis claims is essentially what is already widely accepted about your work, feel good that you had a significant insight-then abandon your topic and look for another one. You don't want to write a mere summary of other people's ideas (though, of course, you can accept them and go beyond them).

9. Keep good notes on what you read and/or photocopy entire pages, thus providing context for ideas and passages. Be sure to record all the information needed for documentation.

10. Write your paper as the answer to your thesis question. I suggest you write for an audience that has read your work carefully (and therefore long summaries and quotations are unnecessary)but does not understand it, or some aspect of it, as well as you do.

11. Support all assertions. Give adequate credit to sources from which you borrow information, ideas, quotations, or which you paraphrase (i.e., careful to avoid plagiarism). Use MLA documentation format accurately.

12. Take advantage of my help at any step in the process, especially bygetting my response to rough drafts.
James E. Ford (1-26-95)

Grading Criteria:

Your grade on your literary paper will be out of 30 points:

5 points: originality, clarity, and quality of your thesis
15 points: quality and quantity of supporting evidence-- textual and researched
10 points: execution (logical progression of ideas, paragraphing, overall structure, coherency, etc.)

Here is an example of what I would consider a 30 pt essay, written by a student at the University of British Columbia. Note the concise and coherent thesis, the careful use of his main source to establish both the context of the work and the main critical argument he will address (though, ideally I would like to see a student rely on more than one source), the abundant textual support, and the logical progression of ideas.

This is what you are shooting for:

"Feminine Sexuality and Passion: Kate Chopin's 'The Storm'," Robert Wilson

NOTE: Though avoiding historical and biographical analysis is a good idea because creating a cause and effect relationship between literature and biography / history is extremely difficult and hazardous, a student should not take this caution to mean that the analysis paper cannot deal with social, political, or cultural concerns--especially if the author is a part of a cultural, political or literary movement. Showing how an author's work reflects a marxist, feminist, modernist, romantic ideology is certainly relevant to this course.

NOTE #2: This should be obvious, but the quality of your writing does count. I expect your papers to be well written, carefully constructed, and grammatically clean. We will discuss some of the basic writing principles in class but here are some URLs for excellent web-pages that cover relevant compositional elements (these can all be accessed directly through the on-line syllabus):

writing good sentences, sentence combining: http://www.bg su.edu/departments/writing-lab/sentence_combining_b.html
paragraphing: http://www.urich.edu:80/~writing /wweb/paragrph.html
writing conclusions: http://www.urich.edu:80/~writing/ wweb/conclude.htm
elementary rules of composition: http://www.columbia.edu/a cis/bartleby/strunk/strunk.html#III
an excellent on-line writing center with an even better on-line handbook on writing and reading: http://www.wisc.edu/writing/
mla documentation format: http://www.bgsu.edu/dep artments/writing-lab/mla_format.html

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