You will be writing a 4-5 pp. paper (exclusive of works cited page) on Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn using a literary critical approach of your choosing. The following details should help you to plan and meet deadlines:
**Due Date -- the paper will be due Wednesday, March 2, 2011.
Use Times New Roman, 12 point font, double-spaced.
**Form -- Use the MLA format for writing literary papers.
Use the following guidelines for teaching how to write an interpretive essay or how to write a literary analysis:
- The introduction must introduce the literary work, capture the reader's attention, and include a clearly written thesis statement that contains the literary interpretation.
- The body of the essay must support the thesis statement through evidence--facts, examples, summaries--and commentary--opinions, analysis, interpretation, insight.
- The conclusion summarizes the interpretation and allows the writer to draw attention to the most important aspects of the analysis.
An 'A' essay does the following:
- identifies the author, title, and gives a brief summary of the literary work.
- provides a clear interpretation of the author's message and purpose.
- provides details, quotations, and other evidence to support the interpretation.
Drafting and Revising
When teaching how to write a literary analysis or interpretive essay, emphasize the following:
- Reread the literary work several times. This seems logical to teachers. It's not logical for students. Read through the first time to get a feel for the work. Reread and look for passages and ideas that stand out or have special meaning.
- Before drafting, brainstorm possible interpretations. A good strategy is to write annotations as you read.
- Discuss the interpretation with others who have read the work. As a teacher, it's important to have class discussions on works being analyzed.
- Make sure you have a clear answer to the following questions as you write or revise:
- What is the main point of the essay? This main point should be clearly identified in the thesis statement.
- What evidence best supports the interpretation?
- Are there any points that should be added to clarify the interpretation?
- Is there any superfluous evidence that could be deleted?
Common Pitfalls of Literary Analysis
Following are the most common errors with literary analysis:
- Writing a Summary: No matter how many times you emphasize that you do not want a summary, you'll still get them. The only way to eliminate this error is to model analysis and give really low grades to students who summarize rather than analyze.
- Listing Facts: A close relative of the summary is listing facts. It's also called the, "I'll list as many facts as I can about this literary work and hope the teacher doesn't grade it very closely" syndrome. Explain that listing facts without explaining how the fact supports the thesis statement or why that fact is important is useless.
- Having No Evidence: At the other end of the bad analysis spectrum is the no evidence analysis. It consists of nothing but conjecture.
Using literary quotations
http://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/QuoLiterature.html
Use the guidelines below to learn how to use literary quotations.
Incorporating Quotations
· As you choose quotations for a literary analysis, remember the purpose of quoting.
· Your paper develops an argument about what the author of the text is doing--how the text "works."
· You use quotations to support this argument; that is, you select, present, and discuss material from the text specifically to "prove" your point--to make your case--in much the same way a lawyer brings evidence before a jury.
· Quoting for any other purpose is counterproductive.
Punctuating and Indenting Quotations
For the most part, you must reproduce the spelling, capitalization, and internal punctuation of the original exactly.
The following alterations are acceptable:
Changing the closing punctuation
You may alter the closing punctuation of a quotation in order to incorporate it into a sentence of your own:
"Books are not life," Lawrence emphasized.
Commas and periods go inside the closing quotation marks; the other punctuation marks go outside.
Lawrence insisted that books "are not life"; however, he wrote exultantly about the power of the novel.
Why does Lawrence need to point out that "Books are not life"?
Using the slash when quoting poetry
Using Ellipsis Points for Omitted Material
If for the sake of brevity you wish to omit material from a quoted passage, use ellipsis points (three spaced periods) to indicate the omission.
Using Square Brackets when Altering Material
When quoting, you may alter grammatical forms such as the tense of a verb or the person of a pronoun so that the quotation conforms grammatically to your own prose; indicate these alterations by placing square brackets around the changed form.
In the following quotation "her" replaces the "your" of the original so that the quote fits the point of view of the paper (third person):
When he hears Cordelia's answer, Lear seems surprised, but not dumbfounded. He advises her to "mend [her] speech a little." He had expected her to praise him the most; but compared to her sisters', her remarks seem almost insulting (1.1.95).
Indenting Quotations
Prose or verse quotations less than four lines long are not indented. For quotations of this length, use the patterns described above.
Indent "longer" quotations in a block about ten spaces in from the left margin; when a quotation is indented, quotation marks are not used.
The MLA Handbook (1995) recommends that indented quotations be double-spaced, but many instructors prefer them single-spaced. The meaning of "longer" varies slightly from one style system to another, but a general rule is to indent quotations that are more than two (or three) lines of verse or three (or four) lines of prose.
Indent dialogue between characters in a play. Place the speaker's name before the speech quoted:
CAESAR: Et tu, Brute! Then, fall, Caesar!
CINNA: Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead! (3.1.77-78)
Emphasizing Your Ideas
What to include in literary analysis
1. statements expressing the student's own ideas about the relationship Woolf is creating;
2. data or evidence from the text in summarized, paraphrased, and quoted form; and
3. discussion of how the data support the writer's interpretation.
The quotations are used in accordance with the writer's purpose, i.e. to show how the development of Mrs. Ramsey's feelings indicates something about her personality.
Should I quote?
Quoting is only one of several ways to present textual material as evidence.
In other cases you will want to paraphrase, i.e. "translate" the original into your own words, again instead of quoting. Summarize or paraphrase when it is not so much the language of the text that justifies your position, but the substance or content.
Quote selectively
Similarly, after you have decided that you do want to use material in quoted form, quote only the portions of the text specifically relevant to your point.
Think of the text in terms of units--words, phrases, sentences, and groups of sentences (paragraphs, stanzas)--and use only the units you need.
If it is particular words or phrases that "prove" your point, you do not need to quote the sentences they appear in; rather, incorporate the words and phrases into sentences expressing your own ideas.
Maintaining Clarity and Readability
Introduce your quotations
Introduce a quotation either by indicating what it is intended to show or by naming its source, or both.
For non-narrative poetry, it's customary to attribute quotations to "the speaker"; for a story with a narrator, to "the narrator."
For plays, novels, and other works with characters, identify characters as you quote them.
Do not use two quotations in a row, without intervening material of your own.
Pay attention to verb tense
Tense is a tricky issue. It's customary in literary analysis to use the present tense; it is at the present time that you (and your reader) are looking at the text.
But events in a narrative or drama take place in a time sequence. You will often need to use a past tense to refer to events that took place before the moment you are presently discussing:
When he hears Cordelia's answer, Lear seems surprised, but not dumbfounded. He advises her to "mend [her] speech a little." He had expected her to praise him the most; but compared to her sisters', her remarks seem almost insulting (1.1.95).
Documenting Quotations
Follow your course instructor's guidelines for documenting sources. If your instructor hasn't told you which system to use to document sources, ask.
Keep in mind that when you are writing a paper about the same text and quoting from the same edition that everyone else in the class is, instructors will often allow you to use informal documentation. In this case just include the page number in parentheses after the quotation or reference to the text. To be sure, though, you should ask your course instructor.
Proposal:
A good essay template helps the writer get organized by allowing for a free flow of ideas. A usual outline looks like this
- Introduction – This gives a general background to the essay topic and tells the readers why it is significant to deal with it.
- Thesis statement – It is a statement or declaration that is elaborated in the body part of the essay.
- Body – The body of the essay argues, proves, or discusses your point(s). It generally is divided into paragraphs, separate for each major point, and supporting information for the same.
- Conclusion – Here you summarize and reinforce the main points discussed.
An essay outline template is a predefined framework for constructing your academic essay. It is supposed to help the writer logically arrange their own ideas. The main list of items to include in most templates are:
- The introduction, which should grab the interest of readers with the first sentence. The importance of the essay topic and an overview of it should come next. If the essay is comparative or persuasive, a brief statement about the different views of the subject matter comes next.
- An optional section for providing a background for the subject matter may be included next.
- The body, which presents the writers opinions with their supporting ideas.
- The conclusion, which is usually a reaffirmation of the essay introduction.
The structure of an essay outline template depends on the writing style. You should have good templates for all writing styles. If this option is not available to you, you will be able to find brief samples of good essay templates on the internet.
As stated, the body of the essay outline template is the portion that can be troublesome to create. Here is a tip for making essay bodies: The overview in the introduction should contain broad statements about the main points, usually three, to be discussed. The writer should have two or three supporting statements for each of them. Here is one way to present the body:
Body
Argument 1
- Elaborate on your first argument.
- Support your stand. Insert a logical link to second argument.
Argument 2
- Elaborate on your second argument.
- Support your stand. Insert a logical link to third argument.
Argument 3
- Elaborate on your third argument.
- Support your stand.
