Some General Rules of Thumb

Literary analysis IS:

• always written in present tense (authors may be dead, but the continue to "speak now")
• always written to demonstrate something about a text--it needs a clear, specific thesis and intro--that intro needs a purpose
• interested in interpreting, analyzing, and synthesizing textual evidence
• chock full of quotation--this is your best evidence USE IT OFTEN (good rule of thumb: AT LEAST one quote per paragraph--probably more)
• interested in acknowledging prior criticism on a similar topic and making it clear how this discussion fits into the larger academic discussion about this text

Literary analysis IS NOT:

• a summary of the work--explain plot points to give context for quotations and to advance your claims--do no get bogged down re-telling the story--we know what it's about--we want to know what it means, what it says about culture, this author's body of work, how this work fits into a broader genre, how it compares to other work
• interested necessarily in evaluation--this is not about whether the text is good or bad, whether you personally loved or hated it--it is about meaning--you can hate a work and still have interesting things to say about it
• about politics, educational issues, religion, social issues, etc.  IT IS ABOUT THE TEXT--these issues may be raised by the text but your discussion of them is filtered through the text, and the text is the vehicle to discuss them through--prioritize the text--narrative and story carry information (they are largely how we communicate) consider how story discusses these things
• a review of other people's discussion of the text--it contains that only in that that frames the conversation, however, YOUR ARGUMENT AND ANALYSIS IS PARAMOUNT

Structure:

Introduction: introduces the thesis

Reviews criticism
Provides the topical context and focus
Contains a clear, SPECIFIC thesis (avoid "many different ways," "certain aspects," "various things," etc.--say what you mean)

Ask yourself: could I argue against this?  If so, you have a thesis and an argumentative point.  If not, time to rethink what you want to say.

Body: makes the case and provides evidence

introduce quote
quote
explain the quote (not summary)
introduce quote
quote
explain the quote (not summary)
introduce quote
quote
explain the quote (not summary)
introduce quote
quote
explain the quote (not summary)
etc.

general rule of thumb: AT LEAST one quote per paragraph--probably more--quotes are always there to demonstrate something, don't move on until you've explained them

quotes introduction always provides (or implies to the reader):

who is speaking (author/character)
from what (book/short story/essay)
about what (context)

Conclusion: draws a conclusion based on the evidence in the body (not a summary of the body)

My Short hand

development--explaining/interpreting quotations and relating them to the thesis
transitions--describe how two ideas are related to each other (both sentence and paragraph level)
rephrase--fix the grammatical problem
thesis problems--lack of focus, lack of specicifity, lack of purpose

Citation questions/problems?

Click here for guides

Some samples:

Paper on The Passion
Paper on Robbe-Grillet's "The Secret Room"