by Stephen Cook

Created on: April 20, 2010

When it comes to writing a literary analysis, make sure you analyze well!  After all that is what a literary "analysis" is all about!  Here are some tips that will hopefully help you to improve your literary analysis writing:

The first important tip for writing a literary analysis is that you have a clear, simple, thesis statement in your introduction.  In your thesis statement you will state, in one sentence, what your paper and your points will be about.  A strong, clear thesis statement is necessary to have an organized and understandable paper.  An example of a thesis statement may be something like: "The author's use of imagery, symbolism, and character development contributes to the theme."

Also be sure to include good evidence in your literary analysis!  If you don't have very strong quotes and examples from the literary work that you are writing about, then what is there for you to analyze?  Your evidence should strongly support your points so that you can have a strong foundation for your analyzing.

A literary analysis is all about analyzing (hence the name).  That is why (as said before) it is important to have good evidence supporting your points, because if you have weak evidence then your analysis of that evidence will be weak too.  Analyzing is all about giving your ideas on the literature - this is where you get creative.  Although a literary analysis may seem cut and dry (in terms of it's structure), the analysis of the evidence is actually where you can be thoughtful and creative in the paper.  Another important note about the analysis is that it shouldn't just be a summary of the evidence presented, it should ANALYZE it.  You need to talk about why the evidence is important to your point, why it is significant, what it means - in other words analyze it!

Organization is also something that is very important to remember when writing a literary analysis.  When you write your thesis statement, you are basically providing an outline for the rest of your paper.  Within the paragraphs discussing your points it is important that you have several pieces of evidence included.  From paragraph to paragraph you also must have good transitions so that your paper flows coherently from one point to another.  Lastly, don't forget a conclusion paragraph that sums up your paper and restates your thesis statement!

Next time you go to write a literary analysis keep these tips in mind, and hopefully you will improve!

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