Literary Analysis #1 Common Problems Italicize book titles when typing; underline them when hand writing. No quotation marks ever for novels! All quotations and paraphrases need citations with page numbers. When citing, the end punctuation comes AFTER the parenthetical citation. Example: Holden says, “Don’t ever tell anyone anything. If you do, you start missing everybody” (Salinger 52). Do not include the page abbreviation or a comma between the author’s name and the page number. Weak Examples: (Salinger, p. 52); (page 52); (Salinger, 52) Strong Example: (Salinger 52). Quotations should not stand alone! They need a correctly-punctuated lead-in: Example: Holden says, “Don’t ever tell anyone anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.” Example: According to John Smith, the leading expert on J.D. Salinger, “The Catcher in the Rye is J.D. Salinger’s most beloved work.”

Refer to authors by full names or last names, never first names. Analyze strategies in the order in which you list them in your thesis statement. Refer to events in literature in the present tense. Weak Example: In the novel, Holden felt frustrated and disappointed. Strong Example: In the novel, Holden feels frustrated and disappointed. Weak Example: Fitzgerald expressed Holden’s feelings very effectively. Strong Example: Fitzgerald expresses Holden’s feelings very effectively. One female=woman. More than one female=women. Do not include personal pronouns or statements of your feelings in formal essays. No “I,” “me,” “my,” “In my opinion,” “I think,” “I feel,” etc. State your thoughts as though they are fact. Do not refer to the audience (“you”).

JV=beginning your conclusion with the words “in conclusion.” Diction is three or fewer words, not sentences, ideas, or entire quotes. Use letters to write out numbers that can be expressed in two or fewer words; use digits to express numbers that require more than two words. Example: Fifty-nine; 2,559. Analysis of a euphonious word MUST address how the word sounds. If you address only what it means, you’re discussing denotation/connotation. JV=beginning your conclusion with the words “in conclusion.” Nonessential clauses need commas around them. Example: The author of Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston, is great.” “Different from”=correct. “Different than”=not a thing. The dialect of the slaves in Huck Finn is different from the dialect of the southern Whites. Don’t capitalize the strategies unless they begin a sentence. Fewer=things you can count. Less=things you can’t count. Example: Eyes has fewer words but less dialect than Huck Finn.

Your thesis should be the last sentence in the introductory paragraph. It should only be one sentence. It should follow this format: In ______ (title), ________(the author) uses ______, ______, and _____ (strategies) in order to __________(purpose). The order of these elements can vary, but it must still follow this format! If the purpose is to describe something, you must tell what or how it is being described. Example: “…to describe the south as racist and hypocritical.” You must relate everything back to the specific purpose you identified in the thesis. “Helping the readers connect to the story,” “setting the scene,” “describing the south,” “illustrating a character” are NOT effective connections to purpose.