1. Structuring A Thesis-Based Essay
Intro:
Provide initial context: summarize the work and its significance in 2-3 sentences
Establish the significance of your approach to the work in 2-3 sentences: what’s the question you’re asking about the work and why is it important?
State your thesis (which is just a response to that question you’ve asked)
BODY PARAGRAPHS: Convince the reader to accept your interpretation
Conclusion:
Synthesize your argument
Connect to the “bigger picture”: how does your interpretation change the way we see the work as a whole?
Send your reader off with something: now that they agree with you, how might they look at work differently?

2. Taking One Step Backward From Structure: How To Come Up With An Essay Topic
Ask questions as you read:
A thesis for a literature paper is just a response to a question you ask about a text:
Q: Why doesn’t Jim end up with Antonia?
A: Maybe Jim doesn’t end up
Trace patterns in the text:
Apply other frameworks to texts:
Interested in Criminal Justice? Look at the role of law and order in one of the texts.
Psychology major? Do a character analysis that presents an argument about a character’s drives and motivations.
Passionate about gender equality? Think about the relationship between power and gender in the work.

3. What a Good Literature/Film Essay Thesis Should Do
Make a claim about some specific aspect of the work that:
1. Is original, argumentative, and specific . . .
2. Helps to reveal new layers of meaning in the work something a reader wouldn’t notice on a first pass-through
3. Ultimately helps to reveal new meaning in the work as a whole . . .

4. Is My Thesis Any Good? 1. Does it make an argument?
Avoid theses that nearly everyone would agree with.
Ex. This passage tells us that Harry Potter is a Wizard.
2. Is it focused on the work itself?
Avoid theses that make claims about (literary) history. These will require too much research.
Ex. Harry Potter is an inaccurate representation of the history of wizardry.
3. Is it provable?
Avoid claims that are based on a subjective interpretation, or a claim about the value of the text.
Ex. Harry Potter is a bad book.
4. Is it focused for a short essay?
Avoid theses that are so broad that they’d require a longer essay to prove.
Ex. JK Rowling thinks about nature.

5. Types of Body Paragraphs
Providing historical/social context (not too much: it’s a short paper!)
Ex. Talking about the historical period or event that the work depicts
Defining a key term related to your argument (including competing definitions)
Ex. What is the apocalypse? Or: What is “eco-colonialism”?
Synchronic Analysis (analysis of a particular moment):
Close readings of particular scenes from the work and their significance
Ex. Why were the characters described this way in the scene? Why did the work end the way it did? Why did a particular character make a particular decision? What was the meaning of a particular line of dialogue?

6. Types of Body Paragraphs
Diachronic Analysis (analysis over time):
Taking one aspect of the work and tracing it through multiple scenes
Ex. Examining specific characters’ development in the work
Ex. Looking at formal tendencies and their overall meaning (i.e., repeated appearance of a particular color throughout the work)
Positioning your argument in the conversation about the work
Ex. Talking about how x scholar or reviewer or classmate would agree with you about the work
OR: Talking about how x scholar or reviewer or classmate would disagree with you about the work (and why they’re wrong)

7. How to Structure A Paragraph, Part One
1. Topic Sentence:
Makes a Claim
Connects to Thesis
Build from Previous Paragraph
2. Present Evidence:
Specific details from the work that support your interpretation
Quotes from scholars and critics
Your own experience and observations
Hypotheticals and thought experiments: “Imagine the work had ended differently. What would that change about its meaning?”

8. How to Structure A Paragraph, Part Two
3. Analyze Evidence:
Explain why the evidence supports your conclusion
Draw out assumptions for your reader; make the implicit explicit
Every quote/fact needs at least one or two sentences of explanation and analysis
4. Conclusion Sentence:
Synthesizes the argument of the paragraph
Establishes the significance of that argument
Connects back to thesis

9. Do:
Assume your reader has read/seen the work, but may need to be reminded of key details
Focus on how the work constructs meaning: ideas, feelings, arguments that the casual reader might not perceive
Use close reading to support your points: consider the use of figurative language, the style and tone, the description and imagery (or, for film, mise-en-scene, cinematography, editing, sound)
Consider counter-arguments: if someone were trying to contradict your interpretation of the work, what would they say?
Consider looking at what other people—particularly scholars—have said about the work
Include a works cited page (even if you don’t cite other sources, you still need an entry for the work you’re writing about)
Don’t:
Spend more than a few sentences summarizing the plot
Use “evaluative” language (like “this work is good or enjoyable”)
Plagiarize

10. Tips For Research-Based Essays

11. What Is A Literary Research Paper?
Any research paper you write for this class should be driven by a thesis that is meaningfully connected to one of the works of literature we’ve read/screened for class
You can use scholarship from (like history, , or sociology), but the purpose of that research should be to gain insight into a work of literature (rather than vice versa).
See the assignment sheet for more!
psychology

12. Hot Research Tips Manage Your Time Research for the paper you want
Diversify based on audience: Scholarly sources, occasional pop stuff, some print, some online
Write as you research
Copy a quote or paragraph, then write an intro to the quote, then write commentary
Organize paragraphs around quotes/sources, but put your voice first!
Avoid unintentional plagiarism
I create a word doc for every source (with citation info)
Keep sources (pdfs) in separate folder, Bookmark everything
Put quotes around things that are quotes in your notes

13. Research Writing Tips Manage Space and Time
Know your best hours for writing
Write a little every day
Maybe don’t work from home?
Turn off /phone/IM
Organize Your Writing Process
Keep different sections in different documents
Keep “cut” sections in a separate document
Use your outline (and update it as you go)
Revise As You Go
Revise the intro as you go
When you can’t write, edit
Set “section deadlines” and pass to others for feedback

14. THREE RESEARCH PAPER TIPS: 1. Narrow the Focus
Easier to research a well-defined field
More specific = fewer potential counter- arguments
Detail and specificity are engaging to readers
How do you do this?

15. 2. Find the Debate Everything’s an argument: acknowledge that
“Informative” research is mostly obsolete
Effective synthesis of information is a good skill to have . . .
. . . but analysis and critical thinking about information are more important

16. “Imagine that you enter a parlor. You come late
“Imagine that you enter a parlor. You come late. When you arrive, others have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about. In fact, the discussion had already begun long before any of them got there, so that no one present is qualified to retrace for you all the steps that had gone before. You listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him; another comes to your defense; another aligns himself against you, to either the embarrassment or gratification of your opponent, depending upon the quality of your ally's assistance. However, the discussion is interminable. The hour grows late, you must depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in progress.”
Kenneth Burke, The Philosophy of Literary Form

17. 3. Un-bury the Lede Your thesis belongs on page 1, not page 5
“Background” is important, but it’s better if your reader already knows where you’re heading
Write those three or four pages leading to the thesis . . .
. . . Then move them or condense them.