1. Frankenstein Literary Analysis Papers: Avoiding The Horror of Bad Writing

2. Look at your initial thesis statement:
Does the author’s name appear in the thesis? It should.
Do you have any “valuable” words? Are you sure you’re using them correctly?
Have you used too many big words?
Do you specifically refer to a literary technique or device in the thesis or just to ideas about the text?
Have you appropriately capitalized and punctuated?
Have you underlined or italicized the book title?

3. Before you even start writing:
Titles:
Make sure your title is not too vague
Never use a semi-colon in a title- they’re only for sentences
Capitalize all key words

5. Functional Less Functional
Frankenstein and His Creation
Humanity and Monstrosity
Frankenstein and Prometheus
The Peril of Ambition
Creators of Life
Frankenstein and his Monster
Distorted Mirror Images
Frankenstein
Living with Regret
A Lens into the Romantic Era
[No Title]
Too Long:
Frankenstein’s Negligence of Love and his Monster’s Rejection of Society
Too Obvious:
Why Frankenstein is Subtitled “Modern Prometheus”
Using just the title of the book
Too Vague:
Acceptance; Valued by All, But Given By None
Romanticism in Horror
Natural Reverence
Natural Disaster
Opposite Yet So Similar
Parenting; knowing what enough is
Master and Servant
Being “The Other”
Tale of Two Opposites

6. Before you even start writing:
Block opening quotes and cite with speaker’s or author’s name
Don’t use a definition as a hook anymore on a formal paper. We’re past that. Get more creative.

7. Advice about Evidence:
Lead-Ins:
Lead-ins still are a challenge for many. Here are the stages of a developing lead-in:
Not Getting It: “Just starting the sentence with a quote and using no lead in.”
Starting to Get It: Using the number of the scene to give context: In Act one, scene two, lines 25-30, “A pair of star crossed lovers take their life.”
You Get It: Using textual details and a “said word” to integrate the quote fluently
When Friar Lawrence asks Romeo in the garden, he argues “blah blah blah.”

8. Advice about Analysis: Avoid Absolutes
“Restrictions are enforced by all members of society.”
“In the darkest of times, when all hope is lost, there is always one person that tries to save the day and fix everything.”
“Britain truly was the supreme country; therefore, they were the only people who mattered.”
“Victor Frankenstein in the novel Frankenstein never lived in the moment either.”
“Everyone has a double.”

9. Advice about Analysis:
Don’t generalize about “society” or “the ages” or “everybody” or “anyone”
“Life is all around us and is constantly sprouting up from the strangest of places.”
“Imagery about nature has been used throughout the ages …”
Avoid Understatements:
“The monster only causes mischief …”
“The death of many characters led to gloominess …”

10. Advice about Analysis:
Avoid speculation by not using would, could, should
“Foil” as a verb doesn’t work well in formal analysis because characters can’t foil each other. They are fictional and don’t exist. Authors create characters as a foil for other characters, so we should always use it as a noun.
“Shelley creates the monster as a foil for Frankenstein showing …”

11. Ways to be more specific:
Use transitional phrases to clarify
to introduce characters
To shift between texts if you’re comparing two texts
Dependent clauses offer a wonderful format for transitions: they should feel natural and -- dare I say – simple.
Use proper nouns instead of pronouns whenever reasonable