ENGLISH 2328
Writing an Essay on Literature
The essays you write for English 2328 require a close reading of the literature, critical
thinking skills, and use of the stages in your writing process that you studied in English
1301 and 1302.
Once you select your writing topic from the list of topics on the assignment page, do
close readings of the two works of literature you will analyze. Use the notes and
questions on the study guides to help you think deeply about the literature. As you read
slowly, mark your text with personal notations. Underline or highlight passages that will
help you support your ideas you present in your essay.
One strategy of critical thinking about literature is to make a comparative/contrastive
analysis of two (or sometimes more) works of literature and to draw conclusions based on
that comparison/contrast. An analysis breaks a topic down into parts, a comparison
shows similarities, and a contrast shows differences.
To write your analysis, connect two works of literature with one to three (or more)
connecting points. When you discover a connecting point, develop it by showing
similarities or differences. For example, in both Kate Chopin’s “The Storm” and in
Stephen Crane’s “The Open Boat,” the characters in both stories are affected by water.
Would you say that the characters experience similar or different reactions to the water?
Likewise, the ocean plays an important role in Stephen Crane’s “The Open Boat” and
Sarah Orne Jewett’s “A White Heron.” In these two stories, would you say that the ocean
plays a similar role or a different role?
USE YOUR WRITING PROCESS
Consider the stages you use in your writing process:
1. Analyze the writing assignment by noting your purpose (expository and
analytical), audience (our class and me), and tone (your attitude about the subject
matter).
2. Create/discover ideas by listing, freewriting, clustering, or other creating
activity.
3. Shape your essay by considering your strategies best suited for the assignment:
comparison/contrast and example. Draft a tentative thesis and an optional rough
draft outline.
4. Draft a rough draft (or maybe a freewriten discovery draft). Be sure to
incorporate your direct quotes from your primary sources. Introduce the quotes,
give the quote exactly as in the original, and include page numbers from the
original. Write your separate works cited page.
5. Revise your draft. Get some optional feedback/critique from a class peer,
instructor, and/or tutor.
(We have tutors on campus in our Writing Centers and through HCC AskOnline.)
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6. Edit your essay by working on large scale issues such as content and
organization as well as smaller-scale issues such as sentences, diction (word
choice/usage), and punctuation and manuscript mechanics.
7. Proofread your essay one last time before submitting it on the due date and time.
ORGANIZING YOUR ESSAY
Introduction (about three to five sentences for one paragraph)
1. Reveal the authors’ full names and full titles of works you will analyze. (After
the first full reference to an author’s name, use last name only. After the first full
reference to a title, you may shorten subsequent references with a shortened
version of the title. For example, “The Yellow Wallpaper” can become simply
“Wallpaper.”)
2. Provide any appropriate background information that leads up to/ introduces your
thesis.
3. Offer a carefully worded thesis.
4. The thesis can be open or enumerative. An open thesis states generally what you
will discuss, yet still provides some hint at the essays organization:
In “How to Tell a Story,” Twain sets down the guidelines for the oral
telling of a humorous story, and he uses these guidelines in “The
Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.”
An enumerative thesis states specifically your connecting points in the order
you will develop them:
In “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” Twain created a
humorous tale that has no theme or plot, is told gravely, slurs the point,
drops studied remarks, and incorporates a pause.
Tip: Avoid writing the “announcement thesis”: The purpose of this essay is to
connect “How to Tell a Story” with “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras
County.” (Rather than announce your intentions, make a specific statement about
the two works ofl iterature.)
Body (three or four topic sentence paragraphs that develop the thesis)
1. Write strong topic sentences with controlling ideas related to the thesis.
Your controlling idea is based on a connecting point you have discovered.
For example, your topic sentence might look like the following sentence:
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In “The Storm” and “The Open Boat,” water plays an important role in both
protagonists’ transformation.
2. Offer plenty of paragraph development/support for your topic sentence
(about five to seven sentences).
3. As part of your development/support, quote from the primary source (the
literary works). You want to prove your critical thinking assertions on the
literature.
4. Consider writing a concluding sentence for your topic sentence paragraphs.
Conclusion (three to five sentences)
1. Give closure to your essay by writing a concluding paragraph.
2. Perhaps summarize your essay (but do not repeat the thesis word for word).
3. Perhaps reveal what you have learned about the literature (or critical thinking) by
making your analysis.
MANUSCRIPT MECHANICS
1. In your upper right hand corner, create a header with your last name, no comma,
and page number. Use the header/footer feature on your computer.
2. In your upper left hand corner, give the course information in this order (double
spaced: your full name (first name first), your instructor’s name, the course
(English 2328), the date of submission. (Don’t type course information into the
header box. If you do, your course information will be printed on each page.)
3. Bold and center your title. Your title does not go in quotation marks. You do use
double quotation marks around the titles of short stories and poems that you
present in your title. Do not use all capitol letters in your title. Remember that
your title is part of your introduction and should engage the reader’s attention. Do
not write: An Analysis of Stephen Crane and Kate Chopin. Be creative with your
title.
4. Do not tamper with your pre-set margins.
5. Your essay is double spaced in Times New Roman point 12.
6. The words Works Cited centered and bold go above your entries. Your works
cited page should be paginated as part of your essay.
7. Titles of poems, sermons, essays and short stories go in quotation marks. The
titles of complete books and novels go in italics or are underlined.
INTEGRATING QUOTATIONS INTO YOUR ESSAY
As part of your essay development, use passages (direct quotes) from the primary sources
for evidence and support. The quotations constitute what is said by the characters or the
narrator.
Your quotations will be either (1) partial sentence/a few words, (2) full sentence, or (3)
long (more than four typed lines).
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1. Partial sentence/a few words:
The East Coast narrator reveals that Simon Wheeler, throughout his narrative,
never imagined “there was anything ridiculous or funny about his story” (104).
2. Full sentence:
Introduced with a colon:
Simon Wheeler makes a proud boast: “Anyways, I’ve got my opinion and I’ll resk
forty dollars that he can out jump any frog in Calaveras County” (107).
Introduced with a comma:
Twain writes, “There are several kinds of stories, but only one difficult kind—the
humorous” (1).
3. Long passage (more than four typed lines): Use MLA blocked quote
formatting: the passage is introduced with a colon, double indented from the left
side, double spaced, and has in-text documentation outside of the period.
Twain gives careful directions on how the story should be told:
The humorous story is told gravely; the teller does his best
to conceal the fact that he even dimly suspects that there is
anything funny about it; but the teller of the comic story tells you
beforehand that it is one of the funniest things he has ever heard,
then tells it with eager delight, and is the first person to laugh when
he gets through. (1)
(Note there is an extra tab on the first line of the long quote above because this
passage includes a paragraph indentation as in the original. If your long passage has
no original paragraph indentation, then tab only twice.)
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Integrating Poetry Quotations into Your Essay
When you quote poetry, you can quote (1) a few words from a line of poetry, (2) a
passage less than four lines, or (3) a long passage of four lines or more. Remember to
use line numbers from the poem for your in-text documentation inside your
parentheses.
1. A few words from a line of poetry:
Bradstreet writes that she has a “mean pen” (3) and writes “obscure lines” (6).
2. A passage less than four lines:
Bradstreet writes, “Men can do best, and women know it well” (40).
Bradstreet writes, “Men can do best, and women know it well / Preeminence is all
and each is yours” (40 -41).
(Note: In the above passage, you can divide two lines with a slash by using a
space before and after the dash).
3. Long passage of four or more lines:
Bradstreet fumes:
I am obnoxious to each carping tongue
Who says my hand a needle better fits,
A poet’s pen all scorn I should thus wrong,
For such despite they cast on female wits. (25-29)
Special Problems When Documenting Prose and Poetry
You might encounter special problems as you quote a (1) quote within a quote, (2) a
quote with exclamations and question marks, (3) a passage requiring ellipsis, (4) the
addition of special emphasis, and (5) a passage with original errors, archaic spelling, or
non-standard word usage or punctuation.
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1. A quote within a quote (use single quote makes):
After Winterbourne moves back to Geneva, we hear “a report that he is
‘studying’ hard—an intimation that he is much interested in a very clever foreign
lady” (429).
2. A quote with exclamations or question marks:
Wheeler makes a startling discovery: “Why blame my cats if he don’t weigh five
pound!” (107).
3. A passage requiring an ellipsis:
At the end of a passage:
The unprepared narrator writes, “Simon Wheeler backed me into a corner and
blockaded me there with his chair, and then sat down and reeled off the
monotonous narrative . . . (104).
In the middle of a passage:
Giovanelli responds, “She was the most beautiful lady I ever saw, and the most
amiable . . . [a]nd she was the most innocent” (428).
NOTE: Do not use ellipsis at the beginning of a quote.
4. A passage requiring special emphasis:
Bradstreet writes, “I am obnoxious [italics mine] to each carping tongue / Who
says my hand a needle better fits” (25-26). The word “obnoxious” (25) reveals her
strong tone, even anger, she feels about males’ perceptions and expectations of
female writers.
5. A passage with original errors, archaic spelling, or non-standard word usage
or punctuation:
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A melancholy Faith requests, “Put off your journey until sunrise and sleep in
your own bed to-night [sic]” (1289).
(NOTE: The spelling of “to-night” is an archaic spelling of “tonight.” The letters
“sic” are Latin standing for “as in the original.”)
For your Works Cited page, consult
1. The handout in this unit: “MLA DOCUMENTATION GUIDELINE FOR WORKS
CITED ENTRIES”
or
2. The website OWL (Online Writing Lab) from Purdue University. A link is provided
in this folder.
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