PRELIMINARY
THESIS
STATEMENT
WRITING
Literary Research Paper
OBJECTIVE
To
craft an early draft of your
thesis statement that shows
your focus and approach to
research and connects with
the topics you seem to be
finding in your research.
STEP ONE: REVIEW RESEARCH
 Look
for and organize…
Patterns in research findings
 Intriguing insights—ideas about the
text that are new and exciting to you
 Researched ideas that connect to your
own opinions or reactions to the text

 Use
the tangible nature of your
notecards to your benefit…
Lay them all out and examine them—
this will help you to actually see
patterns in your research
 Make piles of similar ideas

STEP TWO: CHOOSE AN (INITIAL)
ARGUABLE FOCUS
 ARGUABLE




Debatable
Questionable
Disputable
Someone has to be able to DISAGREE with
your idea…this can’t be a FACT of the text!
 You
must be able to sustain (6-10
pages) and support (7 secondary
sources) this focus…


What do you already have in your research?
What more do you need? How do you need to
focus your work for remaining Media Center
days?
POSSIBLE THESIS
STATEMENT DIRECTIONS
Look
to your own annotations
and original ideas about the
text…the best topics originate
from these creative, personal
thoughts!
Some
common research
approaches to consider…
COMMON LIT. RESEARCH TOPICS
A discussion of a
work's characters: are
they realistic,
symbolic, historicallybased?
 A comparison/contrast
of the choices different
authors or characters
make in a work
 A reading of a work
based on an outside
philosophical
perspective (Ex. how
would a Freudian
read Hamlet?)

A study of the sources
or historical events
that inspired a
particular work
 An analysis of a
specific image
occurring in several
works (Ex. the use of
moon imagery in
certain plays, poems,
novels)
 A study of the social,
political, or economic
context in which a
work was written —
how does the context
influence the work?

SAMPLE THESIS STATEMENTS
Mark Twain shows how racism can corrupt good
people in Huckleberry Finn.
 The climax of Stephen King’s The Stand represents
the classic struggle of good versus evil.
 In "The Swimmer," John Cheever uses the metaphor
of the swimmer to describe the escape of a modern
man from his personal life.
 In Hondo, Louis L’Amour’s title character represents
the idealized hero in western literature.
 Jack Ryan in Tom Clancy’s Debt of Honor is a classic
modern hero.
 The main character in “To Build a Fire” embodies a
man versus nature struggle that characterizes most
naturalist writings.

DON’T
WORRY…
These samples are much
more polished and more
formal than what you need
to produce RIGHT NOW.
These exemplify what your
thesis statement will look
like in your final draft…
PRELIMINARY THESIS
STATEMENT FORMATTING
In my book I noticed ___________________________.
Based on my opinions and my research so far, I
think I could write a paper on
_______________________________________________.
This is the BARE MINIMUM of
what you need to produce. If this is
all you can do right now, that is
perfectly fine. But, if you can say
more and in a more formal
fashion…DO IT!!!
FOR FURTHER THESIS
GUIDANCE SEE
CHAPTERS 9 (P. 336-368)
AND 10 (P. 369-400)
ADDITIONAL WEB
RESOURCES
http://www.northland.cc.mn.us/owl/Writing%20a%
20Literary%20Paper.htm
http://www.roanestate.edu/owl/Argument.html
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/618/02/