Interpretive analysis and writing about literature present

Overview When your teachers or professors ask you to analyze a literary text, they often look for something frequently called close reading. Close reading is deep analysis of how a literary text works; it is both a reading process and something you include in a literary analysis paper, though in a refined form. Fiction writers and poets build texts out of many central components, including subject, form, and specific word choices. Literary analysis involves examining these components, which allows us to find in small parts of the text clues to help us understand the whole.

What to include in literary analysis Take a look at this sample paragraph. It includes 3 basic kinds of materials: The quotations are used in accordance with the writer's purpose, i. Ramsey's feelings indicates something about her personality. Quoting is only one of several ways to present textual material as evidence.

You can also refer to textual data, summarize, and paraphrase. You will often want merely to refer or point to passages as in the third sentence in the sample paragraph that contribute to your argument.

In other cases you will want to paraphrase, i. Summarize or paraphrase when it is not so much the language of the text that justifies your position, but the substance or content. Quote selectively Similarly, after you have decided that you do want to use material in quoted form, quote only the portions of the text specifically relevant to your point.

Think of the text in terms of units--words, phrases, sentences, and groups of sentences paragraphs, stanzas --and use only the units you need. If it is particular words or phrases that "prove" your point, you do not need to quote the sentences they appear in; rather, incorporate the words and phrases into sentences expressing your own ideas.

Maintaining Clarity and Readability Introduce your quotations Introduce a quotation either by indicating what it is intended to show or by naming its source, or both.

For non-narrative poetry, it's customary to attribute quotations to "the speaker"; for a story with a narrator, to "the narrator. Do not use two quotations in a row, without intervening material of your own.

Pay attention to verb tense Tense is a tricky issue. It's customary in literary analysis to use the present tense; it is at the present time that you and your reader are looking at the text. But events in a narrative or drama take place in a time sequence.

Punctuating and Indenting Quotations

You will often need to use a past tense to refer to events that took place before the moment you are presently discussing: When he hears Cordelia's answer, Lear seems surprised, but not dumbfounded.

He advises her to "mend [her] speech a little. If your instructor hasn't told you which system to use to document sources, ask. Keep in mind that when you are writing a paper about the same text and quoting from the same edition that everyone else in the class is, instructors will often allow you to use informal documentation.

How to Write an Interpretive Essay Example

In this case just include the page number in parentheses after the quotation or reference to the text. To be sure, though, you should ask your course instructor. The documentation style used in this pages is that presented in the MLA Handbook, but other style systems are commonly used.You write a thesis statement for an interpretive essay in much the same way as you write a thesis statement for any essay.

There’s a lot of ink spilled about different types of essay - interpretive, argumentative, comparative, superlative - but an essay is just a piece of writing that explores a question.

An interpretive essay is an essay that provides an analysis of another piece of writing. An assignment to interpret a work of literature can seem overwhelming. Figuring out where to start, what literary elements to analyze and what to interpret does not have to be an impossible task.

How to Start Your Interpretive Thesis What Is a Literary Analysis Thesis? Consider a great literary artist such as Shakespeare and how many people have written interpretive papers or interpretive qualitative research and theses about his writing.5/5.

Literary Analysis Papers: How to use literary quotations

A Short Guide to Close Reading for Literary Analysis; Using Literary Quotations; A Short Guide to Close Reading for Literary Analysis. Use the guidelines below to learn about the practice of close reading.

A Short Guide to Writing about Literature. Barnet and Cain offer not only definitions and descriptions of processes, but examples of. How To Write An Interpretation Essay. An interpretive essay is an essay that provides an analysis of another piece of writing.

An assignment to interpret a work of literature can seem overwhelming. As you choose quotations for a literary analysis, remember the purpose of quoting. Your paper develops an argument about what the author of the text is doing--how the text "works." You use quotations to support this argument; that is, you select, present, and discuss material from the text.