The topics you will be given for your essays in this course may be very general — far too general to constitute a thesis in themselves. Your task is to produce a critical essay that addresses a specific aspect of that topic, and that presents an aggressive, organized argument in which you lead the reader carefully and briskly through the stages of your particular interpretation of the work. You are trying to provide your reader with a new way of seeing the literary work in question.

In short literary essays, your argument will consist mainly of short direct quotations or paraphrases which you set up and then analyze. This is very important: don't simply present chunks of your chosen work, either in quotation or in summary; rather, link the lines or phrases you are using as evidence in your argument with your own, original analytical prose. A good rule of thumb: write THREE sentences of your OWN analysis for every ONE line of text that you quote or paraphrase.

Analysis is impossible, of course, without a good, argumentative thesis. Take the time to ask yourself questions about the work you're analyzing: WHY did the author make the choices she did? HOW does the poem or play challenge (or follow) the traditions that are part of its genre/time period/subject matter? A thesis statement should almost always imply a "why?" question; mere description ("Paradise Lost presents an argument about free will.") is never enough.

A good thesis is topic specific. In other words, if your thesis is generic enough that it could be used for more than one paper topic, it’s probably a weak one. If it does not make some particular reference to the works about which you’re writing, it’s insufficient, and no amount of brilliant prose afterwards will save your essay. If you plan ahead, you will be able to develop a thesis that thoroughly answers the topic question, and that will point you to specific pieces of evidence in the test with which to illustrate and develop your thesis. To repeat, your thesis statement should be a short, accurate ANSWER to the topic question, which you will later support and flesh out with specific textual examples.

If your topic asks you to evaluate two or more works, your thesis must find some concise, meaningful link between/among them. NEVER offer the thesis, "there are many similarities and differences between these works." Such a statement is a truism, and a truism is NEVER the basis for a good discussion. If your thesis needs no proof (the definition of a truism), then why do you need to support it with an essay? How can you structure your support if it’s unnecessary? Instead, create a specific description of the similarities and differences you will investigate — look for essential conflicts or paradoxes that the literary works share, even though they may comment on these conflicts in very different ways.

To write a good critical analysis, you must take the time to look at the work's language. Compare the literal meaning of the work with the music, mood, style, and density of the language. Look for symbolism, vivid images, figures of speech, and (in poetry and verse drama) rhyme and rhythm. Again, your essay will not just describe the writer's diction or language choices, but will offer an explanation of why the author made these choices and how these choices work together (or against each other) to create more levels of meaning.

A paper that offers little beyond a description of the literary work cannot receive a grade higher than a "C," and it will most likely fail. It goes without saying that a good analysis will take several trials or drafts to accomplish. Give yourself time, and take advantage of The Writing Center. And, as you're revising, consider these points:

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1. Avoid generalization! Remove any sentence that could apply to any work except the particular one you're analyzing. Remove any sentence that tells the reader something she probably already knows ("Morals in Victorian times were different from those of the 20th Century.") Remove any sentence that offers a personal value judgment not directly related to the issues of the literary work ("Negative images of women are a terrible thing."). In fact, remove the words "positive" and "negative" whenever you see them in your draft: instead, use active verbs and vivid adjectives ("Milton evokes feelings of pity and disgust in his portrayal of Sin and Death," not "Sin and Death are presented negatively in Paradise Lost.").

2. Avoid beginning sentences with the word "this" (or "these"). Make sure each sentence you write has a specific subject. Avoid also "it," "there," "that/those," and "such" as opening words.

3. Avoid using "obviously," "clearly," "as we can see . . ." — if you've made your point strongly enough with carefully presented and supported evidence, you won't need to reiterate the fact with such phrases. Along with this: the use of "I" in a critical paper is not prohibited, but realize that the entire paper is, by definition, your opinion. Use "I" to avoid passive voice every now and then, but take another look at your draft if it pops up frequently.

4. Please don't use the assignment for the title of the paper. Whenever I see a title like "Analysis of Paradise Lost" or worse, "Essay #1," I know that the writer has approached it as a chore, and that reading it will also be a chore. Let your title invite your reader to tackle a critical problem along with you: "Understanding Satan in Paradise Lost," "The Pleasures of Hypocrisy in Tartuffe," etc.

5. Avoid passive voice, and don't use "holds" as a verb unless someone is actually grasping an object. Look back at your sentences and substitute an active verb for "is"-forms in practically every sentence. ("Milton awes the reader with his elevated style." is better than "Milton's language is complicated.") Using "is" and "holds" allows you to avoid assigning responsibility for an idea to either yourself or the author; make sure your reader understands where the words are coming from. Language never exists in a vacuum; it must be produced by a human being.

6. Your quotations should almost never run more than three lines/sentences (remember the 3-to-1 ratio). Assume your reader has read the work you're analyzing. Almost no summary should be needed.

7. When making comparisons, avoid the "ping-pong" style ("Poem A and Poem B are both love poems. Poem A is from the Renaissance. Poem B is 20th-Century. Poem and and Poem B have some similarities and some differences . . .") Use the point-by-point method to offer your reader debatable issues and problems with which to compare the two works ("The best love poems avoid sentimentality. Poem A succeeds at this and Poem B fails, in the following ways . . .")

8. Appearances count. "A" papers are always written in correct format (this means margins, title pages, page numbers, etc.) and contain no more than one uncorrected or three corrected errors per page (I prefer neatly crossed-out-and-written-above corrections to gobs of white-out). Spell-checking programs available nowadays make spelling errors even more unacceptable than before, but your must ALSO PROOFREAD! No amount of intellectual brilliance will excuse more than one spelling error per page. Please also make sure your printout is done on the "letter-quality" and not the "draft" setting. Check the cartridge/ribbon in the printer/typewriter. IMPORTANT: I do not accept printer failure as an excuse for a late paper. If you've done more than one draft of your essay, you've had a chance to see how the printer handles your file. Don't wait until the last minute to finalize and print your paper!