Writing a Literary Research Paper the Easy Way
Steps in Writing a Literary Research Paper
Your teacher has given you a literary work (short story, novel, drama or poetry) and she wants you to write a literary research paper about it. You have read the literary work over and over again and you still feel that you cannot start writing about it. You don’t know what to do. Don’t panic. Writing a research paper will be easy if you know the steps on how to do it, it is not impossible to come up with a paper that will receive a high grade from your teacher.
Writing about literature is an exercise in coming up with your own interpretation of a literary work based on your analysis of the work and your study of the interpretations of others about the same work. You need to come up with your opinion about the literary work and then prove that that your opinion is correct. Your opinion about the work is your research paper thesis.
An example of a simple thesis statement is this: “Hamlet is only pretending to be insane.” This is the result of your study of Hamlet and this is a good thesis statement because you can prove it by looking for other works that share the same interpretation. Reading up on other writers who have written about the literary work assigned to you is also another way to come up with research paper topic ideas if you still don’t have one.
When you have your thesis statement, do some research. Read up on other works that you think will support your argument. Write an outline of the main points that you will tackle. For a 10-page literary research paper, you only need to tackle 3 or 4 sub-topics. For the thesis statement of Hamlet that we have mentioned earlier, you can list down 3 reasons why you think Hamlet is not really insane. These 3 reasons will be your 3 main points. This is how to easily come up with a research paper outline.
When you have your outline, it will not be overwhelming to start writing your paper anymore. Introduce your topic by writing something general that will lead to your thesis statement. When you are writing about Hamlet, for example, you may say general opinions about it. You can start by saying, “Is Hamlet really insane or is he just pretending?” This will then lead to your thesis statement of your literary research paper.
In the body of your paper, tackle the 3 main points in your outline. Use the works of authors who have the same interpretation of the work. Just make sure that you don’t just say what they said. Instead, use what they said to support your points. For this kind of paper, you will mostly likely be instructed to write the body using the MLA format. Make sure that when you use an idea of an author, you cite the author properly.
End your paper with a paragraph that summarizes what you did in your paper. Mention your 3 main points and end by re-instating your thesis statement without repeating the same words.
There you have it your literary research paper with a good thesis statement, good sources to support your thesis statement, outline that will help you in your writing, introduction that states your argument, body that tackles your 3 main points and ending that re-states your thesis. Easy!
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