How to Write an English Literature Thesis Paper

Write an A+ English literature term paper!

Writing an English literature paper can be daunting. A unique thesis and quality writing can be what makes your particular term paper stand out from the rest. Use the following techniques to learn how to choose a distinctive thesis statement for your term paper and write a strong argument.

Instructions

1. Writing an English literature paper can be daunting. A unique thesis and quality writing can be what makes your particular term paper stand out from the rest. Use the following techniques to learn how to choose a distinctive thesis statement for your term paper and write a strong argument.

   Put down the book. Once you've read a book, re-reading it won't necessarily help you come up with a thesis. Neither will Cliff's Notes (put those down too!) Think about the book. How did it make you feel? Was the subject matter interesting? Was the writing style itself interesting? Was it conventional? Is the book new or old?

   Focus on one major aspect. It may fit to layer in another complementary sub-thesis (the sexism in Stoker's Dracula, with a sub-thesis of Stoker's treatment of femininity and masculinity). The main thesis may be in regards to the writing style itself, the subject matter, the time period the author wrote during, the influence of the author's own life on their work, a comparison to other work during the same time, a comparison to other work by the same author or a comparison to others' works on the same subject matter.

2. Sometimes a paper almost writes itself---if the protagonist is a murderer, a great paper could cover a couple different angles: how the writer manages to make a murderer a sympathetic character, or how that particular work's treatment of the character stacks up against similar (or opposite) treatments of the same subject by other authors or throughout the author's career.

   Occasionally, however, a thesis is not as obvious. The more obscure the idea that your thesis is based on, the more interesting to your reader. However, before embarking on any thesis, be sure to map out the topics the paper will cover. Is there enough material? If not, are there some complementary statements you can make that will furnish an entire paper?

3. Anything can be used as a springboard for your thesis. What's the setting? If it's almost entirely set in a house, pay attention to the "architecture" of the house the author has created. Are the rooms and the action in the rooms related to the plot? Is there a strong emphasis on secret rooms, or on hallways, or on doors? What could those elements symbolize? Is the book set outdoors? Is it the woods? The beach? It always helps to do a quick internet search and determine what these settings might symbolize. The forest can mean something different between a modern book and literature of another age. Before the time of Google Earth, far away places were either romanticized for their foreignness or demonized for their "otherness." (Africa in the Heart of Darkness by Conrad, for example.

4. Don't just explain why your thesis makes sense; think of how others might try to attack it. For example, say you're suggesting a novel was extremely progressive in its treatment of women for its time period. How could someone say that it wasn't? Is there one female character that is subjugated or acts in a stereotypical way? You could defend your thesis by suggesting she's there to act as a foil to further highlight how progressive the other characters are treated. Or maybe she's there as a satire of the author's contemporaries' treatment of women.

5. One of the most important ways to ensure your paper makes the grade is to pay close attention to the writing itself. Nothing is more boring than a paper written with the same sentence structure ("syntax"), start to finish. The following sentences are examples:

   ---Nothing draws attention like a short sentence. If you're making a bold statement for the first time in a paper, consider a to-the-point, staccato sentence.

   ---If you're explaining a complex argument in which each idea builds off the one before it, see if you can work a summary sentence in which each clause builds upon the previous, creating an almost visual approximation of your point.

6. And finally, vary your word usage, otherwise know as "diction." Writing a paper on racism in a book? How many times do you use the word "racist?" Use the find feature in your writing program to get an idea, because it's probably too many. Pull up an online thesaurus and hunt down some new words. Is the racism towards people from another country? Try "xenophobic." What about "discrimination"? It doesn't take more than half an hour to look over a 20-page paper for word variety. Swap out "green" for "verdant" and "fertility" for "fecundity." "Shiny" can become "lustrous," "pearly," or "radiant." Try not to use a word you've never heard before, however, and certainly not more than one a paper, or you risk making a teacher or professor think you didn't write the paper at all!

   By choosing a unique angle, underpinning it with one or more complementary ideas, building your argument, defending it from possible attack and varying your syntax and diction, you can write an captivating paper that will stand out from the rest---and get you the grade you deserve!

Tips & Warnings

• Choose an original thesis

• Underpin your thesis with complementary ideas

• Build your argument and defend it

• Vary diction and syntax

• Use spell check!