How to Write an Informative Essay in Classic English Literature

So, if your task is to write an informational essay on classical English literature, then we have great news for you. Firstly, literature is fascinating in itself, and such a task is another chance to better understand the beloved author. Secondly, an informational essay is rightfully considered one of the easiest academic tasks, since you do not need to invent anything new. It is enough to collect all available information and put the facts in a logical sequence. And thirdly, in this article we have collected the most effective tips on how to make this process interesting and exciting – both for you and for your reader.

What Is The Specifics of an Informative Essay?

The most important specificity of an informational essay is that you need to collect as many facts, statistics, and opinions as possible. The more data, the more complete and revealing your paper will be. Moreover, most of the information that you need is already contained in the work by which you will write an essay. You will have to do a little additional research within your topic, and arrange the results in the most logical sequence.

Topics and Ideas For Your Paper

Fortunately, no matter what topic you choose or get, you don’t have to worry about not having enough sources to write your essay. Since we are talking about classical English literature, and not modern, other scholars have already created enough critical, analytical and research materials that you can use. So, you will have no problems either with the topic or with further research.
And by the way, this is worth saying about the specifics of the topic for an informational essay. As we already said, an informational essay solves the problem of insufficient awareness of your readers in any issue. In other words, the topic of your essay will sound like a question for which you need to give the most detailed answer. And of course, comply with the standard structure and not go beyond the required volume. Here are a few examples of unique themes that you can choose for yourself right now. Or use them to find and ask an even more interesting and unique question that will form the basis of your paper.

• What Is the Main Social Problem Described in The Great Gatsby?
• What Are the Main Legal and Ethical Issues Revealed in To Kill A Mockingbird That are Still Relevant Now?
• What Are the Main Symbols the Author Uses in The Lord Of The Flies?
• How Can You Imagine the Modern Dorian Gray?
• What Ethical and Medical Issues Described in Frankenstein Matter For Modern Science?

Main Things You Need for Successful Essay Writing in Classic English Literature

So, after you have chosen a topic, make sure that you have all the necessary tools for further writing and research. Here is what you need.

The Original Book or Piece of Writing

Of course, this is obvious – it is impossible to write an informational essay without reading a book or a poem, which is the basis of your paper. Be sure to read the entire work, and take notes that are relevant to your topic. You can also bookmark and select quotes for yourself so you can quickly return to them later.
Hint for ESL students! If you are just starting to learn English, start by reading a book in your own language and understand the content and main thoughts. After that, you can easily read it in its original form and will understand the context well.

Author’s Bio

The author’s biography is also able to give you many new insights for your informative essay. Your professor may not approve this, but sometimes Wikipedia is the best source for exploring the author’s biography. And after that, you can already dig deeper into more scientific sources and find evidence for the facts that you plan to use.

The Context and the Background

You also need to pay attention to the context and the general background of the writing of the work. For example, the Great Gatsby was written during the Age of Jazz, the explosive twenties of the 20th century and Prohibition – and this period identified the social problems and phenomena described in the book.

Clear Understanding of Literature Tools and Techniques

It is also important to understand literary techniques such as symbols, hyperbole, allegories and the like. This will help you not only to understand the author better but also to explain specific literary techniques to readers.

Let’s Write It Part By Part

Some professors even say that an informational essay can afford to move away from the clearest structure. And in part, this is true. Here you will not come across the fact that you need to build your sentences according to a very clear algorithm, such as in the case with an argumentative essay.
Here you can simply follow the logic of your facts, however, you will still need to write an introduction, thesis, main body and conclusion.

Introduction

Most likely, your reader is already interested in the question that you will answer in your essay, but you still need to get his interests and involvement. Introduction performs this task, so you need to make it as interesting and intriguing as possible. You can start with the most interesting fact, for example, that a certain classic book is based on real events. Or from interesting statistics – for example, to say that a certain classical poem has the greatest number of periods, rhymes, symbols and the like. A good strategy is to start with the opinion of a literary expert.

Thesis Statement

In the case of an informational essay, the thesis is a direct answer to the question of your paper. For example, if we talk about the Great Gatsby, then your thesis may sound like the following.

The most important social problems that the author describes in the book are the pursuit of the American Dream, prohibition, unreasonable attitude to money, and the fall of family values.

Main part

In order to write a full-fledged main part, you need to break your thesis statement into logical parts. Let’s not go far from our example – we will show you how to do it. Our thesis contains four phenomena – they can be disclosed in four paragraphs.
For example, in the first paragraph of the main part, you can start talking about the American Dream in this order.

• Define this phenomenon with reference to a scientific article.
• Describe the background and context of this phenomenon.
• Tell how the author addresses the American Dream in a book.
• Indicate how this concept was transformed and what it means today.
• Make a brief conclusion of the paragraph.

Follow this logic in each paragraph that you intend to write.

Conclusion

Everything is very simple here – go back to your thesis and write no more than five brief sentences that summarize all your research. You can also talk about the general significance of a particular classic in a modern context.

Useful Tricks That May Help You

As you already understood, the path to creating a great informative essay on classical English literature is free from pitfalls. We already told you about what you need to do step by step, but still left some tips to help you make your writing process enjoyable and thoughtful.

Make Sure You Have Enough Time

In this case, a sufficient margin of time is especially important, since you definitely need to read the literary work in full. Time becomes a critical factor, especially when the professor gave you clear instructions about what you should read to write an essay, and this is a rather voluminous book, for example, Jane Eyre. Be sure to set aside three to four additional days to read the book.

Moreover, we categorically do not recommend that you read brief anthologies – although they give a first idea of the work, they never show the full picture.
And by the way, do not try to replace reading a book with watching a movie – very often films contain scenes and elements that were not described in books or vice versa, do not contain the most important. Yes, sometimes films make a much greater impression than books – such as The Great Gatsby. However, let’s leave this approach to Film and Theater studies. Although if you still have a lot of time left and you have already read the book in its entirety, you can watch the movie to enhance the impression.

Revise the Formatting Style Requirements

Academic style is always about very clear requirements. All professors in the world are very fond of finding fault with the details, so when your work is ready, you need to return to academic requirements again. Make sure that you have drawn up the bibliography correctly, selected the right font and observe the necessary indents and intervals. By the way, if you want to save time on creating a reference list, use special applications like EasyBib. With it, you will receive ready-made descriptions for scientific articles and books automatically.

Allow Yourself to Take a Pause

It is for this reason that we advise you to give yourself enough time to complete this task. Your task is to collect as many relevant facts as possible and build them in a logical sequence. Therefore, it is always better to have more time to collect the most useful information. Moreover, you will need pauses to process the facts that you have already collected and not to create a mess in your head.

Allocate several days to read the book, one day to study additional literature, one day to collect facts, one day to systematize them, one day to write the essay itself, and one day to check.

Proofread and Edit Your Essay

Read your essay several times to make sure you made no mistakes. Read it aloud and make sure you do not write too long sentences. Follow the logic of your essay – you should inform the reader as thoroughly as possible. And also pay attention to the presence of small errors like typos, extra spaces and missing commas – Grammarly will help to cope with this task.

Make Sure Your Paper Is Plagiarism-Free

Plagiarism is an unacceptable violation in the academic world. Fortunately, it is very easy to deal with this phenomenon – you just need to indicate the author of the quote you are using or the scientist who discovered a specific phenomenon that you are referring to. It is very simple, and you will not have problems with plagiarism if you format your quotes correctly. In order to make sure of this, you can use Plagiarism Checker or a similar program.

Conclusion

As you can see, the informative essay on classical English literature does not bite. Moreover, it is much easier to write this type of essay than any other, because your task is simply to build important facts in a logical sequence and give the reader the opportunity to see the full picture. In this guide, we told you how to do it – so do not deprive yourself of a chance to touch the best literary works and hone your informational essay writing skill. If you need someone to help with your papers, don’t hesitate to contact our essay writing service with professional writers.