When you’re writing an essay on literature, you use more the skills of a reader. Of course, there has to be some analysis present, deep enough to answer the main question. But that’s the farthest it goes. With the classic English literature research paper, reading skills play a secondary role while your critical and analytical thinking is the main instrument to prove the thesis statement. However, that’s not all.
When you choose some literary work to focus on in a research paper, you study it inside and out – you know when it was created and in which circumstances; you explore who supports or opposes the ideas presented in the text; you participate in a discussion that can continue for years and do your best to contribute to it. And that’s the beauty of academic exploration, especially when you are really enthusiastic about getting to the heart of the matter. Here, in this article, you will find out how to write a classic English literature research paper properly and find all the information necessary for literature research paper writing. So, make yourself comfortable and enjoy!
The research is not all about typing your topic in the Google search bar and flicking through some articles that pop up in the first results. That looks more like choosing a new café to go with your friends to or looking for a gym with affordable prices. If you wish to produce a profound academic paper, you need to prepare a significant base which usually depends on the quality of the initial research. And in order not to make a blunder from the first steps, search for information in the right places which are:
These sources will help you to spot high quality and reliable information without the need to go through hundreds of meaningless articles and waste the precious time. And it’s always best to use them all together because this way you’ll get a broad overview of the scope you deal with in your research.
The next step after gathering all the links and books is to process the information. To get the most out of it, it is best to:
Keep these little tips in mind while surfing through the data you’ve gathered.
A thesis statement is a final destination of your literature research paper. It takes only one sentence, but defines the whole course of your exploration, so it’s necessary to understand the importance of its correct formulation. It is usually included in the end of the introduction and mentioned as a keynote though the whole paper. So, in order to create a provable and valuable thesis statement, you might want to:
Despite the fact that this is only one sentence, you must allot a considerable amount of time to work it out. Every word in a thesis statement should be carefully chosen and considered, and the whole sentence should state a complete thought.
The last, but not the least – don’t use phrases like “In my view” or “I think” in your thesis statement because it will make your words less persuasive and create an impression that you don’t have enough evidence to prove your point. So, be attentive about how you lay out your opinions.
With research papers of any kind it is necessary to remember that everything goes from generalization at the beginning, then to more specific points reaching its climax in the middle, and in conclusion again to more general things. The usual structure of a literature research paper includes:
This part can be one hell of a task because you must squeeze the essence of your whole piece in just 200 words mentioning the main questions, research methods, goals, and discussion. It is essential to remember that the abstract is the first thing everybody will read, thus it will be a point of decision for a reader whether to continue or not. The importance of this part is immense, so you might want to dedicate enough of your time to refine it to perfection.
This is also a significant part of a research paper and it can be regarded as an extended version of an abstract. Here you will need to explain in detail why you’ve decided to take up this kind of research (personal interest, unexplored leads, incorrect perception, etc.) and where it will head throughout the whole piece.
Also, don’t forget to communicate a message that your research is really important to the chosen field of studies and provide decent reasons to prove it. The introduction that contains all this information will certainly create a positive impression.
Do you use analysis or synthesis to research your topic? Have you conducted a survey? What other kinds of methods do you apply to explore the subject matter? All the answers to these questions and things concerning how your research is done should be included in this part.
Here you need to lay out what you have discovered while proving your thesis statement. This can be figures, statistics, graphs, tables or just plain words that present your findings. It is not necessary to elaborate on them because you will need to do that in the discussion part.
The discussion has to be connected with the thesis statement as well as the whole introduction because here you need to dwell upon not only the results of the research, but also on the aims you have achieved. This chapter must also include the importance of your findings and your own interpretations of the results.
The conclusion must discuss the connection between your findings and other researches as well as present the perspectives of the further studies. And besides restating your introduction, you can also suggest some improvements to your own research – that would be a good addition to a final chapter.
There is no paper out there that will be complete without the reference list. Gather all your sources, format your citations according to the chosen style and voila! The writing part is finished!
This is an overview of a typical literature research paper structure. But, of course, there can be different variations. So, don’t hesitate to consult with your advisor/supervisor on which elements exactly you need to include and which you can omit.
We would like to top up our extensive manual on literature research writing with some general writing tips that will be useful both for literary papers and other academic entries. So, here we go:
These classic English literature research paper writing tips, besides our detailed descriptions of the structure, research process and thesis statement, will make it possible to produce a complete and fully-featured research paper on literature. Just make sure that you spend enough time on each stage of writing – don’t postpone everything to the last month before the deadline because there won’t be any hours for planning and researching so essential to create a great academic piece.
So, choose the topic that interests you, follow our guidelines and make all the necessary preparations. This way everything will go smoothly.