How to Write a Literary Term Paper

Writing guide
Posted on May 15, 2013

A literary term paper is a paper that focuses on analyzing a book, a poem, a short story, a play, or any other piece of writing. Such papers are most commonly necessary for English and literature classes, and they are used to show how much students understand from the literary works that they read during such classes. Literary term papers have varying lengths, tones, depth, and even research. This is why students are urged to obey the instructions as given to them by their teachers.

The first step is to write a thesis statement, based on the instructions given by the teacher. The thesis statement should cover the overall idea as will be presented in the paper. It should be written using an argumentative tone. Literary term papers are written from a personal perspective. The thesis statement is not a summary of the story, and should not directly share what the story is all about. The thesis statement can be more than one sentence, but should be as instructed by the teacher.

The second step is to write an outline of the paper, which should include an introduction, the main body, and the conclusion. In the introduction section, the writer should give introductory information about the topic that they are addressing. In the body section of the literary term paper, a writer should detail all key points of the topic under discussion. These points should be presented in an argumentative manner and should be backed by information from the article being analyzed. This is the section where a writer can show how much of the article they understand, and their personal views in relation to the article, as the topic requires. The final section is the conclusion where the writer should summarize information detailed in the paper, and make a few clarifications, if necessary.

While writing, the writer should cite sources that they have used. Since literary papers are meant to analyze a given article, direct quotes are commonly used. The writer should, however, avoid using long quotes and make sure that the quotes used are properly cited within the text. Sections that the writer have paraphrased and summarized should also be cited, and all of these sources are to be included in the reference list at the end of the paper.

Once the writer has finished writing the literary term paper, they should revise it thoroughly and make sure that they correct all grammatical errors and format the paper in accordance with the given instructions. There are formatting styles that are used to make papers more presentable when submitting. The writer should choose a formatting style or simply follow the one that is given in the instructions. Finally, the writer needs a reference list that should be set out in accordance with the required formatting style.

If you need a custom literary term paper you can contact our professional term paper writing service which provides students with professional term paper writing assistance.

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