: Thematic Analysis Essay, with Research
this will be a 5- to 7-page paper, plus an MLA-style Works Cited page, and must include at least 3 scholarly, peer-reviewed sources from credible literary journals (or other credible, professional, analytic sources).
write a thematic analysis of one of your assigned texts with help from secondary source research. In short, you will provide an independent, interpretive close reading of a text and smoothly integrate some of the thoughts of other credible, peer-reviewed, scholarly, professional literary analysts into your work to help make your case. You may use these integrated quotes or paraphrases to help support or illustrate your claims, or in some cases you may disagree with and argue against them, but the combination of 1) your own analytical and interpretive ideas, 2) quotes from and specific references to the text you’re analyzing, and 3) the perspectives from your secondary sources will work to develop and ultimately prove your thesis.
The essay will be centered on your own interpretive/analytic/argumentative claim (your thesis) regarding a text assigned in the class. The secondary sources must be scholarly articles, essays, or books found in the Hunt Library or through its online databases (or similarly relevant and credible literary sources). Relevant author interviews may also be acceptable for this assignment.
The focus of your thesis and analysis will come from you, but you must also demonstrate that you have engaged with other critics’ ideas regarding the text you have chosen to analyze. Your essay will be structured around your main points, but occasionally integrating and/or acknowledging related research of others will enhance your own work and show that you have become familiar with the field of literary scholarship as it relates to your particular subject.
Remember that your primary objective in a paper like this is to say something insightful and worthwhile about the text that your reader may not have considered. You want to open your readers’ eyes to a way of understanding the text that sheds light on both the text in general and, in a larger sense, the human experience.
Some unacceptable sources:
Reviews
Articles from The Explicator
Plot summaries or articles that are merely plot summaries
Personal blogs or websites
Student-helper websites such as eNotes, Cliffs Notes, Spark Notes, Shmoop, Grade Saver, etc.
Remember, all sources, primary and secondary, should be cited fully according to MLA guidelines.
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