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Please keep in mind that these are only general guidelines; always defer to your professor’s specifications for a given assignment. If you have any questions about the content represented here, please contact the Writing Centers so that we can address them for you.
Unlike the science fields, English and literature writing often focuses on how the reader engages with the text/s he or she is writing about. Writers in the literature field are often encouraged and expected to base their writing on their own assertions—opinions or ideas—which can allow for and at times necessitate the use of the first person point of view. However, third person point of view is most common in academic English literature writing.
English literature assignments vary widely, but all are based on primary sources (the text/s the writer is writing about) and many are supported by secondary sources (texts by scholars who have written on the same subject). While the essay’s focus remains on the primary sources, many assignments require that the writer provide quotations from both in order to support his or her thesis.
When writing about literature, it is important to provide context for the piece/s under consideration, no matter what the thesis’ focus may be. Often, this context is given in the introduction and includes relevant historical, economic, socio-cultural, or biographical information about the time period, the setting, or the author of the primary sources under consideration. Providing this information establishes a frame of reference in which readers can consider the essay’s argument.
For more in-depth information about specific English literature-based assignments, please visit the links listed under Common Writing Assignments.
Preferred Bibliographic Style
Modern Language Association (MLA) is the most common citation style for English papers. Like writing about literature, MLA in-text citations emphasize the author.
Common Writing Assignments
Common writing assignments in English literature include:
Comparative Analysis: A comparative analysis requires a writer to compare and analyze things in a text in relation to each other. For example, characters within a text or a specific aspect of two or more texts may be compared.
Literature Review: Literature reviews function to help the writer discover what information currently exists, to organize this information in a meaningful way, and to develop his or her own ideas for future research.
Literary Analysis: Literary analyses provide ways of thinking about literature, some of which focus on textual elements alone and others that focus on contextual aspects of literature. Common contexts or lenses for literary analysis are a specific aspect of the text’s historical context, socio-economic factors, political viewpoints, gender and identity studies, a literary theory, or a method of literary criticism.
Poetry Analysis: A poetry analysis essay is constructed very similarly to a literary analysis. One important difference is that analyzing craft is generally much more essential when writing about poetry than when writing about prose literature. Considering aspects of form such as meter, sonic qualities, word choice, figurative language, etc., are generally essential when making an argument about a poem or group of poems.
Rhetorical Analysis: Rhetorical analyses critically examine the text and uncover the inner-workings of the rhetoric at work within. The goal is to understand the purpose the author/s had in writing the text and what kind of effect the author/s wanted to produce in the readers. But beyond simply identifying the intended goals and effects of a text, understanding and articulating how those goals and effects are achieved is of the utmost importance.
Research Paper: In this type of essay, the author develops an argument based on research and evidence, not opinion or personal point of view. They include a thesis, or main argument, that the author supports in subsequent body paragraphs with secondary sources such as data, texts, or interviews.
Helpful Resources
The Norton Introduction to Literature website lists points of consideration, from tone to title, that are relevant to any type of literature writing assignment. Norton details the elements of the essay, the writing process, incorporating research, and citation requirements.
York University Libraries provides a list of online resources focused on various aspects of academic writing. Some topics covered are research essays, annotated bibliographies, and literature reviews.
The University of North Carolina writing center’s handout on Literature Reviews gives step-by-step instructions for writing a well-constructed essay.
View a list of tutors who specialize in English and literature writing
