How to write scholarly essays and what analysis means

Adapted from Karen Gocsik’s Writing About World Literature. New York: Norton, 2012.

Writing in college conforms to certain conventions that make it scholarly in nature. That means that it is, essentially, “writing done by scholars for scholars—and that includes you” while in school (Gocsic 1).

As a student, you are a part of what Kenneth Burke calls the “ongoing conversation” of scholarship every time you write a paper. As such, you are expected to conform to the expectations of Academy (university).

In the humanities, an academic discipline that literature belongs to, that means analysis, evaluation, interpretation, close reading, supporting a thesis with textual examples (information drawn from the text you are examining, and formatting your writing according to MLA standards.

What Burke means by this metaphor is that scholars write to each other in a kind of dialogue:

One person discusses an idea and presents his case as well as he can, and as clearly as possible, using facts and research to prove his point.

Then another person retorts, offering what is often a counter argument (an opposing position), an analysis , or a critique of the first person’s position. This examination usually tries to either clarify or refute.

Each person presents his case in the form of writing, instead of oral discourse, adapting to new findings as they are published.

In this back and forth, like chess players moving one turn at a time and then adjusting to the next move of their opponent, scholarship develops gradually and always with consideration of new ideas that come out so that each scholar stays current in the conversation.

It is somewhat like a debate, only the goal is not to beat the other person, but for all participants to better understand ideas, themes, texts, and relevant information in their field(s) of interest.

Writing conventions require an author (that’s you when you compose an essay) to consider specific things that are not present in speech communication (oration).

Writing assignment requirements: word count, formatting guidelines, in-text citations, listing page numbers, and works cited listings

Grammar, mechanics, and spelling: elements of language that are fluid or invisible in oral conversations

Avoiding informal language like contractions, cliches, colloquialisms, e.g. “back in the day,” “Nowadays,…,” “Well, …,” “In my opinion…,” “You know…”

Establishing credibility (credentials) of any reference, e.g. another author or text to back up the ethos and relevance of the source

Illustrative research based context and references, which show instead of tell: textual proof in the form, often, of direct quotations (cited correctly)

Outlining and logically arranging ideas before presenting the finished case: for logical flow as a pre-writing strategy so the final presentation only addresses the most relevant and empirical information in a clear, concise way

Part of the rhetorical situation of academic writing is considering your audience. You do this in any kind of communication act—think of how different the language is that you use with your friends compared to the language you might use in a job interview or with a grandparent.

In scholarly writing, though, the audience you are catering to has specific value expectations: logical reasoning, provability, evidence, professional tone and diction, credible source material, topic and stance originality, exigency, and above all, clarity.

That means you have to imagine what your audience expects of you before you speak (write). The very word choices, topic, approach, and delivery of the message should reflect your conscious adaptation to their expectations in HOW you present your ideas to that academic audience.

This is kind of like knowing the appropriate etiquette for a dinner party. Scholarship is like a formal occasion, not an off-the-cuff conversation about local gossip while sitting at Starbucks. You have to dress your ideas for the occasion so that they are appropriate, presentable.

Professionalism is important in academic settings, just like in the workplace. Remember, it is a profession, after all, and your professors are experts in their fields, which is why they are called by their titles, e.g. Dr. Turner or Professor Wu.

The authors you are reading are also masters of their craft and their subjects. As such, you should address and think of them with the appropriate respect they deserve, which is why you never reference an author by first name alone; it is too informal. After first introduction (full name and credentials), use only last

names, e.g. “What Douglass suggests in this passage is that…”

When you write, the first thing you should do is listen to what the experts are saying, how they say it—become familiar with what has already been said before so you do not end up repeating what has been done. There’s no point to a conversation where everyone just says the same thing over and over. Each voice should contribute something new: an addition, a revision, a counter argument, support, a criticism.

Before you write, make sure you understand the assignment. Read it closely and consider what it is asking you to do:

What is the goal or purpose?

How long does it have to be?

Does it require background knowledge?

What genre of writing is it?

How much time do you have to complete it?

Is there a specific text, topic, or theme?

How much of your grade is the assignment worth?

Which formatting guidelines must you adhere to?

Do you have to include any media like graphs or images?

If you are doing an essay over an author from a different historical period than the present, you will likely need to know something about what the time and place of the author was like.

Doing a textual analysis may require that you know something about the beliefs and cultural norms of 17th century France, which would have been markedly different than Greece in 6th century B.C.E. Just make sure you are looking at credible sources, ideally peer-reviewed ones written by experts.

To evaluate and analyze the subject of a text, or to talk about authorial intention (what the author’s intended message or point is), you may have to know something about the author and the world he comes from. That means you’ll need to do some background research to get into the mind of the author.

You should, in all cases, also familiarize yourself with what scholars of that period, author, and/or text have already said about it to understand the dominant viewpoints about how to read and interpret main ideas, linguistic nuances (e.g. unfamiliar turns of phrase), and important findings or discoveries related to your subject matter.

Your best resources for credible information is your textbook, the original (primary) texts you are reading, and your professor. However, if you do additional research, it is important that you consider how credible the source may be. Not all websites or sources are made equal!

The internet is full of half-true or mostly-true sources of information that have not been written by or approved by experts, Wikipedia for example. Thus, only sites and sources that have been vetted by experts should be used, meaning most .com or .org or .net sites are not good materials. Instead, .edu and .gov sites have usually been approved by experts, often a panel of PhDs who can verify the truth or factual basis of information presented. That means they are peer-reviewed.

Your library resources also offer ways to guarantee you are getting good information. Databases like Academic Search Complete allow you to select “peer-reviewed” or “scholarly” in the search options to ensure you are only getting academically sound materials.

Different assignments require different kinds of responses; they have different goals, and therefore, different approaches.

Genre just means, in short, type or kind, just like in biological families how there are different names and classifications for different relations—taxonomy:

Analysis Argument Exposition Descriptionto breakdown to persuade to inform to define

There are many kinds of writing, and each genus has a different focus and thus a different approach or structure—its own kind of expression. It is important to know what you are writing for (purpose) before you start. That way you know what to look for. Focusing on your task at hand means knowing your goal or purpose.

The genre, or type of writing asked for, tells you what to focus on in your second reading of a text. (You never write from just a first reading; it is too limited.)

In literature, you often write an evaluation, an analysis, or an argument.

An evaluation means you are writing to determine the value of the text—e • valu • ation. This usually involves some kind of comparison. You can only evaluate something by a particular kind of ruler or measurement (determine its property values). Often that measure is another text or concept model, to see what is similar and/or different.

An analysis breaks a text down to examine it closely. You take the whole and break it into parts, determining what the key or dominant parts are to see how they work together to form the whole. Then you observe and attempt to understand each part individually, then their relation to other parts, and then functionally how they form the whole.

An argument takes a position and attempts to legitimate that claim within the text or other context based on the evidence the text offers. The text and historical or background context provide the evidence, and like in a court case, your job is to prove your stance is grounded in the text and authorial intention.

One of the most common types of literary writings in a textual analysis, which “requires the reader to break down the work into its different parts and to discuss how each part adds up to create the whole” (Gocsik 17).

In a poem, you may examine the rhetorical or poetic elements like rhyme scheme, rhythm, or figures of speech.

In fiction, you may look at the characters, plot, setting, themes, symbolism, imagery, motifs, or conflicts.

In drama, you might look at stage directions, dramatic irony, monologues of major characters, or dialogue dynamics.

Regardless of the genre of text you are analyzing, you should consider the “themes of the work, as well as the overall effect of reading the text” (Cocsik 18).

The main idea of any text or form of communication can often be difficult to determine. In literature, often the main idea is implicit and hotly disputed even among experts. Thus, what a reader offers is merely an interpretation, but one that the text supports. What that means is that the evidence within the text—word choice, tone, imagery—offers up a reading of the text. This is often referred to as authorial intention, usually with consideration for both the historical and cultural influences on the author, and the evidence the text provides: images, repeated words or symbols, recurrent thematic elements, etc.

Think of main ideas in narratives as the moral of the story. In an essay, however, it is usually called a claim or thesis. In the sciences, on the other hand, the main idea is usually the topical hypo • thesis. They are all synonyms for a similar concept, though—the point the author is trying to convey to the reader, the lesson to be learned.

The main idea is a particular perspective, what the author wants the reader to know or understand about the topic (general concept). To back up or provide evidence and grounds for that position, however, the author has to provehis point.

The evidence or examples that back up the main claim or idea are called support or grounds. These are often the topics of body paragraphs, called subordinate claims, which rely on evidence or examples for illustration. When you add up all the supporting claims, you come the same conclusion as the author.

To identify the supporting details, you first have to know the topic and the position of the author—the main idea.

One of the primary focuses of textual analyses, plural for analysis, are themes. These are broad or general concepts that can only be understood through exemplification—examples.

Common themes include broad, abstract ideas like freedom, truth, justice, gender roles, or other cultural norms and values.

Most texts have more than one theme, so a textual analysis may examine only one theme through different elements, e.g. female intelligence in classical allusions and contemporary figures, human psychology as it is expressed in various character behavior or dialogue, the dualism of freedom versus enslavement as a model for social hierarchy.

The key to thematic analysis and exploration is that the text has to support your interpretation—provide specific, declarative (explicit or quotable) evidence. If you cannot find numerous textual examples in the text that illustrate your point, chances are you are projecting, but the author probably never considered it.

By comparison to a textual analysis, which is largely focused on the original text itself and what readings the text offers (new criticism), contextual analysis is highly conscientious of the period it was written in. It addresses the way a text reflects “social, cultural, and political contexts” of its time, place, and author’s experiences (Gocsik 19).

By examining how a text reveals the presuppositions(biases or assumptions) of its author, including the author’s culture and sociopolitical milieu (environment), you have to do research into its historical and background situation. You have to understand the world in which it was written and realize that it is likely different than the world you live in now. You cannot fairly judge (evaluate) a text by modern standards if it was written in a different world.

Before you can formulate a working thesis to write on, you have to know your subject—the text—have a relationship with it. That means, like with a partner or friend, you have to spend time with it to really get to know who/what it is, what it is saying and what it means but may try to hide.

There is no such thing as good reading or good writing, only good re-reading and good re-writing.

To master these processes—language is an art—you have to work at it, but there are some helpful strategies to get you started.

You cannot talk about something you do not know, so read the text once to get a general sense of it, then read the assignment to determine what your goal is, select an angle of approach, and then read the text again and again looking for what your focus is.

Plato’s student Aristotle is often considered the father of rhetoric—the art of persuasion, and poetics—the art of figurative and aesthetic language.

He systematized the process(es) of writing the way a scientist would, classifying it and naming the categories of classification.

Topoi (the root of the word topic, meaning “place”) are kind of like questions you might ask your subject to find out more about it before you start writing (just a few): Definition: what does it mean? Fact: what happened (or did it)? Value: how is the topic/subject to be measured? understood? Policy: what is supposed to be done? Causality: what is the source/cause of some effect? Future effect: what may happen if something does not change?

The most important sentence in any writing is its thesis statement. That is because the thesis is the controlling idea (main idea/moral of the story), which means that without a clear, focused, and supportable thesis statement, the essay will not hold together. The thesis is the central point around which all supporting evidence, examples, explanation, and evaluation revolve. It is the sun of the analytical cosmos you construct by writing a paper, which is supposed to be an examination of a specific issue, image, theme, concept, or cultural phenomenon.

In fact, the word essay comes from the Latin exigere meaning “to examine.” Thus, the thesis statement is supposed to offer a kind of hypothesis (a likely theory based on reasonable observations) that is then tested in the body paragraphs for its validity and/or soundness.

In short, the thesis may be the most difficult of all sentences. This is why it is usually best to formulate a working thesis first, and then revise it after you have finished the essay, going back to refine it. However, a well constructed thesis up front sets up the paper and makes the kind of supporting details worth examining easy to identify.

Thesis statements generally have the following qualities:

It makes a claim: takes a provable, arguable stance

This means that what you intend to examine in your paper is original, not merely a summary or general observation, is refutable, and also can be supported by the text itself. If there is no counter-argument, then it is not arguable.

It sets the “scope of the argument” (Gocsik 76)

Whatever a thesis statement says has to be addressed and proved within the essay. Only what the thesis states can be examined, as it is the whole point of the essay itself.

It gives structure or direction to the essay

A clear and strong thesis will suggest what kind of support is required to prove its validity. If the thesis makes a claim of value, then whatever is being evaluated requires a kind of measuring stick, so it should suggest what aspects of comparison will be addressed.

To make sure you have a solid thesis, both before and after you write your first draft, ask yourself:

“Does the thesis sentence attempt to answer or to explore a challenging intellectual question?”

Will the point I’m making generate discussion and argument, or will it leave people asking ‘So what?’?”

Is the thesis too vague, too general?

Does the thesis deal directly with the topic at hand, or is it a declaration of my personal feelings? (be objective!)

Does the thesis indicate the direction of my argument?

Does the introductory paragraph define terms important to my thesis?

Does the introduction, when writing a research paper, place my thesis within the larger, ongoing scholarly discussion about the topic?

From Gocsik’s Writing About World Literature (83-85)