The purpose of literary essay is to provide a well-written piece of information about a particular subjects or topic. As opposed to opinion essay, a literary paper is concerned more with the subject not the writer and his opinion. One of the main requirements for the literary essay is to be well-written. In fact, it demands more sophisticated writing techniques and sense of language than other types of writing.
There are some main points to consider when working on the literary essay. They are a subject, structure, voice, and sense of language.
Tip #1. Subject
- The thing, which makes literary essays easier, is the fact that they allow to choose any topic you like to be a core of your paper. It is possible to pick out either a narrow and specific topic (for example, the description of a street) or a general one – depicting a city.
- Despite how wide or narrow your subject is your narration should be understandable for every reader.
- You can conduct a research on your subject everywhere: web sources, books, articles, newspapers, or magazines.
Tip #2. Structure of the literary essay.
The structure of the literary paper is similar to all other essays organization.
- First paragraph is an introduction, which is the part to catch the reader’s attention.
- It should contain a thesis statement – a sentence or a couple of sentences expressing the main idea.
- The introductory paragraph should also provide background information, which will be the foundation for the subject of writing.
- Your body paragraph should develop the key concept by giving the supporting ideas and evidences for the thesis.
- Each paragraph must have the topic sentence which will give a notion about the core idea of it.
- The last sentence of every paragraph should be transitive for the next one as it will grant the logical manner for your writing.
- The very last component of the essay is for conclusion: summing up the main spots and coming back to the thesis statement. You should prove that you have competed the task and enlightened the issue fully.
Tip #3.Voice, or manner of writing.
- The literary essay is a non-fiction genre, which is why it does not require the formal and scholar manner.
- Still it should be written in the voice of authority so the reader trusts that the author has enough knowledge about the topic.
- The message you are trying to deliver to the audience should be full with details and specific facts. Be sure that this is a thing, which will trigger the reader’s interest.
Tip #4. Sense of language.
- As it was already mentioned, the main demand for the literary essay is to be a well-written piece. For this reason you should dedicate enough time for not only checking grammar, spelling, and punctuation but also pay attention to the word choice.
- Try to read your essay aloud and make sure it sounds beautifully and is different from the lecture or scientific report.
- Nevertheless, remember that literary essays are considered to fulfill the informative function not an impressive one. So, try to keep a balance between enlightening and esthetic roles of your paper.
Keywords: literary essay, paper, writing, subject, tips, structure, paragraph, manner.