literary essay methodology

beginner's guide to literary analysis

Understanding literature & how to write literary analysis.

Literary analysis is the foundation of every college and high school English class. Once you can comprehend written work and respond to it, the next step is to learn how to think critically and complexly about a work of literature in order to analyze its elements and establish ideas about its meaning.

If that sounds daunting, it shouldn’t. Literary analysis is really just a way of thinking creatively about what you read. The practice takes you beyond the storyline and into the motives behind it. 

While an author might have had a specific intention when they wrote their book, there’s still no right or wrong way to analyze a literary text—just your way. You can use literary theories, which act as “lenses” through which you can view a text. Or you can use your own creativity and critical thinking to identify a literary device or pattern in a text and weave that insight into your own argument about the text’s underlying meaning. 

Now, if that sounds fun, it should , because it is. Here, we’ll lay the groundwork for performing literary analysis, including when writing analytical essays, to help you read books like a critic. 

What Is Literary Analysis?

As the name suggests, literary analysis is an analysis of a work, whether that’s a novel, play, short story, or poem. Any analysis requires breaking the content into its component parts and then examining how those parts operate independently and as a whole. In literary analysis, those parts can be different devices and elements—such as plot, setting, themes, symbols, etcetera—as well as elements of style, like point of view or tone. 

When performing analysis, you consider some of these different elements of the text and then form an argument for why the author chose to use them. You can do so while reading and during class discussion, but it’s particularly important when writing essays. 

Literary analysis is notably distinct from summary. When you write a summary , you efficiently describe the work’s main ideas or plot points in order to establish an overview of the work. While you might use elements of summary when writing analysis, you should do so minimally. You can reference a plot line to make a point, but it should be done so quickly so you can focus on why that plot line matters . In summary (see what we did there?), a summary focuses on the “ what ” of a text, while analysis turns attention to the “ how ” and “ why .”

While literary analysis can be broad, covering themes across an entire work, it can also be very specific, and sometimes the best analysis is just that. Literary critics have written thousands of words about the meaning of an author’s single word choice; while you might not want to be quite that particular, there’s a lot to be said for digging deep in literary analysis, rather than wide. 

Although you’re forming your own argument about the work, it’s not your opinion . You should avoid passing judgment on the piece and instead objectively consider what the author intended, how they went about executing it, and whether or not they were successful in doing so. Literary criticism is similar to literary analysis, but it is different in that it does pass judgement on the work. Criticism can also consider literature more broadly, without focusing on a singular work. 

Once you understand what constitutes (and doesn’t constitute) literary analysis, it’s easy to identify it. Here are some examples of literary analysis and its oft-confused counterparts: 

Summary: In “The Fall of the House of Usher,” the narrator visits his friend Roderick Usher and witnesses his sister escape a horrible fate.  

Opinion: In “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Poe uses his great Gothic writing to establish a sense of spookiness that is enjoyable to read. 

Literary Analysis: “Throughout ‘The Fall of the House of Usher,’ Poe foreshadows the fate of Madeline by creating a sense of claustrophobia for the reader through symbols, such as in the narrator’s inability to leave and the labyrinthine nature of the house. 

In summary, literary analysis is:

• Breaking a work into its components
• Identifying what those components are and how they work in the text
• Developing an understanding of how they work together to achieve a goal 
• Not an opinion, but subjective 
• Not a summary, though summary can be used in passing 
• Best when it deeply, rather than broadly, analyzes a literary element

Literary Analysis and Other Works

As discussed above, literary analysis is often performed upon a single work—but it doesn’t have to be. It can also be performed across works to consider the interplay of two or more texts. Regardless of whether or not the works were written about the same thing, or even within the same time period, they can have an influence on one another or a connection that’s worth exploring. And reading two or more texts side by side can help you to develop insights through comparison and contrast.

For example, Paradise Lost is an epic poem written in the 17th century, based largely on biblical narratives written some 700 years before and which later influenced 19th century poet John Keats. The interplay of works can be obvious, as here, or entirely the inspiration of the analyst. As an example of the latter, you could compare and contrast the writing styles of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Edgar Allan Poe who, while contemporaries in terms of time, were vastly different in their content. 

Additionally, literary analysis can be performed between a work and its context. Authors are often speaking to the larger context of their times, be that social, political, religious, economic, or artistic. A valid and interesting form is to compare the author’s context to the work, which is done by identifying and analyzing elements that are used to make an argument about the writer’s time or experience. 

For example, you could write an essay about how Hemingway’s struggles with mental health and paranoia influenced his later work, or how his involvement in the Spanish Civil War influenced his early work. One approach focuses more on his personal experience, while the other turns to the context of his times—both are valid. 

Why Does Literary Analysis Matter? 

Sometimes an author wrote a work of literature strictly for entertainment’s sake, but more often than not, they meant something more. Whether that was a missive on world peace, commentary about femininity, or an allusion to their experience as an only child, the author probably wrote their work for a reason, and understanding that reason—or the many reasons—can actually make reading a lot more meaningful. 

Performing literary analysis as a form of study unquestionably makes you a better reader. It’s also likely that it will improve other skills, too, like critical thinking, creativity, debate, and reasoning. 

At its grandest and most idealistic, literary analysis even has the ability to make the world a better place. By reading and analyzing works of literature, you are able to more fully comprehend the perspectives of others. Cumulatively, you’ll broaden your own perspectives and contribute more effectively to the things that matter to you. 

Literary Terms to Know for Literary Analysis 

There are hundreds of literary devices you could consider during your literary analysis, but there are some key tools most writers utilize to achieve their purpose—and therefore you need to know in order to understand that purpose. These common devices include: 

• Characters: The people (or entities) who play roles in the work. The protagonist is the main character in the work. 
• Conflict: The conflict is the driving force behind the plot, the event that causes action in the narrative, usually on the part of the protagonist
• Context : The broader circumstances surrounding the work political and social climate in which it was written or the experience of the author. It can also refer to internal context, and the details presented by the narrator 
• Diction : The word choice used by the narrator or characters 
• Genre: A category of literature characterized by agreed upon similarities in the works, such as subject matter and tone
• Imagery : The descriptive or figurative language used to paint a picture in the reader’s mind so they can picture the story’s plot, characters, and setting 
• Metaphor: A figure of speech that uses comparison between two unlike objects for dramatic or poetic effect
• Narrator: The person who tells the story. Sometimes they are a character within the story, but sometimes they are omniscient and removed from the plot. 
• Plot : The storyline of the work
• Point of view: The perspective taken by the narrator, which skews the perspective of the reader 
• Setting : The time and place in which the story takes place. This can include elements like the time period, weather, time of year or day, and social or economic conditions 
• Symbol : An object, person, or place that represents an abstract idea that is greater than its literal meaning 
• Syntax : The structure of a sentence, either narration or dialogue, and the tone it implies
• Theme : A recurring subject or message within the work, often commentary on larger societal or cultural ideas
• Tone : The feeling, attitude, or mood the text presents

How to Perform Literary Analysis

Step 1: read the text thoroughly.

Literary analysis begins with the literature itself, which means performing a close reading of the text. As you read, you should focus on the work. That means putting away distractions (sorry, smartphone) and dedicating a period of time to the task at hand. 

It’s also important that you don’t skim or speed read. While those are helpful skills, they don’t apply to literary analysis—or at least not this stage. 

Step 2: Take Notes as You Read  

As you read the work, take notes about different literary elements and devices that stand out to you. Whether you highlight or underline in text, use sticky note tabs to mark pages and passages, or handwrite your thoughts in a notebook, you should capture your thoughts and the parts of the text to which they correspond. This—the act of noticing things about a literary work—is literary analysis. 

Step 3: Notice Patterns 

As you read the work, you’ll begin to notice patterns in the way the author deploys language, themes, and symbols to build their plot and characters. As you read and these patterns take shape, begin to consider what they could mean and how they might fit together. 

As you identify these patterns, as well as other elements that catch your interest, be sure to record them in your notes or text. Some examples include: 

• Circle or underline words or terms that you notice the author uses frequently, whether those are nouns (like “eyes” or “road”) or adjectives (like “yellow” or “lush”).
• Highlight phrases that give you the same kind of feeling. For example, if the narrator describes an “overcast sky,” a “dreary morning,” and a “dark, quiet room,” the words aren’t the same, but the feeling they impart and setting they develop are similar. 
• Underline quotes or prose that define a character’s personality or their role in the text.
• Use sticky tabs to color code different elements of the text, such as specific settings or a shift in the point of view. 

By noting these patterns, comprehensive symbols, metaphors, and ideas will begin to come into focus.  

Step 4: Consider the Work as a Whole, and Ask Questions

This is a step that you can do either as you read, or after you finish the text. The point is to begin to identify the aspects of the work that most interest you, and you could therefore analyze in writing or discussion. 

Questions you could ask yourself include: 

• What aspects of the text do I not understand?
• What parts of the narrative or writing struck me most?
• What patterns did I notice?
• What did the author accomplish really well?
• What did I find lacking?
• Did I notice any contradictions or anything that felt out of place?  
• What was the purpose of the minor characters?
• What tone did the author choose, and why? 

The answers to these and more questions will lead you to your arguments about the text. 

Step 5: Return to Your Notes and the Text for Evidence

As you identify the argument you want to make (especially if you’re preparing for an essay), return to your notes to see if you already have supporting evidence for your argument. That’s why it’s so important to take notes or mark passages as you read—you’ll thank yourself later!

If you’re preparing to write an essay, you’ll use these passages and ideas to bolster your argument—aka, your thesis. There will likely be multiple different passages you can use to strengthen multiple different aspects of your argument. Just be sure to cite the text correctly! 

If you’re preparing for class, your notes will also be invaluable. When your teacher or professor leads the conversation in the direction of your ideas or arguments, you’ll be able to not only proffer that idea but back it up with textual evidence. That’s an A+ in class participation. 

Step 6: Connect These Ideas Across the Narrative

Whether you’re in class or writing an essay, literary analysis isn’t complete until you’ve considered the way these ideas interact and contribute to the work as a whole. You can find and present evidence, but you still have to explain how those elements work together and make up your argument. 

How to Write a Literary Analysis Essay

When conducting literary analysis while reading a text or discussing it in class, you can pivot easily from one argument to another (or even switch sides if a classmate or teacher makes a compelling enough argument). 

But when writing literary analysis, your objective is to propose a specific, arguable thesis and convincingly defend it. In order to do so, you need to fortify your argument with evidence from the text (and perhaps secondary sources) and an authoritative tone. 

A successful literary analysis essay depends equally on a thoughtful thesis, supportive analysis, and presenting these elements masterfully. We’ll review how to accomplish these objectives below. 

Step 1: Read the Text. Maybe Read It Again. 

Constructing an astute analytical essay requires a thorough knowledge of the text. As you read, be sure to note any passages, quotes, or ideas that stand out. These could serve as the future foundation of your thesis statement. Noting these sections now will help you when you need to gather evidence. 

The more familiar you become with the text, the better (and easier!) your essay will be. Familiarity with the text allows you to speak (or in this case, write) to it confidently. If you only skim the book, your lack of rich understanding will be evident in your essay. Alternatively, if you read the text closely—especially if you read it more than once, or at least carefully revisit important passages—your own writing will be filled with insight that goes beyond a basic understanding of the storyline. 

Step 2: Brainstorm Potential Topics 

Because you took detailed notes while reading the text, you should have a list of potential topics at the ready. Take time to review your notes, highlighting any ideas or questions you had that feel interesting. You should also return to the text and look for any passages that stand out to you. 

When considering potential topics, you should prioritize ideas that you find interesting. It won’t only make the whole process of writing an essay more fun, your enthusiasm for the topic will probably improve the quality of your argument, and maybe even your writing. Just like it’s obvious when a topic interests you in a conversation, it’s obvious when a topic interests the writer of an essay (and even more obvious when it doesn’t). 

Your topic ideas should also be specific, unique, and arguable. A good way to think of topics is that they’re the answer to fairly specific questions. As you begin to brainstorm, first think of questions you have about the text. Questions might focus on the plot, such as: Why did the author choose to deviate from the projected storyline? Or why did a character’s role in the narrative shift? Questions might also consider the use of a literary device, such as: Why does the narrator frequently repeat a phrase or comment on a symbol? Or why did the author choose to switch points of view each chapter? 

Once you have a thesis question , you can begin brainstorming answers—aka, potential thesis statements . At this point, your answers can be fairly broad. Once you land on a question-statement combination that feels right, you’ll then look for evidence in the text that supports your answer (and helps you define and narrow your thesis statement). 

For example, after reading “ The Fall of the House of Usher ,” you might be wondering, Why are Roderick and Madeline twins?, Or even: Why does their relationship feel so creepy?” Maybe you noticed (and noted) that the narrator was surprised to find out they were twins, or perhaps you found that the narrator’s tone tended to shift and become more anxious when discussing the interactions of the twins.

Once you come up with your thesis question, you can identify a broad answer, which will become the basis for your thesis statement. In response to the questions above, your answer might be, “Poe emphasizes the close relationship of Roderick and Madeline to foreshadow that their deaths will be close, too.” 

Step 3: Gather Evidence 

Once you have your topic (or you’ve narrowed it down to two or three), return to the text (yes, again) to see what evidence you can find to support it. If you’re thinking of writing about the relationship between Roderick and Madeline in “The Fall of the House of Usher,” look for instances where they engaged in the text. 

This is when your knowledge of literary devices comes in clutch. Carefully study the language around each event in the text that might be relevant to your topic. How does Poe’s diction or syntax change during the interactions of the siblings? How does the setting reflect or contribute to their relationship? What imagery or symbols appear when Roderick and Madeline are together? 

By finding and studying evidence within the text, you’ll strengthen your topic argument—or, just as valuably, discount the topics that aren’t strong enough for analysis. 

Step 4: Consider Secondary Sources 

In addition to returning to the literary work you’re studying for evidence, you can also consider secondary sources that reference or speak to the work. These can be articles from journals you find on JSTOR, books that consider the work or its context, or articles your teacher shared in class. 

While you can use these secondary sources to further support your idea, you should not overuse them. Make sure your topic remains entirely differentiated from that presented in the source. 

Step 5: Write a Working Thesis Statement

Once you’ve gathered evidence and narrowed down your topic, you’re ready to refine that topic into a thesis statement. As you continue to outline and write your paper, this thesis statement will likely change slightly, but this initial draft will serve as the foundation of your essay. It’s like your north star: Everything you write in your essay is leading you back to your thesis. 

Writing a great thesis statement requires some real finesse. A successful thesis statement is: 

• Debatable : You shouldn’t simply summarize or make an obvious statement about the work. Instead, your thesis statement should take a stand on an issue or make a claim that is open to argument. You’ll spend your essay debating—and proving—your argument. 
• Demonstrable : You need to be able to prove, through evidence, that your thesis statement is true. That means you have to have passages from the text and correlative analysis ready to convince the reader that you’re right. 
• Specific : In most cases, successfully addressing a theme that encompasses a work in its entirety would require a book-length essay. Instead, identify a thesis statement that addresses specific elements of the work, such as a relationship between characters, a repeating symbol, a key setting, or even something really specific like the speaking style of a character. 

Example: By depicting the relationship between Roderick and Madeline to be stifling and almost otherworldly in its closeness, Poe foreshadows both Madeline’s fate and Roderick’s inability to choose a different fate for himself. 

Step 6: Write an Outline 

You have your thesis, you have your evidence—but how do you put them together? A great thesis statement (and therefore a great essay) will have multiple arguments supporting it, presenting different kinds of evidence that all contribute to the singular, main idea presented in your thesis. 

Review your evidence and identify these different arguments, then organize the evidence into categories based on the argument they support. These ideas and evidence will become the body paragraphs of your essay. 

For example, if you were writing about Roderick and Madeline as in the example above, you would pull evidence from the text, such as the narrator’s realization of their relationship as twins; examples where the narrator’s tone of voice shifts when discussing their relationship; imagery, like the sounds Roderick hears as Madeline tries to escape; and Poe’s tendency to use doubles and twins in his other writings to create the same spooky effect. All of these are separate strains of the same argument, and can be clearly organized into sections of an outline. 

Step 7: Write Your Introduction

Your introduction serves a few very important purposes that essentially set the scene for the reader: 

• Establish context. Sure, your reader has probably read the work. But you still want to remind them of the scene, characters, or elements you’ll be discussing. 
• Present your thesis statement. Your thesis statement is the backbone of your analytical paper. You need to present it clearly at the outset so that the reader understands what every argument you make is aimed at. 
• Offer a mini-outline. While you don’t want to show all your cards just yet, you do want to preview some of the evidence you’ll be using to support your thesis so that the reader has a roadmap of where they’re going. 

Step 8: Write Your Body Paragraphs

Thanks to steps one through seven, you’ve already set yourself up for success. You have clearly outlined arguments and evidence to support them. Now it’s time to translate those into authoritative and confident prose. 

When presenting each idea, begin with a topic sentence that encapsulates the argument you’re about to make (sort of like a mini-thesis statement). Then present your evidence and explanations of that evidence that contribute to that argument. Present enough material to prove your point, but don’t feel like you necessarily have to point out every single instance in the text where this element takes place. For example, if you’re highlighting a symbol that repeats throughout the narrative, choose two or three passages where it is used most effectively, rather than trying to squeeze in all ten times it appears. 

While you should have clearly defined arguments, the essay should still move logically and fluidly from one argument to the next. Try to avoid choppy paragraphs that feel disjointed; every idea and argument should feel connected to the last, and, as a group, connected to your thesis. A great way to connect the ideas from one paragraph to the next is with transition words and phrases, such as: 

• Furthermore 
• In addition
• On the other hand
• Conversely 

Step 9: Write Your Conclusion 

Your conclusion is more than a summary of your essay's parts, but it’s also not a place to present brand new ideas not already discussed in your essay. Instead, your conclusion should return to your thesis (without repeating it verbatim) and point to why this all matters. If writing about the siblings in “The Fall of the House of Usher,” for example, you could point out that the utilization of twins and doubles is a common literary element of Poe’s work that contributes to the definitive eeriness of Gothic literature. 

While you might speak to larger ideas in your conclusion, be wary of getting too macro. Your conclusion should still be supported by all of the ideas that preceded it. 

Step 10: Revise, Revise, Revise

Of course you should proofread your literary analysis essay before you turn it in. But you should also edit the content to make sure every piece of evidence and every explanation directly supports your thesis as effectively and efficiently as possible. 

Sometimes, this might mean actually adapting your thesis a bit to the rest of your essay. At other times, it means removing redundant examples or paraphrasing quotations. Make sure every sentence is valuable, and remove those that aren’t. 

Other Resources for Literary Analysis 

With these skills and suggestions, you’re well on your way to practicing and writing literary analysis. But if you don’t have a firm grasp on the concepts discussed above—such as literary devices or even the content of the text you’re analyzing—it will still feel difficult to produce insightful analysis. 

If you’d like to sharpen the tools in your literature toolbox, there are plenty of other resources to help you do so: 

• Check out our expansive library of Literary Devices . These could provide you with a deeper understanding of the basic devices discussed above or introduce you to new concepts sure to impress your professors ( anagnorisis , anyone?). 
• This Academic Citation Resource Guide ensures you properly cite any work you reference in your analytical essay. 
• Our English Homework Help Guide will point you to dozens of resources that can help you perform analysis, from critical reading strategies to poetry helpers. 
• This Grammar Education Resource Guide will direct you to plenty of resources to refine your grammar and writing (definitely important for getting an A+ on that paper). 

Of course, you should know the text inside and out before you begin writing your analysis. In order to develop a true understanding of the work, read through its corresponding SuperSummary study guide . Doing so will help you truly comprehend the plot, as well as provide some inspirational ideas for your analysis.

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8.5: Approaches to Literary Analysis

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Approaches to Literary Analysis

Since the 1960s, a number of schools or approaches to literary analysis have emerged in the academy. Some of the sources you discover may seem to obviously derive from one of the following traditions. Others may be indirectly influenced by one or more of these approaches:

Formalist, or New Critic, analysis prioritizes close reading based solely on the text itself, its language, structure, symbols, and themes, and eschews interpretation based on the influence of outside information (such as personal history of the author, for example).

New Historicist

New Historicist analysis values the particulars of the time period and location in which the author created the text, as well as any influencing circumstances of the author’s life.

Psychoanalytic

Psychoanalytic, or psycholinguistic, analysis emphasizes the interpretation of characters’ mental and emotional states, narrative point-of-view, the unconscious potency of symbol and imagery, and/or the psychological implications of linguistic pattern, tone, and word usage.

Feminist analysis examines the text through the lens of women’s experience and may also consider factors in the publishing or critical reception of the work when influenced by gender norms.

Marxist analysis addresses the text as a material product of the society from which it emerged, with particular attention to socio-economic issues.

Queer analysis reads the text with strong consideration of “queer” identity and/or “queering” of characters, actions, and/or speech; for example, the cross-dressing and gender switching that occurs in some of Shakespeare’s plays can take on more significance than mere dramatic convention.

Reader-Response

Reader-Response analysis seeks to reveal the activity of the reader as contributing to — even completing — the meaning of the text by applying his or her own experiences, perspectives and cultural values; this approach is not done personally, but in consideration of “the reader” as a type or a social category.

Today, many literary scholars engage in the practice of  intersectionality  , that is the attention to the complexity of how cultural views and traditions often fall into more than one category. For example, while we might gain a great deal by interpreting a short story through a psychoanalytic lens, focusing only on this approach may foreclose the possibilities for our analysis to become as deeply grounded in formalist analysis, or may offer only a passing look at historical issues.

Analytical writers should not base their essays on a particular approach simply for the sake of following that school of thought, but rather to further their understanding of, and appreciation for, the literature in question, as well as the clarity of the interpretation offered. Often hybrid approaches, approaches than combine aspects of two or more of these analytical traditions, are very successful, so long as the thesis remains focused and the support specific and well-documented. As ever, consult with your professor about the specifics of your analytical project and the particular expectations he or she may have for a given assignment.  (1)

• Authored by : Florida State College at Jacksonville. License : CC BY: Attribution

Introduction to Strategies for Conducting Literary Research

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Welcome to Strategies for Conducting Literary Research! This course walks you through the process of conducting literary research while helping to refine your library skills. Along the way, we will draw from the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Information Literacy Framework . According to the ACRL, “Research is iterative and depends upon asking increasingly complex or new questions whose answers lead to additional questions or lines of inquiry in any field.” We will discuss this concept more in-depth throughout the course. The course will focus on a research project created by Jada, an English major who conducted a literary study of James Baldwin’s  classic short story,  “Sonny’s Blues.” 1

 Meet Jada!

The Complexity of Literary Studies Research

In a research-based course, your instructor might require you to write a research paper of 5-6 or 10-12 pages, but the knowledge you need to perform this task can fill up dozens of pages. Writing about literature is a complicated, often messy process; it needs to meet high standards while incorporating knowledge from other fields such as psychology, history, science, and other arts. It entails knowledge about language, genre, structures, styles, and more. To produce good research about literature, we need to know a lot of things about a lot of things!

Although we discuss the research process in a linear fashion throughout these chapters, you’ll find that, in practice, literary research is a highly recursive process. We’re constantly circling back through the process as we write. Because writing instructors (even those who made this course) are locked into presenting the writing process in a linear way, we tend to discuss it in terms of stages such as preliminary research, drafting, revising, and so on. But writing a research paper requires us to rethink and redo our work at any stage. It’s not uncommon for writers to be in the middle of proofreading (one of the final stages) and realize they need to go back and gather more research. Though this course focuses on research about literature, the skills and knowledge in these modules apply to many other areas and topics, especially in the humanities.

Course Learning Objectives

• Understand the assignment
• Identify a research problem
• Develop audience awareness
• Enter a scholarly conversation
• Understand theory’s integral role within humanities research
• Understand how theory relates to particular research methodologies and methods for gathering evidence
• Learn to use online library catalogs, database search strategies, library services, citation management, and search alerts
• Evaluate source credibility
• Posit your research question
• Posit a thesis statement
• Compose a title
• Define your key term
• Write persuasively
• Write academic prose
• Steer clear of plagiarism
• Finish your research project

Strategies for Conducting Literary Research Copyright © 2021 by Barry Mauer & John Venecek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Approaches to Literary Criticism

One useful way to think about the different approaches or schools of literary criticism is to regard them as different methodologies. We defined a methodology as a “a system of methods that an academic discipline uses to carry out its research and pursue the answers to its questions, combined with an overarching philosophical attitude and interpretive framework for applying those methods.” That’s a good guide to understanding the nature of the different literary critical theories/methodologies. There’s a whole host of different interpretive methodologies for approaching works of literature. You’ll learn more about these in the next section. Collectively, these individual methodologies or theories add up, more or less, to the larger realm of literary theory as a whole.

Schools of Literary Criticism

To put meat on these bones, here are brief descriptions of some of the most prominent schools of literary criticism. (Bear in mind that this is hardly a comprehensive list!) When you research the available scholarly writings on a given work of literature, you may come across essays and articles that use one or more of these approaches. We’ve grouped them into four categories—author-focused, text-focused, reader-focused and context-focused—each with its own central approach and central question about literary works and effective ways to understand them.

Author-Focused: How can we understand literary works by understanding their authors?

Biographical  criticism focuses on the author’s life. It tries to gain a better understanding of the literary work by understanding the person who wrote it. Typical questions involved in this approach include the following:

• What aspects of the author’s life are relevant to understanding the work?
• How are the author’s personal beliefs encoded into the work?
• Does the work reflect the writer’s personal experiences and concerns? How or how not?

Reader-Focused: How can we understand literary works by understanding the subjective experience of reading them?

Reader-response  criticism emphasizes the reader as much as the text. It seeks to understand how a given reader comes together with a given literary work to produce a unique reading. This school of criticism rests on the assumption that literary works don’t contain or embody a stable, fixed meaning but can have many meanings—in fact, as many meanings as there are readers, since each reader will engage with the text differently. In the words of literature scholar Tyson (2006), “reader-response theorists share two beliefs: (1) that the role of the reader cannot be omitted from our understanding of literature and (2) that readers do not passively consume the meaning presented to them by an objective literary text; rather they actively make the meaning they find in literature” (p. 170). Typical questions involved in this approach include the following:

• Who is the reader? Also, who is the implied reader (the one “posited” by the text)?
• What kinds of memories, knowledge, and thoughts does the text evoke from the reader?
• How exactly does the interaction between the reader and the text create meaning on both the text side and the reader side? How does this meaning change from person to person, or if the same person rereads it?

Context-Focused: How can we understand literary works by understanding the contextual circumstances—historical, societal, cultural, political, economic—out of which they emerged?

Historical  criticism focuses on the historical and social circumstances that surrounded the writing of a text. It may examine biographical facts about the author’s life (which can therefore connect this approach with biographical criticism) as well as the influence of social, political, national, and international events. It may also consider the influence of other literary works. New Historicism, a particular type of historical criticism, focuses not so much on the role of historical facts and events as on the ways these things are remembered and interpreted, and the way this interpreted historical memory contributes to the interpretation of literature. Typical questions involved in historical criticism include the following:

• How (and how accurately) does the work reflect the historical period in which it was written?
• What specific historical events influenced the author?
• How important is the work’s historical context to understanding it?
• How does the work represent an interpretation of its time and culture? (New Historicism)

Useful Metaphors: Literary Critical Methods as Toolboxes and Lenses

Two useful metaphors for understanding what literary critical theories do and how they’re intended to work are the metaphor of the  toolbox  and the metaphor of the  lens .

The  toolbox  is the older metaphor. It was more popular before the turn of the twenty-first century, and it says that each critical/theoretical approach provides a set of tools, in the form of specialized concepts and vocabulary, for thinking and talking meaningfully about literature. As this metaphor would have it, once you’ve learned the right concepts and terminology, you’re better equipped with the tools to think and talk about literature in a rich and deep way.

Beginning roughly around the turn of the century, the  lens began to supplant the toolbox as the preferred metaphor. Tyson (2006) explains it well: “Think of each theory as a new pair of eyeglasses through which certain elements of our world are brought into focus while others . . . fade into the background” (p. 170). In other words, the lens metaphor characterizes each critical/theoretical approach as a different way of seeing the text, with the different lenses rendering different aspects of the text more prominent or less prominent, more visible or less visible, resulting in the possibility of substantially and even fundamentally different overall readings of the same text depending on which lens is used.

For example, consider the case of Homer’s  Iliad  as it might appear through several of the different lenses described above.

• Biographical criticism would highlight the influence of Homer himself—his biographical facts and major life experiences—on the text.
• Reader-response criticism would consider the relationship between the individual reader and the text. Since the Iliad is more than two thousand years old, one possible reader-response approach (but only one among any) might be to consider how the modern reader’s experience and understanding of this work harmonizes or clashes with the implied/intended reader of a poem that was written down in vastly different cultural circumstances some 2,800 years ago, and that was composed even earlier than that.
• Historical criticism would try to understand the Iliad by understanding the historical, cultural, and literary contexts out of which it emerged in ancient Greece, and of which it is at least partly a reflection.

It’s also important to recognize that not all literary works are equally amenable to being examined through all critical/theoretical lenses. When it comes to the Iliad, for example, post-colonial critics have found relatively little to “work with” and respond to. However, it’s a different story with Homer’s Odyssey, where the post-colonial lens has produced readings of the text that highlight Odysseus’ role as a colonizer, even as the same lens has also produced readings that highlight  Odysseus’ role as a wretched refugee (Greenwood, 2020, pp. 532-535).

Watch it: An Introduction to Literary Theory

Watch Methodology: An introduction to literary theory (17 minutes) on YouTube

Video source: The Nature of Writing. (2017, May 25). Methodology: An introduction to literary theory [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/hXLm3zZYhc0

Attribution & References

Except where otherwise noted, this section is adapted from  “Approaches to Literary Criticism” In English Composition II   by Lumen Learning, licensed under CC BY 4.0 . / Adaptations include removal of feminist and Marxism critical theory sections.

Tyson, L. (2006). Critical theory today: A user-friendly guide  (2nd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203479698

Greenwood, E. (2020). Postcolonial perceptions of Homeric epic. In C. O. Pache (Ed.), T he Cambridge Guide to Homer (pp. 532-535). Cambridge University Press.  https://doi.org/10.1017/9781139225649

English for Degree Entrance (EDE) Copyright © by Carrie Molinski and Sue Slessor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Encyclopedia of Evidence in Pharmaceutical Public Health and Health Services Research in Pharmacy pp 1–15 Cite as

Methodological Approaches to Literature Review

• Dennis Thomas 2 ,
• Elida Zairina 3 &
• Johnson George 4  
• Living reference work entry
• First Online: 09 May 2023

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The literature review can serve various functions in the contexts of education and research. It aids in identifying knowledge gaps, informing research methodology, and developing a theoretical framework during the planning stages of a research study or project, as well as reporting of review findings in the context of the existing literature. This chapter discusses the methodological approaches to conducting a literature review and offers an overview of different types of reviews. There are various types of reviews, including narrative reviews, scoping reviews, and systematic reviews with reporting strategies such as meta-analysis and meta-synthesis. Review authors should consider the scope of the literature review when selecting a type and method. Being focused is essential for a successful review; however, this must be balanced against the relevance of the review to a broad audience.

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The Very Best Tips On Writing Literary Essays

Knowing how to write a literary essay is a real skill to have. If you have ever studied in a college or a university, you know that written assignments are among the most widespread and popular ones.

Students are assigned essays, term papers, research papers, reviews, case studies, scholarly articles, capstone projects, and other tasks almost daily. When facing a heavy workload, many students turn to online resources for assistance. Websites like essayservice.com can provide valuable support in completing these academic assignments. Some papers are easy to complete. But some can be problematic. A lot depends on a student’s attitude to their studies and their level of knowledge of a discipline. For example, literary essays are easy for some people if they read a lot of books, especially those that are often subject to literary criticism, like John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice And Men”.

However, not everybody has the writing gift and may look to others for help. Some students turn to professionals, like https://essayshark.com/ , who are literary essay writers, to deal with complex assignments more effectively. By reaching out to an online service that offers writing assistance, anyone can get help and make progress on their assignment. Most writing services offer good rates to students as they understand the price can be high and budgets limited. A reliable essay writing service will also likely offer things like money-back guarantees, free revisions, customer support, strict policies, confidentiality, and safe payments.

However, if you want to learn how to write a literary essay yourself, this guide will help.

The tips were collected by asking professional writers who have completed a lot of papers for college and university.

What Is A Literary Essay?

So, what is a literary essay?

A literary essay is a type of writing in which the author examines and evaluates a piece of literature. This can include novels, short stories, plays, poems, or any other type of literary work. The essay typically includes an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion, and it may focus on a specific aspect of the literature, such as the characters, themes, or symbolism.

The goal of a literary essay is to analyze and interpret the work in order to understand its meaning and significance. Such papers discuss books, poems, novels, and other pieces of fictional works. They may focus on the characters, the theme, the way it’s written or the messages it provides. In short, the writer must critically analyse the piece and present their thoughts.

Some examples of topics that literary essays can cover include:

• An analysis of the characters in William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”
• A discussion of the themes of love and sacrifice in John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath”
• An examination of the symbolism in Toni Morrison’s “Beloved”
• An analysis of the structure of Emily Dickinson’s poetry
• A discussion of the use of imagery in Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea”
• An examination of the portrayal of gender roles in Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”

These are just a few examples of the many different types of literary essays that can be written. They can focus on different elements of literature and can be written about a wide range of literary works.

Let’s look at how a writer can approach the writing of an essay.

Examples Of Some Of The Best Literary Essays

Here’s a breakdown of some of the best literary essays as decided upon by critics:

“Self-Reliance” by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Published in 1841, this essay by Emerson explores the concept of individuality and the importance of trusting yourself. It encourages readers to rely on their own intuition and beliefs rather than conforming to societal expectations. “Self-Reliance” is considered a cornerstone of transcendentalist philosophy and continues to influence readers with its empowering message.

“The Death of the Author” by Roland Barthes

In this influential essay published in 1967, Barthes challenges the traditional notion of authorship and argues that the meaning of a literary work should be detached from its author’s intentions and background. He suggests that the reader’s interpretation and the text’s context are more significant in determining meaning than the author’s authority.

“The Essays of Elia” by Charles Lamb

First published in the early 19th century, this collection of essays by Lamb combines personal experiences, reflections, and humor. Lamb’s writing style is regarded as witty, charming, and full of subtle observations. The essays cover a range of topics, from everyday life to literary criticism, and have garnered praise for their delightful prose writing .

These essays have received critical acclaim for their literary merit, thought-provoking ideas, and cultural significance. By exploring these works, readers can gain valuable insights into various aspects of human experience, society, and the power of the written word.

How To Write A Literary Essay

So, how do you write a literary essay?

In this section, we’ll break it down into some key considerations, beginning with tips on how to analyse examples of literary essays.

Start with examples of literary essays

You should start by reading great examples of other literary essays written by successful students. Find some samples on the internet and read them to understand how to structure and format such kinds of papers.

Note that reading examples mean getting inspired but not copying these papers. If you copy and paste from other essays, you may fall foul of plagiarism rules and could fail the assignment.

Some examples of the best literary essays include:

• “Self-Reliance” by Ralph Waldo Emerson – This essay is considered a classic of American literature and emphasizes the importance of individuality and self-reliance.
• “A Room of One’s Own” by Virginia Woolf – This feminist essay explores the challenges faced by women writers and the need for women to have financial and intellectual independence.
• “The Death of the Author” by Roland Barthes – This influential essay argues that the author’s intent and biography should not be considered when interpreting a work of literature, and that instead the focus should be on the text itself.
• “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” by Zora Neale Hurston – This personal essay describes the author’s experiences with racial identity and is considered a classic of African American literature.

These are just a few examples of some of the most famous literary essays. They have been widely read and studied, and have had a significant impact on literature and literary criticism. You may get some ideas and inspiration by reading them yourself.

Review your instructions

An important step is to read and review the instructions on writing a literary essay provided by your teacher. These instructions contain guidance on what to do as well as an idea of how to choose and formulate a good and creative topic.

Also, you will understand what formatting style you need to use when writing your essay. Manuals tend to provide recommendations on structuring and plotting your essay. Plus, it’ll also tell you that all-important deadline.

Read the reviewed piece over and over

It is crucial to read the novel, book, or poem you will review. Note that reading a shortened version or a critique will not be as effective as reading the full version. Take time to read the piece and define your emotions when reading it.

Using your genuine impressions on the book or novel you are reviewing is excellent because it will help ensure your ideas are original. When you read the reviewed piece, take notes and question things as much as possible.

Research the topic thoroughly

Collect information about the piece and read book reviews from other authors who have already reviewed it.

Do not repeat the ideas of others. Try to figure out what your own attitude is toward the piece. It can help if you read around the topic to better understand the context. For example, “To Kill A Mockingbird” by Harper Lee was written as a critique of segregated America.

Therefore, the time when the author lived and wrote their novels , the genre of the piece you are reviewing, and other critical criteria can all help you to review and analyse a book correctly. You can also look for some interviews with an author or seek out some interesting facts from the writer’s biography to see if sheds any more light.

Outline your paper

Creating a good structure for your paper is crucial to make it readable and logically arranged. You must include at least three elements in a literary essay: an introduction, the body, and the conclusion.

An introduction must set out the main thesis, which is your central idea, methodology and a suggestion of the findings. This section is crucial because it catches your audience’s attention and makes them interested in reading the following sections of your paper.

The body must contain evidence that proves your opinion and some analysis of the piece you’ve read. It should consider both sides of the argument and your own insights too.

The last section of your literary essay is the conclusion. This is where you bring everything today and hammer home your own stance, as well as recapping the main arguments.

How to write a hook for a literary analysis essay

The primary purpose of a hook is to grab the attention of your audience and entice them to continue reading. Here are some key principles to keep in mind while crafting a powerful hook for your literary analysis essay :

• Identify a thought-provoking quote – Begin by selecting a quote from the literary work you are analyzing that encapsulates a central theme, evokes strong emotions, or showcases the author’s style. This quote should be relevant to your thesis statement and provide a glimpse into the depth of your analysis. Consider choosing a quote that is rich in symbolism or contains vivid imagery, as it can intrigue your readers and make them eager to delve deeper into your essay.
• Pose a captivating question – Another effective approach is to pose a stimulating question that piques the curiosity of your readers. The question should be thought-provoking, directly related to the literary work under examination, and highlight the significance of your analysis. By sparking a sense of curiosity, you can motivate your readers to continue reading in search of an answer or a unique perspective.
• Utilize a compelling anecdote – Sharing a captivating anecdote or short narrative can instantly engage your readers and create a personal connection with the topic. The anecdote should be relevant to the literary work and serve as a gateway to your analysis. By presenting a relatable and intriguing story, you can generate interest and establish a strong connection between your readers and the themes explored in the essay.
• Employ a startling statistic or fact – Incorporating a surprising statistic or a little-known fact about the author, the time period in which the work was written, or the historical context can be an effective hook. This approach not only grabs attention but also highlights the relevance and significance of the literary work, enticing readers to explore your analysis in order to understand its implications.
• Use a vivid description or imagery – Paint a vivid picture in the minds of your readers by employing descriptive or sensory language or striking imagery. By appealing to the senses and creating a vivid mental image, you can evoke emotions and draw your readers into the world of the literary work. This approach establishes a strong foundation for your analysis and encourages readers to engage with your interpretation.

Remember, an effective hook for a literary analysis essay should not only capture attention but also provide a seamless transition into the main body of your essay. It should connect directly to your thesis statement and give readers a glimpse of the unique insights and interpretations they can expect to encounter. By employing these strategies, you can craft a compelling hook that will leave your readers eager to delve further into your literary analysis.

Finish with editing

The proofreading and editing stage is crucial because it will help you define your paper’s weaknesses and reduce them. Here are 10 quick tips for editing an essay:

• Read your essay out loud to catch any grammar or punctuation mistakes.
• Check for consistency in verb tense and voice.
• Make sure your sentences are clear and concise.
• Make sure your essay flows well and that your ideas are logically organized. If not, give your essay a rewrite .
• Check for any factual errors or inaccuracies.
• Make sure you have fully answered the prompt or question.
• Check for plagiarism.
• Proofread for spelling and typographical errors.
• Get feedback from a peer or teacher.
• Take a break before reviewing your essay

You can also try using free online editing tools like Grammarly and Hemingway. These tools help to help to minimize typos and repeated words and help check grammar and punctuation.

Editing is perhaps the most crucial aspect of knowing how to write a literary essay.

Other Tips On Writing A Literary Essay

Let’s summarise some of the tips we’ve covered on writing literary essays. Plus, you can find some additional advice that you may find useful:

• Before you begin writing, make sure you have a thorough understanding of the literary work you will be analyzing. Read the text multiple times, taking note of any themes, symbols, or motifs that stand out to you. Consider the historical and cultural context of the work, as well as the author’s biography and other literary works.
• Develop a clear thesis statement that will guide your essay. Your thesis should be a statement about the text that you will be able to support with evidence from the text. For example, “In ‘The Great Gatsby,’ F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the character of Jay Gatsby to reveal the corrupting influence of wealth and status on the American Dream.”
• Use evidence from the text to support your thesis. This can include direct quotes, examples, and references to specific scenes or passages. Be sure to incorporate specific details and references to the text to make your analysis more concrete and convincing.
• Analyze the literary devices used by the author, such as symbolism, imagery, and figurative language. Consider how these devices contribute to the overall meaning or themes of the text.
• Consider the point of view, narrative style , and structure of the text. How does the author’s choice of point of view or narrative style shape the way we understand the characters and events in the story?
• Use a formal, academic writing style and tone. Avoid using first-person pronouns, slang, or informal language. Use proper grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure.
• Organize your essay in a logical and coherent manner. Use a clear introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. Make sure each paragraph has a clear topic sentence that connects back to your thesis.
• Proofread your essay for grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors. Make sure you have fully answered the prompt or question. Also make sure to check plagiarism in your content using a reliable plagiarism checker before you finalize it.

In summary, writing a literary essay requires a deep understanding of the text, a well-defined thesis statement, the use of evidence from the text, an analysis of literary devices, and a formal writing style.

Learn More About Creative Writing And Essays

You can find more tips and advice on writing literary essays via the links below:

• Top tips for creative essay writing
• The best essays on creative writing
• Easy tools writers can use to build suspense – applies to writing essays too
• Head here to learn how to make homework fun
• Here’s a guide on how to be more creative in writing

If you need any more help understanding how to write a literary essay, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

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Methodology.

Once you have a clear picture of what you know and what you want to know (see KWL diagram ), it's time to think about how you will conduct your research. Methodology is the term used to describe the ways in which you gather data and acquire knowledge. Before you finalise your research question , you will need to know which methods are most appropriate for exploring it. Here is an overview, by group, of common data-gathering methods. Consult this overview before filling out an EE proposal form. Note that the IB's website on the Programme Resource Centre (PRC) offers much more detailed guidance on methodology per subject. 

How is knowledge traditionally gatthered in your field of research? Under which Area of Knowledge (AOK) does your subject fall and learn more about its knowledge framework to learn ore about traditional methods of doing research in this subject.

One of the Approaches to Learning refers to self-management skills. When thinking about your methods of research, consider how long they will take. How much time do you need to read a novel, organise a survey or run an experiment? What if this takes longer then usual? Consider methodology when planning. 

Are you assessed on your methods? Yes! Criterion A: Focus and methods clearly states this. Criteria B and C also refer to the quality of research. For example: You may write an excellent essay about your lab results. But if your experiement was pedestrian, you will not score well on Criteria A-C. Ask your supervisor about the appropriateness of your methodology to get a sense of what it expected. Note that some methods are allowed but not recommended, such as data analysis in the sciences. Talk to your supervisor for more advice.

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• How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates, and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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Table of contents

What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
• Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

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See an example

Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions .

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.

Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models, and methods?
• Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

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To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat—this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.

Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, you can follow these tips:

• Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers — add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts

In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !

This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.

Scribbr slides are free to use, customize, and distribute for educational purposes.

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If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other  academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .

An  annotated bibliography is a list of  source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a  paper .  

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Plant Studies in Indian Literature

                                                                       Plant Studies in Indian Literature             Indian literature is a rich and diverse tapestry woven from the threads of countless languages, cultures, traditions, and encompasses a vast array of literary forms, genres, and themes, reflecting the complex tapestry of Indian society, its history, spirituality, and cultural heritage. From the ancient Vedas to contemporary works exploring modern Indian identity, Indian literature offers a window into the soul of a nation characterized by its diversity and complexity. Stretching back thousands of years, Indian literature is marked by its pluralism and inclusivity, drawing inspiration from a wide range of philosophical, religious, and cultural influences. Indian literature has served as a medium for the expression of diverse voices and perspectives, reflecting the myriad experiences of people. Currently, Indian literature occupies a prominent place on the global stage, with Indian writers garnering international acclaim and recognition for their contributions to world literature. Through its diversity, complexity, and depth, Indian literature continues to captivate and inspire readers around the world, inviting them on a timeless journey through the heart and soul of one of the world's ancient and most vibrant civilizations. Objective            This Call for Proposals (CFP) endeavours to compile a comprehensive and interdisciplinary anthology that delves into the intricate representations of plants and flora across various genres and time periods within Indian Writings in English. This publication seeks to facilitate a nuanced exploration of the profound role played by botanical imagery in shaping the emotional, cultural, and environmental landscapes depicted in Indian literary works. By fostering interdisciplinary dialogue and critical examination, this project aims to provide fresh insights into the multifaceted relationship between humans and plants, as portrayed in Indian Literature. Through this endeavour, we aim to enrich our understanding of the diverse botanical heritage embedded in Indian literary traditions and its relevance in contemporary discussions surrounding nature, culture, and ecology  Target Audience              In this Call for Proposals (CFP), the primary focus is on Indian writings in English. We seek contributions from scholars, researchers, and academicians specializing in the analysis of Indian literary works, both classic and contemporary. By delving into the profound interplay between humans and the natural world depicted in Indian literature, this CFP aims to attract individuals passionate about exploring the intricate relationship between plants and the cultural, environmental, and emotional aspects woven into various literary traditions, particularly within the realm of Indian writings in English.   Recommended topics include, but are not limited to, the following:  Plant metaphors and symbolisms in Indian Writings in English Comparative analysis of plant representation across different Indian literary periods The ecological and environmental perspectives in Indian literature through plant imagery  Cultural, social, and emotional dimensions of plant representations in     Indian literary texts  Plants as objects of allegory, metaphor, or fable in Indian literary contexts Depiction of flora in mythological narratives  Plants as symbols of love, longing, or spirituality in Indian literature Representation of plants in Indian folk tales, oral traditions, and folk songs Botanical gardens, herbal medicine, and plant cultivation practices depicted in Indian literary texts  Plants as markers of identity, belonging, or displacement in diasporic Indian literature Gendered perspectives on plant imagery and botanical metaphors in Indian literary discourse    Peer Review : All the accepted manuscripts will undergo a double-blind review before publication.    Submission Procedure Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit an abstract of 150 to 250 words with a brief note on the author's bio and contact information (including full name, affiliation, official e-mail address, and mobile number) on or before April 21, 2024. At least one author contributing to the chapter should possess a Ph.D. Send your abstracts to [email protected] or [email protected] .   Note : There are no submission or publication fees.   Publisher: This book series is associated with Dr. Douglas Vakoch’s ‘Critical Plant Series’ published by Lexington Books, a renowned publisher committed to advancing scholarly research and intellectual discourse across various fields. Lexington Books has established itself as an excellent platform for academics, researchers, and authors to disseminate their work to a global audience. It continues to publish high-quality peer-reviewed monographs and edited collections by established and emerging scholars who contribute to the humanities and social sciences. For additional information regarding the publisher, please visit https://rowman.com/lexingtonbooks .  Editorial Advisory Board Members  Jaishmitha Riny R, Research Scholar, Christ Deemed to be University, Bangalore, India. 

Prof. Nirmal Selvamony is former founding professor and Head of the department of English Studies, and Dean, School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Central University of Tamil Nadu. His major areas of interest, in the last four decades, have been alternative ( ti ṇai ) lifeway,  ti ṇai  studies,  tolkāppiyam , ecocriticism,  tami ḻ  musicology, poetics, and theory. Among his many endeavours to pioneer the  ti ṇ ai   movement ,  some significant ones are the launching of the group called " ti ṇ ai " in 1980 in Chennai, offering the first-ever ecocriticism course (then called "Tamil Poetics") in the Indian university system in the 1980s, and the formulation (in the 1980s) of a theory now known as " putti ṇ ai "  (formerly, Oikopoetics).

Dr. A. Edwin Jeevaraj, Associate Professor, Christ Deemed to be University, Bangalore, India. 

N. Depak Saravanan, Assistant Professor, Christ Deemed to be University, Bangalore, India.