Now that you’ve selected an author and identified a text for your research paper, your next step is to conduct a detailed close reading of this literary text (also called the primary text).
Close reading is the literary scholar’s craft of reading on a variety of levels simultaneously to analyze and interpret literal, figurative, and symbolic implications of a text. When you close read a text, you’re looking for significant details that help explain the text. A close reading should analyze formal elements of a text, such as genre, poetic meter, rhetorical strategies, literary devices, etc., and consider how the form comments on the content. Sometimes, the most meaningful detail may be something that is left unsaid. You might identify and analyze details in the writer’s life experiences and/or the social-historical context in which they wrote the text.
Writing Tip: Compose your observations about the language of your literary text. Figure out questions that the text raises for the reader, and then look for clues in the text on how to answer these questions. Write a paragraph (or several) explaining and analyzing the significance of your close reading.
After you’ve written a draft of your close reading, then formulate a thesis based on the implications of your close reading observations. Your thesis should come from details in the language of the text.
Use the close reading observations that you’ve complied on your literary text to formulate a thesis and write an analysis. Remember that a good thesis can be argued for and against (if a thesis is obviously correct, it is a weak thesis). Your thesis should be one sentence. Underline your thesis sentence.
Tip: test your thesis by reversing its claim. Could the opposite argument also be reasonably argued for? If so, you have a strong thesis.
Select one or two passages from your literary text for your close reading. Include short quotes from these passages in the main body of your paper, and explain how your close reading of this text provides supporting evidence for your thesis. These close readings are the central focus of your paper.
Your finished close-reading analysis paper should be approximately 4-5 pages, double-spaced (minimum of 1000 words, not including quotes). Please include a word count at the top of your paper.
Proofread your work carefully, and revise to correct spelling, grammar, syntax, or format errors. Use Casagrande’s advice to craft, assess, and revise your sentences.
