When you write your analysis, your purpose is to explain the work’s deeper meaning. Don’t try to impress readers with your brilliance. Instead, regard them as friends in whose company you are discussing something familiar to all, though they may not have studied the work as carefully as you have. This assumption will help you decide how much evidence from the work to include and will reduce summarizing.

Identify Your Support. After you have determined the major element or cluster of elements that you intend to focus on, go through the work again to find all the passages that relate to your main point. Mark them as you find them, or put them on note cards or in a computer file, along with the page references. If you use any quotations, quote exactly.

Develop Your Main Idea or Thesis. Begin by trying to express your point in a thesis statement that identifies the literary work and the author.

But this statement is too vague, so you rewrite it to be more precise:

This thesis is better but still doesn’t state the theme clearly or precisely. You try other ways of expressing what Jackson implies about tradition:

Adding one of shows that this is not the story’s only theme, but the rest is vague. What does outmoded mean? How are traditions harmful?

This thesis is better but may change as you write. For instance, you might go beyond interpretation of Jackson’s ideas by adding tragic to convey your evaluation of her observation of the human condition:

Or you might say this, alerting readers to your main points:

Focus on analyzing ideas, not retelling events. Maintain that focus by analyzing your thesis: divide it into parts, and then develop each part in turn. The thesis just presented could be divided into (1) use of symbolism to reveal theme and (2) use of irony to reveal theme. Similarly, you might divide a thesis about character change into the character’s original traits, the events that cause change, and the character’s new traits.

Introduce Your Essay. Tie your beginning to your main idea, or thesis. If you are uncertain how to begin, try one of these openings:

Support Your Interpretation. As you develop your analysis, include supporting evidence — descriptions of setting and character, summaries of events, quotations of dialogue, and other specifics. Cite page numbers (for prose) or line numbers (for poetry) where the details can be found in the work. Integrate evidence from the story with your comments and ideas.

Keep the focus on ideas, not events, by using transition markers that refer to character traits and personality change, not to time. Say “Although Mr. Summers was…” instead of “At the beginning of the story Mr. Summers was. …” Write “Tessie became…” instead of “After that Tessie was…” State “The villagers in ‘The Lottery’ changed…,” not “On the next page. …”

Conclude Your Essay. When you reach the end, don’t just stop. Close as you might open — with a personal experience, a comment on technique, a quotation — to provide a sense of finality. Refer to or reaffirm your thesis. Often an effective conclusion ties in directly with the introduction.

Use the Take Action chart to help you figure out how to improve your draft. Skim across the top to identify questions you might ask about your literary analysis. When you answer a question with “Yes” or “Maybe,” move straight down the column to Locate Specifics under that question. Use the activities there to pinpoint gaps, problems, or weaknesses. Then move straight down the column to Take Action. Use the advice that suits your problem as you revise.