Some literary analyses can be enhanced by visuals—for example, drawings, photographs, tables, or graphs—that provide a historical or social context or some other supporting information.

Suppose in writing about “The Use of Force,” for example, you are interested in the history of diphtheria epidemics. In doing research, you might find or construct a timeline showing how many children died over the years from the disease, and include this information in a simple table. If you were writing an analysis of the story “Araby” and taking a biographical approach, you might include this photograph of 17 North Richmond Street in Dublin, Ireland, where Joyce lived during part of his youth. Descriptions of this home are featured in “Araby” as well as in Joyce’s books Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, and Finnegan’s Wake.

As always, consider reviewing other analyses of the short story you are studying or analyses of other stories to see how they use visuals to support and strengthen their arguments. Use the formatting instructions for the style manual your instructor requires to determine matters such as the width of margins, the use of headers and page numbers, and the formatting of your works cited list. (For writing projects in English composition and literature, instructors frequently ask students to follow MLA style.)