**in progress**
Although you may be asked to produce a variety of assignments for an English course, you will see a few assignments over and over again. Close readings, analysis essays, and research essays are the bread-and-butter of English teachers because they require students to practice the core skills of the discipline.
Message: The thesis is an analytic argument about a single passage, film clip or short text (such as a poem).
Purpose: To pay attention to a text's content and form and to demonstrate skill at analysis, particularly formal analysis.
Context: Close readings are now a primarily academic exercise, often created as assignments in English courses. In the 1950s-1970s, literary close readings were a popular form of scholarly article, but their popularity in academic literary journals is fairly limited now.
Audience: Student peers. The audience may be expected to know basic literary or film terms.
A close reading focuses on the details of a single passage, film clip or a short poem - both the content and the form. In this case, the writer is not trying to make an argument about a recurring theme or the text as a whole but the passage specifically. See the Reading page for reading strategies. A close reading does not typically require research. In fact, some English teachers prohibit research.
A close reading will typically include the following:
Thesis. An analytic argument about the passage that goes beyond summary and identification of formal elements. For example, it is not enough to point out that a poem is a sonnet. How does the sonnet form help to create meaning?
Evidence. The point of a close reading is attention to detail, so it must include evidence to support the claims. This evidence is incorporated in MLA style.
Focus/Organization. A close reading should have focused paragraphs and make a clearly organized argument.
Message: An original argument about some aspect of literature (e.g., author, publisher, text, book seller, reader).
Purpose: To increase academic knowledge or insight into a text or other aspect of literary study.
Context: In a classroom setting, literary research essays are practice for scholarly articles.
Audience: Literary scholars, people who are not familiar with the essay's subject. Every academic journal or publisher has their focus or set of conventions. Scholars typically tailor an article for a particular publication venue.
There is no formula for a literature research essay, or scholarly article, but it must fulfill four tasks:
Argument. Make an analytic argument about its subject (e.g., text, author, publisher, book group).
Evidence. Support the thesis with primary evidence.
Critical Lens. Identify the critical lens used to analyze the subject (e.g., intersectionality, formal analysis).
Scholarship. Explain how the argument fits into existing scholarship.
Sources for this type of essay may contribute to any of these tasks.
Message: Is this text good or bad?
Purpose: To persuade or dissuade readers from reading the text.
Context: Book reviews are typically tailored to the specific interests and concerns of the publication's intended audience. For example, a review of a YA novel in a library journal might focus on whether libraries should purchase the book.
Audience: People who have not read the book.
A book review is not an academic assignment; that is, a book review has a different purpose from most academic literature essays. Its purpose is to recommend a book to potential readers, not necessarily to analyze it. A book review typically achieves three tasks:
Summary. The intended audience for book reviews is people who have not read the book. The writer will therefore need to summarize it for the audience (not giving away spoilers).
Background or Connections. The writer may want to explain some background to the text to explain why it is interesting. This could include author background, publishing history, comparisons to other books, etc.
Analysis. The book review should give a few examples from the book to explain why the audience for the review should or should not read the book.