Just as scientists provide data to support their results, literary critics must use evidence from literature in order to convince their audience that they have a cogent argument. Evidence must be provided in every body paragraph in order to support your claims. Where will you find evidence?
First, you must do a close reading of the text. It is much easier to first analyze and think about how the smaller literary elements work together to create the whole work, rather than randomly thumbing through a work to find support for your thesis. When you provide evidence, you are providing proof from the text that shows your audience that your thesis is valid.
Critics most commonly provide evidence by quoting a line or a passage from a work.
When you provide evidence, it is imperative not to take it out of context.
For example, if a character is joking with another character that he will kill himself if he fails his chemistry test and there's no other mention of death in the work, it would be unfair to represent this character as suicidal by eliminating the context of him joking.
Accurately quoting and fairly representing events/characters/etc. adds to your credibility as a writer. If you find evidence that counters your thesis, you should still engage with it. Think about what your critics would say and come up with a response to show how that particular piece of evidence might still support your stance.
Once you're done gathering evidence, you can move on to the analysis portion in which you explain how the evidence supports your claims.
PRIMARY SOURCE: The literary work (novel, play, story, poem) to be discussed in an essay.
Example: : Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-tale Heart”**For most literary analysis papers, you will be using ONLY PRIMARY SOURCES
SECONDARY SOURCE: Any source (other than the primary source) referred to in the essay. Secondary sources can include critical analyses, biographies of the author, reviews, history books, encyclopedias etc.When citing primary or secondary sources, follow MLA style for parenthetical documentation and “Works Cited” page.
WORKS CITED: a separate page listing all the works cited in an essay. It simplifies documentation because it permits you to make only brief references to those works in the test (parenthetical documentation). A “Works Cited” page differs from a “Bibliography” in that the latter includes sources researched but not actually cited in the paper. All the entries on a “Works Cited” page are double spaced.
PARENTHETICAL DOCUMENTATION: a brief parenthetical reference placed where a pause would naturally occur to avoid disrupting the flow of your writing (usually at the end of a sentence, before the period).
Most often you will use the author’s last name and page number clearly referring to a source listed on the “Works Cited” page: Example: Hemingway’s writing declined in his later career (Shien 789). If you cite the author in the text of your paper, give only the page number in parentheses:Example: According to Francis Guerin, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn reflects “those same nightmarish shadows that even in our own time threaten to obscure the American Dream” (49). If two works by the same author appear in your “Works Cited,” add the title or a shortened version of it to distinguish your sources:Example: “He wouldn’t rest until he had run a mile or more” (Dickens, A Tale 78).
BLOCK QUOTATION: quotations that are set off from the rest of the paper. Indent one-inch from the left margin only and double space. Do not use quotation marks unless they appear in the original.
1) For a prose quotation of more than 4 typed lines, start the quotation after a colon and indent each line of the quotation 10 spaces, placing the citation after the end punctuation. Example: Based on rumors and gossip, the children of Maycomb speculate about Boo Radley’s appearance:Boo was about six-and-a-half feet tall, judging form his tracks; he dined on
raw squirrels and any cats he could catch, that’s why his hands were bloodstained—if you ate an animal raw, you could never wash the blood off. There was a long jagged scar that ran across his face; what teeth he had were yellow and rotten; his eyes popped, and he drooled most of the time. (Lee 13)
2) For any prose dialogue involving 2 or more speakers, start the quotation (dialogue) after a colon and have each line of dialogue as its own paragraph (a 10-space indentation), placing the citation information after the end punctuation.Example: During the trial scene, Bob Ewell immediately shows his disrespect for both the court and his family: “Are you the father of Mayella Ewell?” was the next question. “Well, if I ain’t I can’t do nothing about it now, her ma’s dead,” was the answer. (Lee 172)