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Literary Research Paper: How to Cope with This Assignment?
Research is not always about formulas and numbers. During the years of your studying, you may face an assignment that implies writing a literary research paper. In this article, we are discussing how to cope with this task.
Literary Research Paper: Tip 1
Do not forget about this obvious thing: a literary research paper is about doing a research. That is why your literary research paper topic should differ from topics that you choose for literature essays.
Literary Research Paper: Tip 2
To write a literary research paper, it will be necessary for you to work with several sources. In many cases, reading a book itself is not enough: you will need to work with other works in order to make comparison, with critics’ works, etc.
Literature Research Paper: Tip 3
As a rule, literary research paper writing does not imply studying a work of literature as an isolated piece of writing. In literature research papers, works of literature are discussed in certain context:
- Genre
You can outline the peculiarities of a genre that a given work belongs to and demonstrate how these peculiarities can be seen in this work. Does a writer follow all the rules and traditions of a genre, or has he/she found an original approach and contributed something new to it? This is an important question to discuss in a literary research paper.
- Historical context
Most works of literature are in some way the reflection of the reality that surrounded an author. Does a work of literature date to the epoch of Renaissance? Or to the 19th century? Or you study a work of our contemporary author? In your literary research paper, you can study the way a work reflects contemporary life.
- Author’s personality
As well, it is always possible to see reflection of an author’s personality and his/her life in his/her works. Before you write a literature research paper, always study an author’s biography – this will help you to make your research deeper.