How to Write a Literary Review

Formal Guidelines
Formatting: Letter type 12, double spaced
Quotations, references and bibliography: a literary review generally is less formal than academic papers, but make sure to cite the edition of the story you are reviewing, and, when quoting from it, producing page numbers. Also, for other sources, use one of the styles available in Purdue (I prefer MLA, but as long as you are consistent is up to you)
Max. length: 800 words excluding bibliography

Deadline: November 6 (11:59 p. m. online)

Assumptions

1. In general, a literary text review provides enough information to help the reader decide whether he/she wants to read the story / book / poem / essay.
2. To write a good literary review, the writer must first know the text thoroughly, which requires a careful, attentive reading. The reviewer must know the genre of the book (whether it is a narrative or lyrical poem, a historical novel, a romance, science fiction, mystery, etc), the literary concerns of the time and place the book was produced (ex. Transcendentalism, Dark Romanticism( but he/she must also know the characteristics that make up good literature of this type.

Pre-writing

As you read, determine the author's purpose/intentions (main theme(s), what the author may be arguing for or against, what emotions does s/he intend to elicit from the reader); consider if title or subtitle are effective; take notes; jot down favorite quotes or parts you think are weak; and summarize each part.

Do some background research. Read about the author; read related material; use a dictionary or encyclopedia to look up unknown words or concepts; and think about a plan of action (how you think the book could best be critiqued).

Identify any appeals used

• Determine how effective the author's appeals were from your own perspective as a reader.Ask yourself if you had an emotional response to an emotional appeal. Remember the affective reading techniques. Did you become happy, upset, or angry at any point? Did you feel justified or angry? If so, ask yourself why.
• Choose several noteworthy areas to analyse (style, ideas, treatment of subject matter, plot, characters, showing vs. telling, appeal to senses or sensations, etc.) and identify any controversies or weak points surrounding them.

Structure (advice, not dogma)

Title: not always necessary, but a review works better with a catchy title

1. Introduction: 

Specify the title of the work, the type of work it is, the author's name, and the field or genre the work addresses.

Include information about the context in which the article was written.

Try to pinpoint the main issue of interest in this text, according to you, and state it.

State your own thesis: Your thesis should be a brief statement that summarizes your overall evaluation of the work being critiqued.   [the introduction should not be more than 15 % of the work)

2. Development

1. summary: Quickly sum up the key points of the text, and/ or describe briefly how it is structured [this should not take more than 25% of your work]

2. Break into your own critique. List positive and negative aspects. Each idea should come in a second paragraph. Take care of appropriate sentence connectors. Use textual examples as illustration (one tidbit of close reading is usually appreciated).

3. Conclusion (10-15% of the work) In your concluding paragraph, clearly restate your thesis or overall opinion of the analyzed work. You can also use this space to briefly present recommendation on how the analyzed work could be improved. ... and you will gain points by concluding with a golden key: an original idea or polemic statement that could give rise to further academic writing.

Tips:

1. Do not attempt to write the review unless you have read the text carefully and completely.
2. Do not make general or absolute statements without supporting them with specific examples or quotations.
3. Avoid footnotes, which generally are not used in this type of work. Even the citing of other sources should be parcimonious, though you are encouraged to do some research and look up who else has expounded on your point of view.
4. Your style might be livened if you use 19th century rhetorics: for instance, the use of "we" as the subject of enunciation; treating your writer by "Mr." or "Miss"...
5. Ask a friend to read the review. A fresh eye can often catch problems with the review that you might have missed.