How does she expect you to completely decipher and explain not just one poem but two? To make matters worse, some of the poems you have read in class this semester may as well have been written in a foreign language.

Let’s take a step back and start in a language you do understand: pop songs. Now, pop songs are not poetry. And your instructor likely wouldn’t appreciate an essay about the nuances of the latest Pitbull song when compared to Twenty One Pilots’ new single. But this is a good place to learn the technique of how to compare and contrast poems.

Comparing Taylor Swift to Miley Cyrus: Yep, That’s Right

THE MOST EPIC RAP BATTLE OF HISTORY!

Just kidding. I wish.

Instead of hosting a showdown, I’m going to show you how to compare and contrast poems successfully using “Wrecking Ball” by Miley Cyrus and “Blank Space” by Taylor Swift as my examples.

(In case you’ve been living under a rock, here are links to the lyrics of Wrecking Ball and Blank Space.)

Whenever you’re comparing and contrasting poetry, the first thing you should do is make a list of both obvious and subtle similarities and differences. Here’s what such a list might look like for these two songs:

• Both songs discuss dysfunctional or doomed relationships.
• Both songs use violent imagery and language.
• “Wrecking Ball” is more of a lament, whereas “Blank Space” has a satirical tone.
• The songs both discuss a superficial love where no one succeeds in having a deep connection with the other person.
• “Blank Space” comes across as purposefully malicious, while “Wrecking Ball” makes the violence in the relationship sound accidental.
• “Blank Space” employs a variety of slant rhymes, whereas “Wrecking Ball” primarily uses full rhymes.

Once you have a list of significant similarities and differences between the works you’re comparing, you can move on to building your thesis statement.

Note that pop songs don’t have many of the elements of a poetic work. When looking for similarities and differences in the poems you have chosen, make sure to consider the rhyme scheme, format, meter, and time period.

Building a Thesis Statement for a Comparison Essay

The thesis statement is arguably the most difficult part of writing your essay, but it doesn’t have to be intimidating. In learning how to compare and contrast poems, keep in mind that your thesis statement should have the following elements:

• A  basic, one-to-two-sentence outline of what you will discuss throughout the essay
• An evidence-based opinion or argument that someone could disagree with
• A balanced sentence structure that gives equal weight to both works

If you need more information about building the perfect thesis statement, check out this blog about the five-step thesis statement.

In order to come up with a thesis statement for my pop-song comparison, I need to return to my list. What sort of argument would encompass most, if not all the points I listed?

To make this easier, let’s start with a template:

Though [poem 1] uses [poetic element 1] and [poem 2] employs [poetic element 2], both works contribute to [common theme].

Using this template, let’s add the songs I chose as examples and spruce up the wording. A good thesis statement for comparing these songs might look like this:

Though “Wrecking Ball” focuses on the lack of emotional connection in a relationship and “Blank Space” takes a more satirical, callous perspective on relationships, both songs employ violent imagery to convey that relationships are often superficial.

Here, I have hit many of the major talking points I want to cover within my essay. I have also outlined how my essay is going to look. Also note that it would be reasonable for someone to argue against my claim that the songs are about the superficiality of relationships—this arguability is what makes for a good thesis statement.

To help you get started, here are some poetic elements to consider for your thesis statement:

• Diction
• Tone
• Form
• Meter
• Rhyme
• Imagery
• Narrative voice
• Line breaks

You can find more ideas of what to discuss in your paper by looking at these poetic elements.

And you can get more help building the perfect thesis statement here (hint: choose the compare and contrast essay type).

How to Compare and Contrast Poems: The Tennis Match Problem

Unfortunately, you want to avoid tennis matches in your essay.

While writing comparison essays, students often run into the tennis match problem once they get into their body paragraphs. The tennis match refers to when you switch the poem or body of work you’re talking about every couple sentences or so.

While you do want to give equal weight to each work you discuss, you don’t want your reader getting whiplash every time you swap between them. In other words, “Who would win in a tennis match? Miley Cyrus or Taylor Swift?” isn’t an ideal title or premise for our example.

‘Who would win in a tennis match? Miley Cyrus or Taylor Swift?’ isn’t an ideal title.
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To avoid this issue, you can employ one of two methods.

Method 1: One at a time

In this method, you analyze one poem completely before digging into the next. This way, your reader gets plenty of space to think about your points and arguments. However, in using this structure, you risk missing the real comparison between the works.

If you choose to explicate on the works separately, make sure to use phrases such as “Though [poem 1] relies heavily on … , [poem 2] … ” and “Unlike [poem 1] … ”

Method 2: Switch between paragraphs

The other way for how to compare and contrast poems is to switch between works every paragraph. In this way, you discuss one element of one poem and move on to discuss the same element in the second poem. Often, this method is the easiest for a reader to follow.

When using this structure, make sure you have complete body paragraphs. A complete paragraph should include the following:

• The topic sentence (an argument about the evidence you have)
• Evidence (a direct quote or paraphrase from the work)
• A tie-in (to connect the point back to your thesis statement)

That’ll make you way too good to play tennis.

Want to know what a good compare and contrast essay looks like? Check out these example poem comparisons.

Final Tips on Writing a Comparison Essay

Now that you have the basics down and know exactly how to pit Taylor and Miley against each other, you can move on to the big leagues: writing a comparison essay for actual poems.

To help you, here are some closing tips:

• If your instructor allows you to choose the poems you compare and contrast, choose several pairs and make an initial comparison list with each pair. From there, you can better see which set would make for a better, more substantial essay. Remember, for best results, you want two poems that have a common theme.
• After writing your first draft, read your essay out loud and imagine the tennis match scenario. Is there too much back and forth? Will readers understand what you’re trying to prove?
• Make sure you’re using enough evidence to prove your thesis statement. Do this by including direct quotes. Don’t forget that you should only have one piece of evidence per paragraph. You should use the rest of the paragraph to explain why the evidence is important.

And when you’re working on your final draft, don’t forget to get a second pair of eyes on it. Kibin editors will provide insightful advice about how you can improve your essay and get a better grade.

Now, fill that blank space on your paper, go in like a wrecking ball, and impress your instructor with your know-how on how to compare and contrast poems like a lit major!

But have you ever stopped and thought about how you might literally compare apples and oranges? Let’s make a quick list.

Similarities

• Both are fruits.
• Both have seeds.
• You can make juice with either.
• You can get both at the grocery store.
• Both contain vitamin C.

Differences

• Apples have a thin exterior; oranges do not.
• Oranges already come in slices; apples do not.
• Oranges are typically sourer than apples.
• They are different colors.
• Apples have more varieties.

Huh. That’s a rather successful comparison, don’t you think?

In a similar way, you can compare poems that don’t immediately seem to have anything in common. Read this post to learn about 14 poems to compare and contrast like an expert.

Two Poems to Compare and Contrast Based on Objects as Symbols

“Sunflower Sutra” by Allen Ginsberg vs. “Ah! Sun-flower” by William Blake

You’ve likely done a compare and contrast essay before (if not, check out tips on how to write a compare and contrast essay). Fortunately, comparing poems isn’t much different.

For this type of compare and contrast essay, you’ll need to come up with similarities and differences between two or more poems and organize them cohesively within your essay. I know that sounds like a lot to ask, but that’s why I’m here to help.

First, when you have two or more poems, you need to find a central similarity or difference that will connect the poems together. Maybe the poems have similar themes or themes that are completely opposite of one another. Maybe the poems use the same object, but the symbolism of the object means something different in each poem.

To give you an example, both Allen Ginsberg and William Blake use the image of the sunflower. But the meaning of each poem varies wildly.

• In Allen Ginsberg’s Sunflower Sutra, he talks about the sunflower as an object of spiritual enlightenment and a method of understanding one’s true nature.
• In William Blake’s Ah! Sun-flower, he uses the sunflower to symbolize the relationship between innocence and experience.

If you wanted to compare (and contrast) those two poems, your thesis statement might look something like this:

Though Ginsberg uses the sunflower to symbolize a pathway to self-knowledge and Blake emphasizes the sunflower’s movement from innocence to experience, both use the sunflower as a means to explain an epiphany.

Essentially, you want to include the biggest similarity or difference in your thesis statement to create your argument.

Then, in your body paragraphs, you’ll need to use smaller similarities or differences to back up your argument. Many times, comparing the diction (word choice) the poets use in relation to the primary similarity or difference will highlight your argument well.

Keep in mind that there are two main ways to approach the organization of your compare and contrast essay. You could do one of two things:

1. Talk completely about one poem. Then move on to the next, so they are distinct portions of your essay. 
2. Discuss the poems together paragraph by paragraph. What’s important is that you stay consistent throughout your essay with whatever organizational method you use.

Check out these examples of compare and contrast essays.

Comparing Two Poems by the Same Poet

“Arrival of the Bee Box” vs. “Stings” by Sylvia Plath

Because of a myriad of similarities, you can often find good starting points when you compare two poems by the same poet.

You can often find good starting points when you compare two poems by the same poet.
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Let’s use a couple of Sylvia Plath’s poems about beekeeping for an example.

In Arrival of the Bee Box, Plath speaks about her terror and wonder at the bees she has purchased. Because she uses imagery such as “African hands” and “I need feed them nothing, I am the owner,” she draws a direct correlation to slavery. Similarly, in Stings, Plath writes about the drudgery that is being a woman. The language she uses in “Stings” suggests that womanhood is yet another type of slavery. Furthermore, in both poems, there are references to attempts at freedom near the end.

With slavery and freedom as your thematic tie between the poems, you can then use diction and symbolism within the poems to mention how they’re different and how they’re similar.

Two Poems to Compare and Contrast by Poets of the Same Time Period

“On the Sea” by John Keats vs. “By the Sea” by William Wordsworth

Another way to find poems that work well for compare and contrast essays is to look for poems in the same style or from the same time period.

If you were to look for poems to compare and contrast, you would find a wealth of good poems within the poetry of the Romantics. Their poetry movement frequently uses elements of nature to represent or validate human relationships.

For instance, you could compare John Keat’s poem On the Sea with William Wordsworth’s poem By the Sea. In these poems, both poets use religious language to discuss the nature of the sea, though Wordsworth has a much gentler idea of what the sea is capable of.

By noting the similarities and differences in their descriptions, you can get to the essence of what each poet is trying to say. Then you can argue why that is the case.

Check out this resource for more help on finding the themes of the poems you plan to compare and contrast.  

Comparing Two Poems of the Same Poetic Form

“Acquainted with the Night” by Robert Frost vs. “Sonnet 27” by William Shakespeare

When you’re comparing poems, it helps to take a look at what poetic forms the poets used. Though this method of comparison might not be as fruitful with free-form poems, structured poems work well.

For instance, if you wanted to compare Acquainted with the Night by Robert Frost and Sonnet 27 by William Shakespeare, you might notice that you have two sonnets on your hands.

These poems are best described as Shakespearean sonnets, where the last two lines constitute the “turn” or a sudden realization of the poem. Both use the sonnet form to mention how the night works upon them.

Both speakers are restless and find no reprieve in the darkness. However, while Shakespeare stays true to the traditional sonnet form, Frost breaks up his poem into stanzas of three lines each. This may serve to mirror the speaker’s own unusual behavior.

In this way, you can use the poems’ forms as a method of comparison, stating with how the form relates to the content and how each poem uses the form to serve a unique purpose.

Six More Poems to Compare and Contrast

Now that you have a good idea how to find good poems to compare and contrast, here are some more ideas of poems that you could successfully write about in your essay.

A Supermarket in California by Allen Ginsberg vs. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot 

Both poems discuss social anxiety and analyze the nature of society as a whole

The Shoelace by Charles Bukowski vs. Waking in the Blue by Robert Lowell 

Both poems address an understanding of insanity. “The Shoelace” discusses a more down-to-earth, commonplace idea of what constitutes madness. Lowell focuses on a view of the mentally unstable from the view of prominent families.

Langston Hughes’ poems I, Too vs. My People 

These poems focus primarily on the equal treatment of African Americans, both noting that all people are inherently beautiful.

Moving Forward to Crush Your Next Assignment

Often, your instructor will make suggestions about which poems would work well for your assignment. Looking back at the poems you studied in class and looking for similarities like the ones mentioned in earlier sections will point you in the right direction.

Then, when you have decided on the poems to compare and contrast, start with a compare and contrast outline to start off on the right foot. Then, when you’re ready with a working draft (or polishing up a final one), have a professional editor at Kibin give your essay a once-over before you turn in your next assignment!

Mwahahahaha…ha…ha.

Okay, I’m exaggerating (a little). Poetry can be fun. And full of puns. Like this one.

Regardless, don’t lose your head just yet–I have some tips on how to analyze a poem in a way that doesn’t bring doom and gloom to your grades.

Choosing a Poem to Analyze

The vast majority of the time, your instructor will tell you which poem to analyze. However, on the off chance that you have to choose a poem yourself, choosing the right poem can make learning how to analyze a poem much, much easier.

When you are choosing a poem, ask yourself the following questions:

• Do you like the poem?
• Do you have notes from class that could help you start your essay?
• Do you understand the language in the poem?
• Could you summarize the poem in your own words?
• Are there resources online that you could use to understand the poem better?
• Does the poem have obvious literary elements (rhyme, meter, metaphor, etc.)?

If you answered “yes” to many of those questions, then the poem you have will likely work great for your analysis.

What Is a Poetry Analysis?

Before you can really start writing your analysis, you need to know what your instructor expects of you. A poem analysis is much like any other literary analysis, but it caters more specifically to poems. For instance, since poems are typically short, the analyses are also often short. Few instructors will make you write a poetry analysis for more than about 3-5 pages. Whew!

However, the shorter length doesn’t let you off the hook. With your poetry analysis, you need to focus on two main aspects of the poem you choose: theme and the literary elements that proves that theme. Your thesis statement needs to contain both of those aspects, and you’ll spend your body paragraphs discussing examples of the literary elements and how they relate back to the theme.

Now, let’s get into more detail.

Summarizing and Paraphrasing a Poem

Learning how to analyze a poem gets a lot simpler when you start by summarizing or paraphrasing the poem and figuring out what the heck the poet is even talking about. I’m going to use “Desert Places” by Robert Frost to help you understand what I mean.

(And, no, I will not use “The Road Not Taken”! Frost did write other poems, people!)

Here’s “Desert Places” in case you aren’t familiar with it:

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it – it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is, that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less –
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
WIth no expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars – on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places. (Frost)

MLA Citation

Frost, Robert, and Robert Hunter. “Desert Places.” Poemhunter.com. Web. 30 June 2015.

If I’m to summarize this poem, I might write something like the following:

The narrator walked past a snow-covered field in the late evening and felt insignificant next to the forests and the hibernating animals. The narrator becomes lonely and expects to become lonelier. As the narrator looks up at the stars, he or she realizes that nothing could feel as empty as he or she feels inside.

Note that you would not use the above summary in an essay. However, putting a poem in your own words can really help you understand the feeling of the poem and what the author is trying to convey.

If you wanted to go further in depth with your understanding, you could paraphrase the poem, which basically means rewriting every line in your own words rather than condensing the information.

Choosing a Theme to Write about

Once you understand what the poem is trying to say, you need to come up with a theme. A theme is a central idea in a poem. In “Desert Places,” Frost talks a lot about loneliness, and since the narrator in the poem is alone, I can say that loneliness and isolation are main ideas or themes in the poem.

When you are searching for a theme in your poem, look for concepts or notions that seem to pop up several times. Think about the feeling the poem might be trying to convey. That will often lead you straight to the theme.

If you can’t think of a theme, you can either talk to your instructor about it or look online to see what scholars say about the themes in the poem. Resources such as Sparknotes.com can also help you get on the right track.

Choosing a Literary Device or Element

To complete your essay topic, you need to choose one or more literary elements the poem uses to point toward the theme you chose. Here are some examples of literary devices you could be looking for:

• Rhyme
• Meter
• Metaphor
• Simile
• Setting
• Allegory
• Alliteration
• Caesura
• Enjambment
• Hyperbole
• Satire

There are many more literary devices to choose from; see a longer list here. I would suggest choosing one or two devices for most essays. Make sure that you can relate them back to the theme you chose.

If I were to write a poetic analysis of “Desert Places” specifically on the topic of loneliness and isolation, I would choose rhyme as one of my literary devices.

Rather than a traditional a/a/b/b or a/b/a/b rhyme scheme for his quatrains (stanzas with four lines), Frost chose an a/a/b/a rhyme scheme. Since one of the words in each stanza does not rhyme with anything, it could be said that the poet has isolated one word in each stanza, which demonstrates the loneliness the speaker talks about in the content of the poem.

(Wow! Right?)

Mark where the literary device occurs in the poem and keep those notes for later. You can use them as examples for when you start writing your analysis.

Writing Your Thesis Statement

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: having a good thesis statement means that the rest of your paper will be a breeze. Essentially, a good thesis statement becomes a one-sentence outline of your paper.

Here’s what my thesis statement for my “Desert Places” analysis might look like:

In “Desert Places,” Robert Frost uses an unusual rhyme scheme, specifically an a/a/b/a rhyme scheme, to demonstrate the narrator’s isolation and loneliness.

This would be a great thesis statement for a short poetry analysis (1-2 pages). For a longer poetry analysis (3-5 pages), you might want to choose two or three literary devices that explicate your theme.

When you write your thesis, you might find this template helpful:

In [poem’s name], [poet] employs [literary devices] to demonstrate [theme].

Here, it is important that you are specific. In my example, I made sure to specify how the rhyme scheme was unusual rather than just leaving it at that. Make sure you do the same.

For more help building out a winning thesis statement, see Kibin’s thesis statement builder!

Analyzing a Poem in Body Paragraphs

Though writing your introduction and thesis statement is certainly half the battle, you need to win your audience over with your supporting body paragraphs. Think about it this way: your head wouldn’t do you much good without all the organs and systems that comprise your body.

(Didn’t think you were going to get an anatomy lesson in a poetry post, did you?)

As you write your body paragraphs, adhere to the following guidelines:

• Keep your paragraphs to about half a page doubled spaced (shorter paragraphs improve readability).
• Start your paragraph with your topic sentence, which should relate to everything you are going to say in the paragraph (think of it as the paragraph’s thesis statement).
• Use only one piece of evidence per paragraph, either a quote or a paraphrased example from the text.
• Always end a paragraph in your own words and make sure to include analysis (why the evidence supports your thesis statement) at the end of each paragraph.

By following those guidelines, you’ll set yourself up for an essay that knocks your instructor’s socks off.

A Few More Tips on How to Analyze a Poem

Though you have learned how to analyze a poem, I haven’t really mentioned how you can sound smart doing it. Now, this doesn’t mean that you should go crazy and throw in a bunch of fancy synonyms (see How to Become a Better Writer: Don’t Use Words that Sound Smart). What it does mean is using vocabulary that is appropriate for poems.

I already gave you a list of literary terms and their definitions, which should catapult you to greatness in your analysis already, but here are some important tidbits to remember when you write a poetic analysis:

• Don’t assume that the poet and the speaker/narrator in the poem are the same person. Instead, refer to the person in the poem as “he or she” or just “the speaker” or “the narrator.”

• Don’t use words like “obviously” or “clearly” in your poetic analysis. If it were so obvious, you wouldn’t have to write an essay about it.

• Don’t spend time summarizing the poem in your essay. Assume your reader has already read the poem.

• Don’t worry too much about working through the poem line by line or in order. Use the evidence that best supports your claim in the order that makes sense for your argument.

• Don’t forget to cite your poem according to MLA formatting. Any quote you use should have an in-text citation.

Check out these examples of poetic analyses written by students like you for more inspiration and ideas.

Make Sure Your Paper Is Polished before You Turn It in!

If you are still stuck or nervous about writing your analysis, that’s okay. Sometimes, just getting something out on paper will give you the courage you need to keep going and revise what you’ve written to fit the above-mentioned guidelines.

As you’re revising, I highly recommend reading your analysis out loud. Doing so will help you find awkward or confusing areas so you can pinpoint what still needs work. You can also get a friend, family member, or professional editor to look your paper over. At Kibin, our editors are ready to polish your essay at any time of day or night.

Whether you need some advice on what you’ve written so far or want our talented editors to polish your essay into analytic gold, our editing services can help you!

Now that you know how to analyze a poem, put your skills to the test on your own essay!

You might be thinking “I didn’t sign up for this.” You might not be an English major or really interested in literature at all, but you still have to carry this burden on your shoulders (and the same week of your big math test, too!).

If you want to knock this assignment out of the water and show James Joyce who’s boss, this post gives you the tips to make that happen.

Tip #1: Make Sure You Understand Araby by James Joyce

Before you can start thinking about putting your essay to paper, you need to know what the story is actually about. First of all, you need to read the story for yourself; don’t rely on summaries to help you understand. You can, however, use the summaries and websites such as SparkNotes to get a deeper understanding of the story once you have read it.

While you’re reading, make notes of elements in Araby that seem strange or interesting.

For instance, you might realize that Mangan’s sister always wears brown. Why does Joyce emphasize that? Asking questions like that will help you develop your essay topic later.

Tip #2: Learn How to Write a Literary Analysis (An Overview)

Before you can dig into your essay on Araby by James Joyce, you need to have a really good idea of what a literary analysis entails. After all, you don’t want to jump blindly into the writing. You might end up in a jumbled heap that even the great James Joyce couldn’t sort out.

The first step to writing a great literary analysis is to pick a topic specific enough for you to successfully cover in your essay. If your essay only needs to be two pages, you don’t want to try to tackle the significance of all the religious symbolism within Araby. Instead, you could talk about the role of the priest in the short story.

Once you have your ultra-super-specific topic, you need to choose examples from the text to support your argument. Whenever we talked about including evidence in an essay, my favorite English professor always drilled the quote sandwich method into our heads.

First, as the top slice of bread, start with the claim you want to make in paragraph (also called a topic sentence). Then, you need a piece of evidence (paraphrase or quote from the text) as your meaty meat and saucy sauce. To finish it off with a nice thick piece of bread, you need analysis, which is your description of why the quote proves your claim and connects back to your thesis statement.

Repeat after me: topic sentence, quote, analysis. Topic sentence, quote, analysis. Topic sentence, quote, analysis. Voila! A delicious quote sandwich.

Repeat after me: topic sentence, quote, analysis. Voila! A delicious quote sandwich.
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If you are still a bit hazy on how to write a literary analysis, check out this article!

But, wait, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. I need to walk you through coming up with a great topic for your analysis of Araby by James Joyce.

Tip #3: Choose a Good Theme for Your Literary Analysis of Araby by James Joyce

Now that you know how to write a literary analysis in a sandwich—I mean a nutshell—it’s time to start narrowing down your topic. This hurdle is the biggest one to get over, but it’s all downhill once you’re there, I promise.

There are several main themes in Araby that you can choose from. Make sure you choose one that interests you so you can really dig deeply into what makes the theme so apparent in the short story.

Here are some examples of the themes in Araby by James Joyce to get your brain running:

• Loss of innocence
• Coming of age
• Romantic infatuation vs. religious enthusiasm
• The death of the medieval romance
• Obsession with exotic cultures

For more ideas of which themes are present in Araby, see this resource!

Once you have a theme in mind, the next step is to to look into the specifics of why and how that theme exists in the story. What literary devices does Joyce use to give the reader those ideas? Which characters serve to further those concepts?

Tip #4: Focus on One Literary Element that Appears in Araby

For most literary analyses, you will only have space for analysis of one literary element. One literary element can often fill up several pages, and most literary papers are not much longer than that.

With that in mind, don’t worry about trying to cover everything about the story in your essay. Your instructor does not expect that. What he or she does expect is getting down and dirty with your specifics.

Give me as much detail in your essay as there is in this mosaic from the floor of Dublin’s city hall! Or, maybe not that much.

With Araby by James Joyce, there are plenty of literary elements to choose from, so make sure you choose the one that supports the theme you chose the best. Here are some examples of literary elements you can find in this short story:

• Characterization
• Imagery (specifically the setting)
• Point of view (first-person narration)
• Diction
• Symbolism

Though there are many other literary elements at play in Araby, the ones listed above are some of the most obvious, which also makes it simpler to find evidence of them within the text.

Tip #5: Write an Effective Thesis Statement

Your thesis statement will give you an outline for where your paper needs to go. Now that you have chosen your theme and the literary element you want to focus on, you can build your thesis statement for your literary analysis of Araby by James Joyce in no time at all! Don’t believe me? Let me give you a formula for what your thesis statement might look like:

In “Araby,” James Joyce uses (insert literary element here) to demonstrate that (insert theme here).

Now that you have the basis of your thesis statement, you need to make it more specific.

Make sure you qualify the literary element that you are using. For instance, if you want to use the setting, you might say the following:

In “Araby,” James Joyce uses dark colors and uniform houses in the setting to convey the inevitable somberness that characterizes growing up.

When you add details to what type of setting or imagery Joyce uses, you really beef up your thesis statement.

Tip #6: Finding Textual Examples to Support Your Argument about Setting in Araby

Before we dig into some examples, here’s a picture of Dublin in 1900 to set the mood.

With Joyce, you can almost always count on heavy descriptions of the setting, which we can use as juicy textual examples to support the sample thesis statement from earlier. Here are some great textual examples for talking about setting in “Araby” by James Joyce:

• “The other houses of the street, conscious of decent lives within them, gazed at one another with brown imperturbable faces” (Joyce)
• “The wild garden behind the house contained a central apple-tree and a few straggling bushes” (Joyce)
• “An uninhabited house of two storeys stood at the blind end, detached from its neighbours in a square ground” (Joyce)
• “The high, cold, empty, gloomy rooms liberated me” (Joyce)

Let’s use one of these examples to create a sample paragraph that you might see in a literary analysis of this short story.

Remember, when you’re writing your literary analysis, use the quote sandwich method. I’ve color coded each part of your sandwich (topic, quote, analysis.)

The language Joyce employs to describe the setting exemplifies the ugliness that is adulthood. For instance, the narrator talks about the “high, cold, empty, gloomy rooms” of his uncle’s house, which, though they serve to lessen the narrator’s nerves, still make the house unwelcoming (Joyce). Since owning and keeping up a home is an adult responsibility, Joyce paints adulthood as a somber state of being.

Here, I embedded the quote into a sentence and sandwiched that sentence between my topic sentence and my analysis, which connects it back to my original thesis statement.

If you were to finish out this essay, you would want to write several more paragraphs like this and connect them altogether into a very well-developed and convincing argument about why Joyce wrote Araby the way he did.

Tip #7: How to Talk about Symbolism in Araby

If you’re not too keen about writing about the setting in Araby by James Joyce, that’s okay!

When you’re working with a symbol, you need to choose one symbol and use that as your literary element. You should typically only focus on one symbol in a short essay (2-3 pages).

Here are some symbols from Araby you could write about:

• Mangan’s sister as a symbol for medieval romance
• The jars at the bazaar as a symbol of Eastern/foreign cultures and colonization
• Money as a symbol of the restrictiveness of adulthood

Once you have chosen the symbol you want to work with, make sure you find the textual examples that describe that symbol best. You can follow the steps I laid out in tips 5 and 6 to develop a thesis statement and supporting paragraphs around the symbol you choose.

Interested in writing about religious symbols? Check out this Take a look at these essays.

Tip #8: Edit Your Literary Analysis about Araby

To make sure to re-read, revise, and edit your essay before your instructor inspects it, or hand it over to the Kibin editors! We can help you iron out your details and get all your MLA citations right to create an essay that is sure to get you a better grade.

Speaking of MLA citations, here is mine:

Works Cited:

Joyce, James. “Araby.” Fiction: The Eserver Collection. Web. 29 Apr. 2015.

In Summary

It turns out writing a literary analysis of Araby by James Joyce isn’t so hard after all! Remember to do the following:

1. Pick a good theme.
2. Select one literary element that supports the theme.
3. Write a thesis statement that describes how the literary element supports the theme.
4. For each body paragraph, choose evidence from the text and sandwich direct quotes with your commentary (topic, quote, analysis).
5. For help on putting your paper together, read This Analytical Essay Outline Will Kickstart Your Writing

Follow these guidelines, and you will  have a literary analysis essay that is worthy of Joyce.

Good luck!

In fact, tone can also be the determining factor for getting a nice pat on the back after you say “I’ll go clean my room now, Mom” or getting a slap on the face for saying “Sure, yeah, of course I’ll clean my room, lady.”

So, how can you use this intangible powerhouse to fuel your next essay? Before we talk about how to control the tone of an essay, let’s talk first about what tone really is.

What Is Tone in Writing?

Simply put, tone is the writer’s personality mixed with his or her feelings about the subject matter, and tone comes through in the author’s word choice.

Controlling the tone of an essay has a lot to do with using similar types of words that all contribute to the overall feeling a reader gets from the writing.

Tone is the writer’s personality mixed with her feelings on a topic–filtered through words.
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To get this concept to stick in your head, let’s dig into some examples. This is the opening sentence from the well-known book, Uglies, by Scott Westerfeld:

“The early summer sky was the color of cat vomit.”

Here, the stark contrast between what you associate with an early summer sky (beauty, serenity, etc.) and upchuck from your least favorite cat leaves you with a feeling that the speaker in the novel doesn’t care much for the sunrise at all. Associating the sunrise with vomit gives the opening of the novel a cynical and uncaring tone.

Let’s change a few words in that sentence and see what happens.

“The early summer sky was the color of an artist’s well-used pastels.”

Here, though the reader still gets the idea that sunrise is probably light red and orange, we have a completely new tone. In my rewritten sentence, “well-used pastels” matches up with the associations that typically come along with a sunrise, so the tone might be affectionate or admiring.

If you need help coming up with more tone words, check out this list.

What’s important here is that creating the right tone is all about the words you choose. They make all the difference.

What’s also important is that you’ll never see the sunrise the same way again.

What Should the Tone of an Essay Be?

When you’re writing a formal essay, your instructor probably won’t appreciate you taking a sarcastic, frustrated, or comedic tone. Most likely, your instructor expects you to write in a scholarly, informative sort of tone that showcases your literary analysis or research.

Okay, let’s pretend that we are writing an essay about why texting while driving is dangerous.

Version 1:

You know, texting while driving is bad. It’s like you can’t really pay attention to anything else, and you might get into a super big crash and your mom will be all up in your face about it.

In this version, phrases such as “you know” and “like” make the writer of this sentence sound as though he or she is not serious about the topic. Also, the contraction “can’t” and colloquialisms such as “super big” and “all up in your face” make the tone of an essay sound too informal and not academic.

Lastly, using the second-person perspective (you, your, yours) smashes any idea anyone might have had of an academic tone.

Now, let’s try getting rid of all the elements that make that sentence sound like a Valley Girl wrote it.

Version 2:

Texting while driving causes a large number of accidents every year. Because drivers cannot successfully pay attention to both their phones and their surroundings, their likelihood of getting into an accident goes up dramatically whenever they reach to text someone.

Here, there are no contractions, uses of second-person perspectives, or colloquialisms. Instead, this paragraph keeps an impersonal, factual perspective of the topic, making its tone academic in nature.

Now, notice that I didn’t really include any big and fancy words. Many students make the mistake of thinking that big words make the tone of an essay more scholarly, but that can actually ruin the tone of an essay and make it sound just as ridiculous as version 1. See what I mean below.

Version 3:

Texting while operating a vehicle causes a hefty quantity of calamities every year. Because drivers cannot efficaciously pay attention to both their phones and their environs, their prospects of getting into an accident go histrionically up whenever they send a digital message to another person.

Not only does this version sound wordy and ridiculous, but it is relatively obvious that whoever wrote it (me) had the thesaurus in his or her hand at every step of the way. Here, the writer is trying so hard to have an academic tone that the tone actually turns into satire or cynicism.

It’s much better to use words you know to prove your point than to make your essay sound like it’s being read aloud by an ancient old man with glasses.

For more tips about how to avoid those temptingly big words, check out this blog about not using words that sound smart.

Making the Tone of an Essay Academic Doesn’t Mean It Has to Be Boring

As the writer, you absolutely have creative license while working on your essay, and you don’t have to maintain a strictly scholarly tone 100 percent of the time. Though it’s good to stick to an academic tone as much as possible in formal essays, throwing in the odd joke or giving your essay more of a creative feel works in some cases.

Also remember that you have much more leeway in your essay’s tone when you are writing a personal or narrative essay. In fact, keeping a scholarly tone in those assignments will make them boring and irritating to both write and read.

When you have tonal freedom, you should choose the tone that is most appropriate for your story. For instance, you probably wouldn’t want to use a joking tone to talk about your great-grandmother’s funeral. Often, choosing the right tone in stories comes naturally since the words you use to describe events already match the tone you need.

To get some ideas about what tone to take in a personal narrative essay, see these examples.

Still Worried about Controlling the Tone of an Essay?

Our editors at Kibin have a complete understanding of tone and can’t wait to help you sort it out. We’ll give you pointers about word choice and resources that will shape you into a master of tone in your writing.

To get your writing polished up and ensure that you are using an appropriate tone for your topic, check out our essay editing services today!

When was the last time you wrote a book report?

Do you even remember how to write a book report?

You look around at your peers who don’t seem daunted by the task and tremble. When the assignment gets passed out to you, you can’t help it. You have to scream, “PETRIFICUS TOTALUS!”

Yeah, the paper’s still there on your desk untouched, and now all your classmates know you’re a big Harry Potter nerd. Great. This is turning out to be a great day.

But now, you’ve got Kibin to save you (and we’re Harry Potter nerds, too, so you have nothing to be ashamed of). This post will teach you how to write a book report that doesn’t suck.

What Is a Book Report, Exactly?

Before you can learn how to write a book report, you have to know what it is first.

Essentially, a book report offers

1. a summary of the book,
2. an in-depth look at the themes, characters, motifs, and main ideas of the book,
3. and sometimes your opinion of the book depending on your instructor’s directions.

There are many variations of the traditional book report format, so make sure that you adhere to the assignment your instructor gave you and the guidelines he or she mentioned.

And, if you want to learn by example, you can check out some of these book report samples to give your brain a jumpstart.

Know that most book reports have at least the title of the book and the author’s name in the first paragraph and that high school and college book reports should also include the publishing information in the first paragraph.

Choosing the Book and Prewriting

Often your teacher or professor will let you choose the book, maybe from a list of approved books. Choosing the book can be the most important step of the entire book report writing process.

Make sure that you choose a book that

• you find interesting
• is on your reading level
• you will be able to finish well before the report is due
• fits the assignment requirements

Ask for help from your peers, and see what books they would recommend so you have some viable choices before you make your final decision.

Let’s say you chose Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire for your book report because that’s just too awesome to pass up.

So, great, you have your book. Now what?

As you read, make a note of the important characters; recurring words, images, or symbols; key events in the plot; and major themes or concepts from the book. For help with this, look into finding a theme of a book.

Make a plot outline as you read so you can remember the order of events later. You should also make notes of repeated events  within the book.

For example, the most frightening and darkest moments that Harry experiences during the novel  happen while he is alone without the support of his friends, so indicating that in your notes will later help you discuss important events in your book report.

Keep taking notes like these until you successfully finish the book. Then, it’s time to review your notes.

Putting the Rough Draft to Paper

Though learning how to write a book report might feel scary, at least it’s nothing compared to any of the events in the Triwizard Tournament.

The most important thing to keep in mind while you draft your book report is to not summarize too much.

Although you have to include a summary of the main plot events, you don’t want to go through every chapter and give details about every single thing that  happened. No instructor would want to read that, and besides, that would be far too long. No one’s asking you to rewrite Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. J.K. Rowling did a fine job, thank you.

So, how do you know when your summary gives enough information without giving too many details? The solution is to hit all the key events in the plot and interweave some analysis about how that all ties into the themes, motifs, or symbols in the book. Think about how the individual plot elements make up the whole. Think about why they are important.

Here’s an example to help you get the ball rolling.

This is a pretty sucky paragraph from a theoretical book report:

In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Cedric died. Before that, Harry went to the Wizard Cup via portkey. The portkey journey was very uncomfortable for everyone involved. Later, Voldemort tricked Harry and Cedric into traveling by portkey.

Because the paragraph above discusses events out of order, leaves out a lot of things that happened in between, and gives too many specific details such as how it feels to travel by portkey, this is a subpar example of a book report paragraph. (It sucks!)

Let’s see if we can rewrite that to sound better and more appropriate for a quality book report:

After Harry and Cedric decide to work together during the maze portion of the Triwizard Tournament, they find the trophy. However, when they both grab ahold of it, they discover that it is a portkey. When they arrive, Harry and Cedric come face to face with Voldemort and several of his Deatheaters. This method of travel is reminiscent of the travel Harry used when he traveled to the Quidditich World Cup, which successfully introduced the portkey concept and set up the premise for the end of the novel.

Assuming that this paragraph would go near the end of the book report, this would be great information to add to a book report. (It doesn’t suck!)

The second example is better than the first because it provides a brief overview of the most crucial plot events and tries to find some meaning in them. It connects two similar events together and makes a conclusion about them–in this case that the author employed foreshadowing with the use of portkeys. Analysis like this will give your book report more substance and prevent you from spending too much time on unimportant details.

Adding Your Own Opinion to Your Book Report

If personal information is critical to your book report, it’s important that you know how best to express your impressions of the book.

After all, there is a right way and a wrong way to do so.

While you might be excited to talk about exactly how much you loved Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, good book reports will focus on the why behind liking or disliking a book. Giving your opinion without explanation is just not enough in most cases.

Consider the examples below:

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was great. I read it straight through without stopping to eat or sleep, and I even took it into the bathroom with me. It is probably the best book of all time.

This type of response might be great when recommending a book to your friends, but it doesn’t have a place in your book report. The opinion your instructor wants you to include will look something more like this:

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire furthered the Harry Potter series by emphasizing the importance of having the support of friends when one is facing great evil. Unlike in many of the previous books, in Goblet of Fire Harry primarily had to manage his problems alone and experienced limited success. This shift in tone, not to mention the emotional impact that Cedric’s death had on me, made me enjoy this novel more than its predecessors.

Here, I gave the why behind liking the book, which is far more interesting to your professor than the fact that you read it in the bathroom.

Including a hint about the way you feel about the book in the introduction typically works well, and giving the why behind your opinion can be a great way to conclude the book report. Here are some other ways to write a killer conclusion.

More Resources on How to Write a Book Report

When it comes to writing a great book report, it’s important to go beyond just summarizing the story. For more information, read How to Write a Good Essay, Stop Summarizing and Start Commentating.

Sparknotes.com is a great place to go to get information on the main characters, plot, and themes of a book you are writing about, and it can help you think about the book in new ways. (Here are the Spark Notes on Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.)

When you have your rough draft of your book report finished, getting feedback from others who understand the techniques behind book reports is  invaluable. Our editors at Kibin know the ropes about how to write a book report and would be more than happy to point out where you are including too much summary and where your writing could be a bit more analytical.

To get your book report polished up all nice and tidy, check out Kibin’s essay editing services!

Finally, an essay topic that is actually interesting to you: YOU!
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The excitement is building, you actually might not procrastinate this time. You’ve got your fingers on the keyboard, jittering to get started, but… wait… How do you write a personal narrative essay anyway?

And, how do you make it good?

Never fear. I’ll help you understand how a personal narrative essay works and how you can write it well enough to make your audience gasp in awe and surprise.

What Is a Personal Narrative Essay?

Personal narrative essays come in all shapes and sizes, but what they have in common is that they should be about you.

In a nutshell, writing a personal narrative essays means sharing an experience from your life to create an emotional reaction in your reader–reactions such as laughing out loud, tears, frustration, disappointment, etc.

Personal narrative essays share a personal experience in order to get an emotional reaction.
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By drawing people in and making them relate to you as a character, your readers will invest their time more readily into your story.

Most often, your instructor will give you a topic to work from, topics such as “explain a time when you had to make a difficult decision” or “talk about an experience you had that was similar to what happened in the book we just read.”

Using the topic your instructor gives you, narrow down the personal experiences that fit. While you’re thinking, write your ideas down on paper, or tell the story out loud to get an idea of how it might come out on paper.

Once you have 5 to 10 ideas, think about which ones would

1. be fun for you to write
2. make your audience interested in the story
3. fit the topic best
4. be meaningful to you
5. have enough material to meet your word or page count
6. not be too long of a story to write in detail

After you rate the topics you came up with using those qualifications, you can choose from the narrowed down list and start thinking about the details you need to include. Writing an outline of what your experience entailed is a great way to keep you on track as you write the first draft.

Need more help thinking of a topic? Check out these personal narrative essay examples!

One of the Best Villains and Essay Tactics Ever to Exist: (The) Hook

While you might be throwing the conventions for using personal pronouns in formal essays out the window (this essay is about you, after all), that doesn’t mean that you should leave all your writing strategies by the wayside.

You still have to hook your reader into the story from the beginning. Give them something shiny to look at, and rope them into your devious plot (*maniacal laughter ensues*).

So, great. Give readers the hook. What does that mean? It might be easier to show you.

Imagine this is the opening sentence in a personal narrative essay:

I typically eat olives in the afternoon and dislike Peter Pan. I am a bad man who doesn’t treat his villainous pirate crew very well. One time, I captured Tinker Bell, and she got pretty mad.

Do you think you would want to keep reading this story?

Pretty dry for a beginning of a story, even if it is from the perspective of Captain Hook. Well, let’s try this again.

While eating olives in the middle of the afternoon, I thought I heard a sound. Looking up from the knots I had been studying in the wooden table, I glanced around, wary for signs of that dastardly Peter Pan. Having assured myself that the sound had been a trick of my mind, I reached for another olive only to find that someone had taken all of them.

A bit more interesting, right? Wouldn’t you want to know more?

When writing your personal narrative essay, you’ll want to lead your readers on and get them interested in your story from the get-go. You can do that by throwing them right into the middle of your story and giving the minute (but relevant!) details of the scene so they can imagine what’s going one.

Make your story so involved and intriguing that they forget they are reading at all.

Keeping Your Audience Interested with Imagery

You might be tired of hearing the age-old advice, “show, don’t tell,” but that definitely applies to personal narrative essays.

When you’re showing the reader, you give detail that makes them feel like a part of the story. Telling the reader, on the other hand,  means that you simply state the events that happened without engaging them in the story.

Let me give you some examples. This is what telling might look like:

I broke my pen, and the ink went everywhere. I was sad.

And, this is what showing might look like:

As I wrote my apology on the lined paper, I did not realize how hard I was pressing on the pen. I heard the pen crack, and ink gushed onto my fingers, the table, and the paper, ruining the halfhearted apology before I could even send it.

In the second example, you get more information about the speaker’s surroundings, the mess of ink, and clues about what the speaker might be dealing with.

Rather than reveal your emotions outright, flavor your story with actions—using verbs, adjectives, and (sometimes) adverbs—that give the reader a distinct idea of how the speaker feels.

For instance, in the second example, the words “halfhearted” and “apology” give much more information about the scene and the speaker than the word “sad” does in the first example.

Giving Enough Details in Your Personal Narrative Essay

Do you have one of those friends who starts telling a story and just assumes that you understand certain things they fail to mention?

Does she think you can read her mind?

Don’t be one of those people when you’re writing your personal essay.

The last thing you want to do in your personal narrative essay is confuse your readers. That means you have to give them all the background information they need to understand your personal narrative. Do you need to clarify some lingo? Do you need to explain how your family members are related to you?

That doesn’t mean you have to spell it all out . Here are some ways to give your readers more details about your story and further involve them:

• Use dialogue
• Add descriptions of the scene that apply to the story
• Include a flashback if you need to go into the past to explain something
• Explain the significance of particular items or people within your story

Again, keep the “show, don’t tell” rule in mind, but make sure that all the pieces of the story are there. To test out the fluidity and logic of your personal narrative essay, read it to someone without context.

Reading it out loud will also help you catch typos and silly grammatical errors.

Concluding Your Personal Narrative Essay

You would expect the last episode of the fourth season of Game of Thrones to end on a cliffhanger, but your personal narrative essay likely won’t have a sequel to explain the rest of what happened. You are responsible for writing the ending.

This is your chance to tie up loose ends, reiterate “the point” of your personal narrative essay (why the story is important or how it impacted your life), and drive home any emotion you want to leave the reader.

Fortunately, Kibin has some great tips on writing concluding paragraphs for personal narrative essays that you can look at if you are stumped.

If you need even more help with learning how to write a narrative essay, check out How to Write a Narrative Essay That Stands Out.

Once you’re finished with the first draft, the expert editors and fine-tuners at Kibin can help you edit your personal narrative essay and leave you comments about how you can make your writing even more interesting.

Good luck!

*Cover image credit: Ross Catrow (Creative Commons)

Can you plagiarize on accident? What counts as plagiarism? What are you going to do?

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?

All right. Knock off your caps lock already. Keep calm and read on. I’ve got answers for you. Let me teach you how to avoid plagiarism in your writing.

What Is Plagiarism Exactly?

No one wants to speak up in class and ask the seemingly obvious question: What is plagiarism? How can I know how to avoid plagiarism if I don’t know what it is?

Read on, and I’ll give you what you need to know.

First of all, Merriam-Webster describes plagiarism as the “the act of using another person’s words or ideas without giving credit to that person,” but you probably already looked that up, and it doesn’t exactly lay it out for you. I mean, your research essay or book report is going to be full of another person’s ideas, right?

Plagiarism can be any of the following:

• Using someone’s exact quote without quotation marks
• Copying someone else’s work word for word from start to finish
• Not properly attributing the quote to the author using your appropriate style guide
• “Paraphrasing” too closely to the original text

So, that’s all fine and dandy, but what’s the big deal about avoiding plagiarism? Is there really such a thing as an original idea anyway?

Why Plagiarism Can Be Deadly

Plagiarism can quite literally kill your grades, even if you have committed an act of plagiarism on accident. But, what’s the problem? Why are instructors so worked up about plagiarism?

If you think about someone’s writing or idea as intellectual property, then re-using that idea or writing without attribution is a lot like stealing. Stealing is illegal, and plagiarism has similar repercussions.

Don’t think you can pull a fast one on your instructor by plagiarizing on purpose, either. There are plenty of free plagiarism checkers online now, so it is not difficult for a teacher or professor to bust you.

Plagiarism is not the easy way out of writing an essay.

Though you might not think that the information you included without attribution in your paper about the history of silkworms really constitutes stealing, think again. Your instructors want you to use your own work so you can get a grade that is truly representative of the work you did for the class.

Now that I’ve told you all the horror stories associated with plagiarism, let’s turn the flashlights off, get away from the campfire, and go back to the drawing board.

How to Avoid Plagiarism – 3 Easy Methods

Let’s talk about how to avoid plagiarism.

To avoid plagiarizing, you have several options: paraphrasing, using quotation marks, and citing your sources.

To avoid plagiarizing, you have options: paraphrasing, using quotation marks, and citing sources.
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For formal papers, a combination of those methods is often necessary.

Method 1. Paraphrasing

When writing a research paper of any sort, you will likely end up paraphrasing a lot. Once you have collected all your sources, you will use the information you learned to draw conclusions about your topic.

This method is super useful because, as we all know, you can’t just quote sources back to back to back to back. That would get you the same bad grade that plagiarizing would. Can’t have that. No sir.

Instead, you can paraphrase. Paraphrasing is a lot like summarizing except that, instead of condensing the information in the source, you just reword the information.

Here is a quote from the Gettysburg Address to use as an example:

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

If I wanted to paraphrase that, it might look something like this:

The founders of this nation were devoted to freedom and equality when they formed the United States 47 years before the Gettysburg Address.

Essentially, the two sentences mean the same thing, even though Abe Lincoln might have been more eloquent than I am. Remember that, depending on the style guide you are using, you still have to cite the source of your paraphrase in the text and/or on your essay’s reference page.

But, the point here is don’t plagiarize.

If you were to just say that our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty without any quotation marks or attribution or anything, you’ve just plagiarized, friend.

Also remember that you can’t just paraphrase for your whole essay either (aww, shucks). You have to intertwine your ideas with the ideas presented in your source material.

(Read 10 Examples of Paraphrasing for a Smarter, Better Essay)

Method 2. Using Quotation Marks

The second way to learn how to avoid plagiarism is to use quotation marks. This method is relatively straightforward, but you need know to where you need quotation marks and when you can leave them out.

Say you are going to use the opening line of Edgar Allen Poe’s poem, “The Raven.” How much of the sentence should you quote? If you are just referencing a few words, do you need to quote them? Let’s look at some examples.

For this example, we will use the following sentence:

“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary…”

If you wanted to use textual evidence to prove that the speaker in the poem was tired when he encountered the raven, you might say something like this:

It is important to note that the speaker is “weak and weary,” which may have contributed to his or her irritation at the raven.

Because the words “weak” and “weary” represent an important thought in the text, the phrase needs to be quoted directly.

However, if you were explaining why that quote is important, you wouldn’t write something like this:

Though the raven sat “upon a” bust peacefully, the speaker quickly becomes irritated with the raven’s presence, possibly due to his or her lack of sleep.

Here, because “upon a” doesn’t really convey an important idea and is a commonly used phrase, you don’t need to quote it just because the words happen to appear in the poem you are writing about.

Look! You’re one step closer to learning how to avoid plagiarism! It will soon be a thing of the past for you.

Method 3. Citing Your Sources

Hopefully, your instructor told you which citation manual you should be using, usually, MLA, APA, or Chicago. Using one of those style guides, you need to make sure that all the sources you used to construct your argument or research paper are appropriately included. You will likely have to include in-text as well as full citations.

(Need more help with MLA? Read How to Write MLA Citations Without Going Crazy)

If you don’t include your citations, and you used a source that is not listed, even if you were paraphrasing, that is still plagiarism. If, after paraphrasing, quoting, and citing, you’re still concerned about plagiarism in your work, check your paper with this handy plagiarism checker!

Once your paper is drafted, head over to Kibin for some essay editing help, so we can make sure your citations are correct, your quotations are seamless, and your paraphrases are grammatically sound.

Good luck!

It’s likely that many of your teachers and professors have drilled it into your head that using first-person writing in your essays will immediately result in another unrelenting letter of the alphabet: “F.”

As a curious student, you may be thinking that surely there must be some instances where using first-person writing is okay.

If that’s you, you’re asking all the right questions. This post will cover when it’s okay to use first-person writing in your essays and when it’s better to stick with third-person.

What Exactly Is First-Person Writing?

First-person writing involves using singular first-person pronouns such as I, me, my, mine, etc. You could also use plural first-person pronouns such as we, our, us, ours, etc.

For instance, this adorable kitten is talking primarily in first-person perspective (the “you” and “your” there is second-person perspective, which could be another blog topic entirely).

First-person writing can get really boring really fast. For example, I’ll write a short narrative about my day so far.

I opened my emails.

I ate breakfast.

The neighbor’s dog annoyed me.

I pet my cats and later pushed them off the couch.

I thought about eating popcorn for breakfast…but didn’t.

My roommate and I could not decide whether or not to hang the art in our apartment.

While I might think I am fascinating, you have probably stopped reading the list by now. You’re done hearing about me, me, me, right?

Well, think of that as part of the reason your teachers might boycott first-person pronouns. If your professor wants you to write an essay about President Obama, he or she probably doesn’t want to hear about what you (or the President for that matter) ate for breakfast.

When Is First-person Writing Ineffective or Unwarranted?

Let’s face it. Everyone likes to write about themselves. The problem with first-person perspective in academic writing is that it can sound

• self-centered
• inaccurate
• one-sided
• boring

When your instructor wants you to write a 15-page research paper about the problems in the Middle East, exclusively talking about your opinions on the matter is going to be an issue.

Instead, you should look for unbiased sources, search through the material, and use that in your research paper to make it more credible. Yes, that might sound like a lot more work, but it will pay off when you get your grade.

Sometimes, it can be difficult to take out first-person writing altogether. If you have the impulse to write in first-person perspective a lot, that’s okay! It’s still a great way to get your thoughts out on paper.

For example, pretend that this is one of my main points for a poem analysis I am writing:

Using words such as “melancholy” and “frustration,” the poem made me feel sad.

In this case, the first-person “me” would not be appropriate because the focus needs to be on the poem itself and not on what I think about it. But, because I wrote this, I now understand what the poem is doing.

I can rewrite this idea in my second draft using third-person perspective:

Using words such as “melancholy” and “frustration,” the poem employs a mournful tone to demonstrate the difficulty that comes with the loss of a loved one.

Most times, you’re the only one who will see your first draft, so go ahead and throw first-person perspective in if it helps you get your thoughts on paper. Make sure, however, that you go through and take it out in your revision.

Make or Break Your Academic Career: When Is First-person Writing Okay?

Okay, I was being dramatic with that header. Really, if you mess up on choosing whether to use first-person writing or not, you don’t have to forever hang your head in shame. You might get a slap on the wrist (in the form of some red marks on your paper), but it’s not the end of the world.

However, it never hurts to educate yourself on the dos and don’ts of first-person writing.

While essays about you require first-person, other types of essays (e.g., research papers) usually should not include first-person perspective.

Essays about you require first-person POV, other types of essays usually don’t.
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Here are some examples of types of essays that, by their nature, require first-person writing:

• Personal narrative essays
• Memoir/reflective essays
• Personal statements (e.g., college application essays)

Try writing an essay about the first time you went to the dentist (narrative essay) without using first-person writing. It would probably sound something like this:

One time, someone’s mom took a person to the dentist, and that person did not like the dentist because the person had cavities.

Writing using “I”  just makes more sense for the context:

One time, my mom took me to the dentist, and I did not like the dentist because I had cavities.

Much better, right? There, you already have ammo to use against your teacher when he or she says “no” to first-person writing. 

If you would like to look at more examples of essays that require first-person writing, check out these sample personal narrative essays!

Getting Down and Dirty with First-Person Writing

Now we get to the more complicated bit: knowing when to use first-person writing in other types of academic papers.

As a failsafe, I would suggest that you stay away from first-person writing in most instances. As long as you are not writing personal essays, it would be hard to go wrong with leaving yourself out of it.

There are cases where first-person writing is appropriate in other types of academic writing, but I would highly suggest discussing it with your professor first. Here are a couple of those cases:

Case #1 – Replacing Passive Voice with First-person Writing

Passive voice is another no-no that professors and teachers pound into students’ heads, and one way to fix it is to use first-person perspective. Here is a sentence that is in passive voice:

The flask was used to combine the liquids so the experiment could be observed.

While some style guides say to limit passive voice, others strictly say not to use it at all. For instance, the above sentence would not be acceptable in APA Style. Here is one way to fix the sentence:

The researcher used the flask to combine the liquids and observe the experiment.

However, if you are the researcher, it would be appropriate to use “I” in your APA format lab write-up.

I used the flask to combine the liquids and observe the experiment.

“We” would also be appropriate an appropriate pronoun if there were more than one researcher and you were one of them.

We used the flask to combine the liquids and observe the experiment.

Case #2 – Personal Anecdotes

In some essays, adding a personal experience or anecdote can make your essay more successful. For instance, talking about an experience you had when you went to a public forum might be pertinent in a persuasive essay about why more people need to attend public forums.

That being said, don’t go crazy with the first-person writing like this guy.

In these types of essays, limit your use of first-person writing to maybe one short paragraph, and make sure that the writing is relevant to your topic. If you are writing an essay about how important doctors are, for example, you might not want to talk about how your dog has superpowers.

Just a hunch.

The Verdict on First-person Writing: Sometimes

Like many hard-and-fast rules, there are instances when using first-person pronouns (or even running red lights) is okay. 

Remember that personal essays (essays about you) need first-person writing. Research papers, literary analyses, and other academic papers, on the other hand, can include first-person writing on a situational basis as long as it is relevant and does not occur all the way through the essay.

If you need help taking the first-person pronouns out of your essay, you can always get help from our talented Kibin editors.

Good luck!

*Cover image by Frederik Delaere