A Short Guide to Writing About Literature

Emphasizing writing as a process and incorporating current critical approaches to literature, the seventh edition of Sylvan Barner's classic text A Short Guide to Writing about Literature offers students step-by-step guidance for writing effective essays. This supplementary text, praised for its accessibility and practicality, includes coverage of fiction, poetry, drama, essays, and film; student essays in each of these genres; and a glossary of critical terms for quick reference. Working from the assumption that good writers are good readers, it begins by offering advice on how students can enrich their reading responses-for instance, by annotating a text or keeping a journal. It then goes on to show students how to formulate ideas for papers and how to develop those ideas into strong, finished essays. New features of this edition include: *chapters on critical approaches and evaluation of literature *expanded checklists for writing and reading *a new sample research paper *the most current MLA guidelines