How to Write a Deductive Essay in Classic English Literature: A Guide for You

A students’ life is not so easy as in movies. There are adventures and parties but they are accompanied by tiresome assignments that one cannot escape. However, when a student is assigned a deductive essay, there should not be many worries because it is an engaging task that can reveal one’s hidden talents. Especially, it concerns deductive thinking and reasoning. You have probably seen a well-known Sherlock Holmes series that intrigue and provoke food for thought every single episode. Thus, think of your essay as the same trigger that can teach you how to analyze and research a certain situation or matter.

A deductive essay is a paper aimed to demonstrate particular issues, and then find their solutions with the help of evidence or facts. So, one should not base solutions or conclusions only on a personal point of view. Today, many credible sources are available, especially it concerns Classic English Literature subject and its lit-crits’ reviews.

Before you start acknowledging the following information, determine your purpose of writing. But, do not take into consideration only the fact that it is a college assignment. Think about what effect you would like to achieve, either to find an ultimate solution to one problematics or you want to address missing puzzles of the selected matter. All in all, you should take it seriously because your desire to demonstrate gained knowledge will be evaluated based on the theoretical part you attach to a paper.

How to Write a Deductive Essay in Classic English Literature: Books or Their Authors?

Classic English Literature is a large area of interest. One can choose for a deductive essay only one piece of work or take a whole writing career of one author. It will depend on your preferences however, experts recommend always focus on the topics that somehow are related to your life or taste. It can be a literary genre related to classic literature or one representative you consider your favorite author. However, those who have a syllabus should base their choice only on that material. Otherwise, discuss possible options with professors personally.

Note, a deductive essay won’t need you to retell or narrate the story, in fact, it is a kind of analysis where you provide certain ideas or conclusions. So, when you plan to select the topic, think of the actual concerns in the literature that can be addressed without borrowing well-known facts or evidence. For example, taking as an example Lord of the Rings, and speaking of the problematics of ruling the world with the help of war may turn out to be a boring conclusion. It is too obvious for essays, especially, if you study in college or university. But, taking the phenomenon of Edgar Allan Poe’s horror craving, and providing evidence of the times when he lived claiming that it was the only chance to escape from reality, is already another approach.

The same as with definition essay, try to look for hard-manageable topics or terms that will predetermine a large scope of ideas and facts. If you do so, you won’t find hard achieving a word count or you won’t lack statements for the main parts of the paper.

If you still need auxiliary help, please find the next list of suitable topics for your essay:

• Why British Literature Is Considered More Depressive Over American?
• Gothic or Romanticism: Two Popular Mainstreams of the Previous Century;
• How Did Shakespear’s Works Resemble His Living?
• Love as the Suicide in Romeo and Juliett;
• Vanity Fair: Could One Buy Life With Money?
• Mortality in Hamlet: Why the Author Avoided Happy Endings?
• Mark Twain About Friendship;
• Wealth Factor in Pride and Prejudice;
• The Symbolism of Marriage in Emma;
• Chaos Over Deduction in Sherlock Holmes;
• Irrationality or Rationality in Lord of the Flies;
• The Role of Women in Jane Austin’s Works;
• How Classic Literature Loses the Positions for Contemporary One;
• Death in Edgar Allan Po’s Works;
• Classic Literature Is No More Mainstreamed in Colleges: True or False?

Besides, one can choose the works of popular lit-crits and find out their relevance or trace how they impact the author’s masterpieces. For example, find evidence of how one or another lit-crit destroyed the career of an English writer.

Preparation Exercises for a Deductive Essay in Classic English Literature

First off, before the actual writing, you have to spend some qualitative time brainstorming ideas. Exercises will be a perfect approach. Check some of them:

• Play Sherlock Holmes with your friends. Select one topic, for example, “Love as the suicide in Romeo and Juliett” and try to figure out facts (situations) that led to their love, and after a while to such ending of the play. One by one should provide at least one premise, and one supporting clue to the statement. It does not solely work as a game but a good practice to develop critical thinking;
• Choose one representative of Classic English Literature and list all the interesting facts about his living and works. For example, it can be facts about his childhood that somehow impacted writing career, then adulthood that helped to establish the style, relationship that affected particular literary patterns. Otherwise, if available, mention all the movie adaptations on his works, and lit-crit reviews. After that you can use this scheme for any other types of paper;
• Listen to Radio Podcasts. Many universities and independent online platforms have their radios where prominent students or individuals discuss literary topics. Try to listen to how they discuss books or how they criticize or analyze works. If needed, write down the catchy phrases that will help to make your essay look like candy;
• Question yourself. When you are stuck selecting the topic, ask yourself questions such as Is this topic actual? Can you find many facts about it? Do you find it interesting? Can it provide new results to the studying subject?;
• Mindmapping. This exercise is good once a student lacks associations for a topic. Again, Love in Romeo and Juliett is a quite engaging topic but it can be limited only to love as a term. Try to generate many phrases coming to your mind regarding it, and it will help you to achieve a word count and make your essay informative.

Finally, you can just speak to a professor about advice or, there are graduates who have ready-to-use samples. Otherwise, turn to a wide online market that offers hundreds of examples of essays. However, please remember that rewriting or plagiarising can be easily spotted with advanced checkers your professor has for sure. So, derive inspiration, learn the literary patters, borrow phrases, cite if needed, but your deductive essay should be individual and creative.

How to Start Writing a Deductive Essay in Classic English Literature

Take a look at the basic requirements of this paper:

• Times New Roman, 12 font;
• Double-spaced;
• One-inch margin;
• 500-1000 words.

Note, there should be no colored text or any pictures. It is academic writing, so it will be structured as per educational requirements.

Any deductive essay consists of three components – premise, evidence, and conclusion. Check the example:

• Premise – Literature has many representatives.
• Evidence – Edgar Allan Poe wrote mystery novels.
• Conclusion – Edgar Allan Poe belongs to the literature.

In fact, it is an extremely shortened version of the paper but it completely reflects the purpose of this deduction. Now, learn the next information on how to write those components.

Premise. It is the key element that can prepare you for the actual writing. Commonly, it is any fact that will be further on discussed and solved. Introduce your reader to the reason why you chose this fact, prepare some background on why it is relevant to today’s life or to the author’s times. Besides, it will be great if you can get your reader hooked on some interesting facts or for example with the rhetorical question. Keep in mind, your premise should sound logical and you won’t disappoint a reader with too much promised statements.

Evidence. It serves as a proof for all your claims during the writing process. In fact, you have to decorate a premise or statement with the supporting clues. Otherwise, your essay will have no sense and it will be biased. Most commonly, the evidence can be generated from your previous research. If you want to borrow quotation, or any numbers, statistics, do not forget to cite this information. It can be books, journals, or articles.

Conclusion. This is the final stage of your deductive thinking and reasoning. The same as it is addressed to the thesis in other types of the essay, this part will be linked to a premise. So, make sure you answer the main idea which you stated in the beginning.

Post-Writing Tips for a Deductive Essay in Classic English Literature

Finally, you are done with the writing and you can move to the proofreading. It is a crucial factor that helps students to avoid common mistakes such as incorrect spelling and misused grammar. And, most important, it is aimed to hint a student whether the full purpose of the essay was accomplished. Usually, some writers even after ending up the paper understand that work should be rewritten or redone to the fullest. So, if you even slightly hesitate the relevance of some statements or evidence, make sure you have time in stock to change the situation.

Besides, you can rely on the next tips that will improve your writing:

• Beware of homonyms. Like, accept and except. They are commonly mistaken in students. Even though a professor understands that it is a simple error because of poor concentration, it is compulsory to mark it wrong;
• Mind your apostrophes. For example, they’re and their. Note, it is never applied to form plurals;
• Punctuation. For this purpose, you can rely on online editors, or you can install a plugin to your writing program. After that, it will automatically highlight the mistakes;
• Beware of numbers. It will be very ridiculous if you mention the author’s year of birth 19222 instead of 1922, or beware of such numbers as $1,000 instead of $10,000;
• Ask your friend or relative to proofread. If you cannot spot any more mistakes because your vision blurred or you just lack concentration, do not neglect to ask for help. Besides, you can ask them for feedback on whether your essay is good looking and deductive;
• Read backward. It helps to detect the errors as well, but make sure to read the text very slow and loud. For the top results, take a tip marker, and underline the parts that you hesitate are correct or relevant. After rereading the text several times, come back to the underlined parts and spend some time analyzing what exactly triggered you;
• Confirm the names. Are you sure you mentioned the name of the author correctly? Your work will go flop if the topic selected starts with a wrong spelled name. Google is your helper in this case;
• Check for repeated premises or evidence. Do not try to add watery phrases in your content to reach the word count. Especially, check for your key components in the essay whether they are drastically different and provide different value;
• Ask for help online. There are many groups in social networks, where students share their tips or guides to writing the essays. Borrow ideas, upload a small part of your paper and ask for sincere feedback.

So, a deductive essay is a premise, evidence, conclusion, a touch of research, a mix of personal supporting clues, and a final decoration with proofreading. If you mastered to follow all the tips mentioned above, you are half of the path to success.

Last but not least, remember that this assignment is a good practice for future dissertations and coursework. During the actual writing, write down the common obstacles and mistakes in a notebook and save them for later. When you have another task assigned, look first for the discrepancies mentioned in your notebook, they will hint you what to pay attention the most.

References:

1. Godwin, Janet. Planning Your Essay. Red Globe Press/Macmillan International, 2019.
2. “Fisch, Harold; Nardi, Shulamit; Cheyette, Bryan.” .”, Encyclopedia.com, 27 Feb. 2020, www.encyclopedia.com/literature-and-arts/literature-english/english-literature-20th-cent-present/english-literature.
3. Greetham, Bryan. How to Write Better Essays. Macmillan International Higher Education, 2018.