Tips and Tricks

Things to keep in mind when incorporating a close reading into your paper:

Translation

Are you using a passage in its original language or in translation? If in translation, who did the translation? How does translation potentially impact meaning?

Context

It is helpful for your reader to summarize the literal content of the passages in a few sentences and also to explain where they fit in the narrative of the work.

Quotations

These can be either “inline” quotations (quotations that are integrated into your sentences and paragraphs) or “block” quotations (longer quotations, usually of more than one sentence, that are printed as indented “blocks” of text set off from the paragraph in which they are embedded).