Revising Your Literature Analysis Essays: T.R.E.A.T

 

When revising your body paragraphs, use the T.R.E.A.T model to make sure that you are checking off each essential quality that can make your body paragraph successful in supporting your thesis statement.

T- topic sentence. Make sure you ahve a clear topic sentence that states what ideas, themes, or concepts you will be exploring in this paragraph. (you probably want to keep it specifc and avoid generalities).

R- reasoning. It is in this section that you will be using about one sentence of "background information" or "plot summary" to set up the context of your quote and analysis. But section must also be used to display a "reason" why your topic sentence is relevant to the literature you are reading.

E- evidence. This would be your selected quote.

A- analysis. Don't just state what the quote "shows" in broad terms, actually discuss this "showing." Refer back to the language of your quote and connect the dots to the reader. This will be the longest section of the body paragraph. Usually it will take at least three sentences.

T- tie it together. Wrap up your thoughts not by just restating your topic sentence, but by presenting your topic in a new way given the analysis you just provided.