literary essay wonder

Themes and Analysis

By r. j. palacio.

R. J. Palacio explores themes of kindness, empathy, and the challenges of living with disabilities with the story of Auggie's early school days in Beecher Prep.

Article written by Ebuka Igbokwe

Bachelor's degree from Nnamdi Azikiwe University.

‘ Wonder ’ addresses a few social issues, including parenting, disability issues, and what it means to be a friend, and it does so in the story of August Pullman, a fifth-grader with a deformed face, facing up to being different in his new school. R. J. Palacio makes a poignant social commentary with this work.

Table of Contents

• 2 Appearances
• 4 Friendship
• 5 Parenting
• 6 Key Moments in Wonder
• 7 Tone and Literary Style

The central message of ‘ Wonder ‘ is the importance of kindness. This is expressed quite early in the novel, as the English teacher introduces the class to learn a precept every month, and his choice for the first month is a quote by Dr. Dwayne W. Dyer, “When given the choice between being right and being kind, choose kindness.”

Summer moves to become friends with August because she is moved to kindness on seeing other kids avoid him at lunch. She realizes that August is an exciting and fun person to be around. Jack also befriends August initially out of kindness, and he sees and then appreciates him for his humble, humorous, and intelligent personality. August is surrounded by kindness, which is expressed by his family, Miranda, his friends at school, and Principal Tushman, and this makes it easy for him to bear the isolation he faces at school.

Appearances

August’s facial deformity is a focal point of the story. He begins by hoping that people will see him as ordinary, and he wears a helmet to cover his face for a while so that people may not see his face. He also looked forward to Halloween because everyone wore masks, and he was treated as every other person. This highlights how people are judged by their appearances, and in the case of August, they make judgments about him based on his appearance. However, he is more than his looks, and the more the people around him get to know him, the more they appreciate how thoughtful, intelligent, and funny he is.

On the other hand, Julian is an expert in making others believe he is a great guy, but underneath that facade, he is malicious and conniving, saying mean things to August and lying against Jack Will when they fall out. Also, Miranda and Via were good friends, but their relationship became strained when they resumed school because they misread what each friend felt about the other. In ‘ Wonder ’, looks can indeed be deceiving.

The theme of courage appears in several instances in R. J. Palacio’s ‘ Wonder ‘. Sometimes it is subtle; other times, it is pronounced. It is hard to fully appreciate the bravery it took for August to start at Beecher Prep and continue attending school, withstanding all the bullying he goes through. He was ostracized at the lunch table, in class, and in the playground, and for a significant part of the story, his only companion at lunch was Summer. Summer’s courage is also remarkable. By being August’s friend when no one else wanted to be seen publicly with him and resisting the allure of joining the popular social group at school at the price of giving up August’s company, Summer showed her mettle as a steadfast and brave friend. At the camp, when a group of seventh graders bullies August, Jack Will, joined later by a few other Beecher Prep fifth graders, engages them in a fight to protect August.

The story of ‘ Wonder ‘ explores the dynamics and nature of friendship. Friends fight, misunderstand, offend, and betray. They also apologize, forgive, defend, and are gracious to each other. Jack Will jeopardizes his friendship with August by claiming to be his friend because Principal Tushman asks. This hurts August, and Jack Will is deeply sorry, makes amends, and apologizes to August. August forgives him and accepts him back. Summer’s friendship with August is beautiful and wholesome, depicting a rare ideal where friends respond to each other’s true humanity and look beyond what is externally “cool”. In Miranda and Via’s friendship, though at the start of the story they are estranged, in the end, Miranda gives up her spot as the lead in the school play because she understands how much it would mean to Via. These stand in contrast to Julian’s comradeship, bound together by prejudice against August, which unravels at the end of the story as their classmates warm up to August and recognize his charming nature.

Parenting is an essential factor in the development of children. The Pullmans are a model of good parenting, attentive to their children’s needs and creating a loving and harmonious environment to support them. Miranda, whose parents divorced, starved her of attention, and Justin, also a child of divorcees, was drawn to the Pullman family because of the warmth and love in their household, traits missing in their respective houses. However, even the model Pullman family is not without its issues. In taking care of August, a child with a deformity that needed special care and delicate attention, they sometimes neglected Via and her needs. Via is sometimes resigned to and sometimes resents this lack of attention. The novel addresses the difficulties parents face when raising children with health-challenging issues or needing special care.

We also see how the principles of parents rub off on their children. Jack Will’s mother exemplifies a parent who tries to raise her children conscientiously, as reflected in Jack Will’s actions. Even when he strays, he feels the better thing he should do and tries to improve. Julian’s villainous actions make more sense to the reader when they read the letters Julian’s mother writes: she is shallow, pompous, and generally corrupt.

Key Moments in Wonder

• August Pullman finds out he will start schooling at a private middle school after being homeschooled all his life.
• August receives a school tour led by Jack, Will, Julian, and Charlotte.
• On his first day of school, all his classmates except Summer avoided sitting with him during lunch. Jack Will sits with him during class.
• At Halloween, August overhears Jack Will’s saying they were not friends.
• Savanna asks Summer to quit being friends with August and join the group of popular students.
• Jack asks Summer why August is no longer friends with him, and she gives him a hint.
• Jack hits Julian for making fun of August.
• Jack writes August, asking for forgiveness, and August accepts his apology. They become friends once again.
• August finds out Via is hiding her participation in a school play from the family, and he accuses her of trying to hide him from her new schoolmates.
• Daisy, the family pet dog, dies.
• Miranda steps down from the lead role in the school play, and Via steps in for her. After the play, they all go for a family dinner.
• August goes on a school camping trip. He is attacked by a group from another school, but his classmates defend him.
• August wins an award at school.

Tone and Literary Style

The story maintains a breezy and light tone even for the heavy emotional themes ‘ Wonder ’ explores. The story is told through the first-person POV and written in an informal speech style, making it relatable and cordial. The author narrates the story through several characters ‘ viewpoints and helps shed more light on the story’s events or gives other important background information. The sentence structure is simple and direct.

Join Our Community for Free!

Exclusive to Members

Create Your Personal Profile

Engage in Forums

Join or Create Groups

Save your favorites, beta access.

About Ebuka Igbokwe

Ebuka Igbokwe is the founder and former leader of a book club, the Liber Book Club, in 2016 and managed it for four years. Ebuka has also authored several children's books. He shares philosophical insights on his newsletter, Carefree Sketches and has published several short stories on a few literary blogs online.

About the Book

Discover literature, enjoy exclusive perks, and connect with others just like yourself!

Start the Conversation. Join the Chat.

There was a problem reporting this post.

Block Member?

Please confirm you want to block this member.

You will no longer be able to:

• See blocked member's posts
• Mention this member in posts
• Invite this member to groups

Please allow a few minutes for this process to complete.

Wonder Lessons

10 Discussion Questions for Wonder

Good discussion is the heart of any English class, and Wonder by R.J. Palacio provides so much rich material for students to reflect on and discuss.

The questions below can be used to initiate discussion in small groups, or as a whole class. Often it can be helpful to start with small groups, and then have them come together for a larger discussion.

You can also use them as writing prompts or paragraph questions.

Here are ten discussion questions for Wonder by R.J. Palacio.

Wonder Discussion Questions

• How does August’s facial difference impact his relationships with others and his perception of himself?
• Discuss the theme of kindness and empathy in the novel. How do the characters respond to August and how do their actions impact him?
• How do August’s experiences at Beecher Prep School differ from his experiences at his previous school?
• Discuss the role of family in the novel. How do August’s parents and siblings support and challenge him?
• How do the characters’ perceptions of August change throughout the novel?
• Discuss the theme of bullying in the novel. How do August and the other characters deal with bullying and its effects on them?
• How does the novel address the themes of appearance and acceptance?
• Discuss the role of imagination and creativity in the novel. How do August and the other characters use their imaginations to cope with challenges and obstacles?
• How does the novel portray the importance of friendship and the challenges of making and maintaining friendships?
• Discuss the ending of the novel. How does August’s journey end and what does this reveal about the themes of the novel?

Full Unit Plan

These discussion questions are a great place to start, but if you want everything you need to teach Wonder in one download, check out this amazing full unit plan .

discussion questions rj palacio teaching wonder

1 thought on “10 Discussion Questions for Wonder”

• Pingback: Themes in Wonder – Wonder Lessons

Comments are closed.

Related Posts

Part one questions for wonder by r.j. palacio.

Use full sentences and write more than the minimum when answering questions and filling in charts.  Explain yourself, and write ...

Parts Two and Three Questions for Wonder by R.J. Palacio

A Tour of the Galaxy What challenges do you think Via might face being Auggie’s sister? METAPHOR – A metaphor ...

“Wonder” Children’s Novel by Raquel J. Palacio Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Children’s books constitute a unique type of literature that promotes the best human qualities and empathizes concepts, which not only children but even grown-ups should regularly be reminded of. Palacio’s Wonder is a vivid example. It is a touching, life-affirmative, and upbeat story about kindness and humanity that thrills readers, makes them participate and empathize, and then changes their personalities.

Wonder is the children’s novel written by Raquel J. Palacio that was originally published in 2012. A year later, the book turned out to be one of the best sellers in its genre, according to The New York Times (“The New York Times Best Sellers List” par. 1).

The novel tells the story of Auggie (August Pullman), who is a ten-year-old boy with a severe facial deformity. The deformity is not identified in the book, but it goes without saying that it affects Auggie’s life significantly. At first, the boy has been home-schooled because of countless surgeries, but his parents finally decide to enroll August to a school in order to provide him with proper education and a chance to communicate with other children. There, Auggie tries to make friends and strives to be accepted like any other child.

The author of Wonder explained that she was inspired to write this book in a real-life situation. In one of her interviews, Raquel J. Palacio told how she once went to an ice cream store with her kids, and they saw a girl with facial deformity there (“How One Unkind Moment Gave Way To ‘Wonder’” par. 2). Her son began to cry in fear when he noticed the girl, which is why Palacio took her kids and went out of the store. Later, she regretted her actions and decided to turn this situation into a good lesson. That is how Wonder appeared.

I find this book very educational and think that every child should read it. It teaches us that the appearance is secondary, and the most important thing is “who we are” (Palacio 47). It shows that facial deformity (or any otherness) does not make a person less normal or ordinary inside. Auggie states, “I do ordinary things. … I feel ordinary. Inside. … The only reason I’m not ordinary is that no one else sees me that way” (Palacio 3). Indeed, when children get to know August better, they do not notice his abnormality anymore – they begin to see how smart, funny, and kind he is.

From my point of view, things Palacio talks about are very important to understand in school years. Firstly, the child’s world outlook begins to form at this age, so a lot of beliefs and values acquired in school years become stronger in the future and stay for life. Secondly, children are very vulnerable in schools; that is the time when everyone desperately wants to fit in and be accepted. That is why Palacio’s book can make a difference in the school environment. Since the story is written in simple words, it is easy to comprehend even for young readers, and due to its sincerity and penetration, it touches the very core.

The idea to accept those who are different from others and treat them normally is very common in children’s literature. In Charlotte’s Web by Elwyn Brooks White, when Fern’s father realizes that one of the newborn pigs is a runt, he decides to kill it. However, the little girl defends the pig and states that it is unfair to kill it “just because it’s smaller than the others” (White 4). Later, the girl and the pig become friends, which proves that the appearance does not change what is inside. Admittedly, in Charlotte’s Web , realism is intertwined with fantasy, while Wonder is all about the real world, but the idea of the acceptance of otherness is common.

The story of August Pullman is not easy to read. Sometimes it becomes extremely sad and makes you desperately want to change something as if you have the power to do that. Then it makes you wonder what you would do in a particular setting: Would you be scared of Auggie when you see him for the first time? Would you sit near him in the class or at lunchtime? Would you defend the boy if someone offends him? The book keeps readers involved; you start to evaluate and reevaluate your own self. In the end, you are a different person. The most important is that the book is optimistic and positive in the main; its sentences are full of heart and humor. Wonder proves that even the most challenging situations always bring us something good.

Another thing that should be noticed about Wonder is its language and the way it is built. Firstly, the reader gets to know the story from Auggie’s point of view. However, when the second part of the novel begins, the narrator changes to Via, Auggie’s sister. While August mainly describes his own feelings and thoughts in his narrative, Via’s section contains more reflections, and it is very insightful. It also includes fewer dialogues than August’s part. The third section of the novel is narrated by Summer, one of Auggie’s best friends, who seated near him at lunchtime while no one else wanted to do this. Like Via’s section, it also contains more reflections. Besides, it is laconic and specific. Jack’s part stands out, just like his character does.

He describes the story from the viewpoint of a person who sees different sides of the situation. Then, Justin’s part follows. His point of view is really interesting since Justin is not an ordinary boy himself. He mentions that he has tics, which resemble Tourette’s syndrome (Palacio 191).

His language also differs: for example, he does not use capital letters. Apart from the fact that every narrator has his or her own point of view on the same situation and expresses thoughts in different ways and with different words, all of them describe different parts of the story. For example, Via’s section is mainly about home life while Jack and Summer talk about school. Miranda, the last narrator, who should be mentioned, gives an insight into the past because she has known August since his childhood.

Like any other children’s book, Wonder is written with simple and comprehensible language and relatively short sentences. It also contains a lot of direct speech. That is what makes the novel easier to read. Nevertheless, even though the words the author uses are simple, thoughts, and feelings that the book brings are adult. It teaches us how essential it is for human beings to be kind, tolerant, empathic, and understanding. “When given a choice between being right or being kind, choose the kind,” the author states. (Palacio, 311). Doesn’t only this one sentence make the book worthy of reading?

Works Cited

How One Unkind Moment Gave Way To ‘Wonder’ 2013. Web.

Palacio, Raquel J. Wonder , New York, New York: Random House, 2012. Print.

The New York Times Best Sellers List: Children’s Middle Grade. 2013. Web.

White, Elwyn B. Charlotte’s Web , London, England: HarperCollins Children’s Books, 2015. Print.

• Aloe Vera: Composition, Main Biological Activities, and Use
• The Colorful Story of the Three Little Pigs
• Body Dysmorphic Disorder Etiology and Management
• "The Walking Dead" Graphic Novel by Kirkman
• American Stories for Secondary Education Classes
• Paul Bunyan's Contribution to American Folklore
• "The Shame of the Nation" a Book by Jonathan Kozol
• "Rachel and Her Children" a Book by Jonathan Kozol
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2020, November 24). "Wonder" Children's Novel by Raquel J. Palacio. https://ivypanda.com/essays/wonder-childrens-novel-by-raquel-j-palacio/

""Wonder" Children's Novel by Raquel J. Palacio." IvyPanda , 24 Nov. 2020, ivypanda.com/essays/wonder-childrens-novel-by-raquel-j-palacio/.

IvyPanda . (2020) '"Wonder" Children's Novel by Raquel J. Palacio'. 24 November.

IvyPanda . 2020. ""Wonder" Children's Novel by Raquel J. Palacio." November 24, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/wonder-childrens-novel-by-raquel-j-palacio/.

1. IvyPanda . ""Wonder" Children's Novel by Raquel J. Palacio." November 24, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/wonder-childrens-novel-by-raquel-j-palacio/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . ""Wonder" Children's Novel by Raquel J. Palacio." November 24, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/wonder-childrens-novel-by-raquel-j-palacio/.

90 pages • 3 hours read

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.

Pre-Reading Context

Thought & Response Prompts

Paired Texts & Other Resources

Essay Questions

This resource can be used as supplemental teacher material or as a primary basis for literature study to:

• Draw students into a text with pre-reading questions and warm-up prompts, maintain engagement with in-class analysis through free-writing or discussion, and assess knowledge and comprehension with quizzes.
• Ensure deeper understanding and enjoyment of the literature with activities for all learning types.
• Stretch students’ critical thinking and writing skills with differentiated essay topics.

Note to Teachers: To support lesson-planning, connections to the work’s primary themes are noted throughout this resource (Wonder, Bullying, Kindness, Growing Up).

Don't Miss Out!

Access Teaching Guide Now

Related Titles

By R. J. Palacio

Auggie & Me

R. J. Palacio

White Bird: A Wonder Story

Featured Collections

Books that Teach Empathy

View Collection

Juvenile Literature

Realistic Fiction (Middle Grade)

YA & Middle-Grade Books on Bullying

R. J. Palacio

Ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Wonder tells the story of ten-year-old August Pullman 's first year going to school. Because he was born with a rare craniofacial condition that necessitated multiple major surgeries, his parents felt it was best to homeschool him for much of his childhood—both to help him keep up with his studies, and to protect him from the bullying and stares he attracts that would likely intensify in a school setting. As August embarks on his journey of leaving homeschooling to start middle school, the novel interrogates what it means to be kind, and the sacrifices one must make for the sake of kindness. However, while the novel certainly positions kindness as always being the right choice, it also goes to great lengths to underscore the ways in which choosing to act kindly can sometimes be an extremely difficult choice.

Though August is described as being a kind character to the core, the lack of kindness shown to him by others often keeps him from actually behaving kindly on a regular basis. On the first day of school, Ms. Petosa forces a boy named Henry to sit in the empty seat next to August. Though Henry does as he's told, he's clearly unhappy to do so and even puts his backpack on the desk between himself and August to create a barrier. As August watches Henry struggle with his lock for his locker, he confides in the reader that had Henry not been rude to him, he would've absolutely helped him with his lock. This suggests that kindness isn't always something that can happen regardless of circumstances; people must not only be willing to receive kindness, but in many cases must also behave in such a way as to make it seem worth one's while to behave kindly in the first place.

A girl named Summer is the only person willing to sit with August on his first day of school. Though she explains to the reader that she sat with him on the first day just to be nice and because she felt bad for him, she finds within days that she actually enjoys hanging out with August. Especially when Jack says almost the exact same thing when he talks about his friendship with August, it shows that acting kindly doesn't have to be an act of martyrdom, as kids like the mean-spirited bully Julian would like to think. Rather, acting kindly towards someone can lead to positive social interactions and far more fulfilling friendships than the ones available via bullying and peer pressure. However, it's also important to keep in mind that the very real friendships that Summer and Jack form with August do come at a cost to their friendships with the rest of their classmates. Though Summer doesn't seem to care much that she's jeopardizing her chance at being popular by hanging out with August, Jack struggles deeply to reconcile his desire to be accepted by the popular crowd with his desire to be nice to August and maintain their friendship. When Jack finally takes a stand against Julian's bullying by punching him in the face, Jack discovers what some of the consequences of behaving kindly and standing up to mean people can be. He not only gets suspended from school, but upon his return, he and Summer are ostracized and bullied themselves, just like August is.

Despite the negative consequences, Jack remains firm in his belief that he did the right thing by standing up for August. He recognizes that by behaving kindly and prioritizing his friendship with August over his social standing, he will, in the long run, be a much happier and more fulfilled person—even if, in the short term, acting kindly has the potential to be lonely and alienating.

The Difficulty of Kindness ThemeTracker

The Difficulty of Kindness Quotes in Wonder

What's cool about really little kids is that they don't say stuff to try to hurt your feelings, even though sometimes they do say stuff that hurts your feelings. But they don't actually know what they're saying. Big kids, though: they know what they're saying.

Henry still couldn't get his lock to open […] He got really annoyed when I was able to open mine on the first try. The funny thing is, if he hadn't put the backpack between us, I most definitely would have offered to help him.

Maybe no one got the Darth Sidious thing, and maybe Julian didn't mean anything at all. But in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith , Darth Sidious's face gets burned […] His skin gets all shriveled up and his whole face just kind of melts.

I peeked at Julian and he was looking at me. Yeah, he knew what he was saying.

Hey, the truth is, if a Wookiee started going to the school all of a sudden, I'd be curious, I'd probably stare a bit! And if I was walking with Jack or Summer, I'd probably whisper to them: Hey, there's the Wookiee. And if the Wookiee caught me saying that, he'd know I wasn't trying to be mean.

"I love Auggie very, very much," she said softly […] "But he has many angels looking out for him already, Via. And I want you to know that you have me looking out for you."

I wonder how many nights she's stood outside his door. And I wonder if she's ever stood outside my door like that.

How I found out about this is that Maya Markowitz told me that the reason she won't play Four Square with us at recess is that she doesn't want to catch the Plague. I was like, "What's the Plague?" And she told me. I told Maya I thought it was really dumb and she agreed, but she still wouldn't touch a ball that August just touched, not if she could help it.

"Jack, sometimes you don't have to mean to hurt someone to hurt someone. You understand?"

And the truth is, though nobody's that obvious about it: nobody wants to hang out with him. Everyone's way too hung up on being in the popular group, and he's just as far from the popular group as you can get. But now I can hang out with anyone I want. If I wanted to be in the popular group, I could totally be in the popular group.

Before she went out, she looked left and right outside the door to make sure no one saw her leaving. I guess even though she was neutral, she didn't want to be seen with me.

it's not even like they know they're being mean, she adds. they were just scared. i mean, let's face it, his face is a little scary, right?

it's just been so nice being in a new school where nobody knows about him, you know? nobody's whispering about it behind my back […] but if he comes to the play, then everyone will talk about it, everyone will know […].

I don't even know how I got so mad. I wasn't really mad at the beginning of dinner. I wasn't even sad. But then all of a sudden it all kind of just exploded out of me. I knew Via didn't want me to go to her stupid play. And I knew why.

We knew we were being mean, but it was easier to ice her out if we pretended she had done something to us. The truth is she hadn't changed at all: we had. We'd become these other people, and she was still the person she'd always been. That annoyed me so much and I didn't know why.

"Kinder than is necessary," he repeated. "What a marvelous line, isn't it? Kinder than is necessary . Because it's not enough to be kind. One should be kinder than needed. Why I love that line, that concept, is that it reminds me that we carry with us, as human beings, not just the capacity to be kind, but the very choice of kindness."

"There are always going to be jerks in the world, Auggie," she said, looking at me. "But I really believe, and Daddy really believes, that there are more good people on this earth than bad people, and the good people watch out for each other and take care of each other. Just like Jack was there for you. And Amos. And those other kids."

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, generate accurate citations for free.

• Knowledge Base

Methodology

• How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates, and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

Instantly correct all language mistakes in your text

Upload your document to correct all your mistakes in minutes

Table of contents

What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
• Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

Don't submit your assignments before you do this

The academic proofreading tool has been trained on 1000s of academic texts. Making it the most accurate and reliable proofreading tool for students. Free citation check included.

Try for free

Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions .

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.

Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models, and methods?
• Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

Here's why students love Scribbr's proofreading services

Discover proofreading & editing

To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat—this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.

Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, you can follow these tips:

• Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers — add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts

In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !

This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.

Scribbr slides are free to use, customize, and distribute for educational purposes.

Open Google Slides Download PowerPoint

If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other  academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .

An  annotated bibliography is a list of  source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a  paper .  

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

McCombes, S. (2023, September 11). How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates. Scribbr. Retrieved June 9, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/dissertation/literature-review/

Is this article helpful?

Shona McCombes

Other students also liked, what is a theoretical framework | guide to organizing, what is a research methodology | steps & tips, how to write a research proposal | examples & templates, get unlimited documents corrected.

✔ Free APA citation check included ✔ Unlimited document corrections ✔ Specialized in correcting academic texts

• Craft and Criticism
• Fiction and Poetry
• News and Culture
• Lit Hub Radio
• Reading Lists

• Literary Criticism
• Craft and Advice
• In Conversation
• On Translation
• Short Story
• From the Novel
• Bookstores and Libraries
• Film and TV
• Art and Photography
• Freeman’s
• The Virtual Book Channel
• Behind the Mic
• Beyond the Page
• The Cosmic Library
• The Critic and Her Publics
• Emergence Magazine
• Fiction/Non/Fiction
• First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing
• The History of Literature
• I’m a Writer But
• Lit Century
• Tor Presents: Voyage Into Genre
• Windham-Campbell Prizes Podcast
• Write-minded
• The Best of the Decade
• Best Reviewed Books
• BookMarks Daily Giveaway
• The Daily Thrill
• CrimeReads Daily Giveaway

Ursula K. Le Guin on How to Become a Writer

(step one: write).

This first appeared in Lit Hub’s  Craft of Writing  newsletter— sign up here .

How do you become a writer? Answer: you write.

It’s amazing how much resentment and disgust and evasion this answer can arouse. Even among writers, believe me. It is one of those Horrible Truths one would rather not face.

The most frequent evasive tactic is for the would-be writer to say, But before I have anything to say, I must get experience.

Well, yes; if you want to be a journalist. But I don’t know anything about journalism, I’m talking about fiction. And of course fiction is made out of experience, your whole life from infancy on, everything you’ve thought and done and seen and read and dreamed. But experience isn’t something you go and get—it’s a gift, and the only prerequisite for receiving it is that you be open to it. A closed soul can have the most immense adventures, go through a civil war or a trip to the moon, and have nothing to show for all that “experience”; whereas the open soul can do wonders with nothing. I invite you to meditate on a pair of sisters. Emily and Charlotte. Their life experience was an isolated vicarage in a small, dreary English village, a couple of bad years at a girls’ school, another year or two in Brussels, which is surely the dullest city in all Europe, and a lot of housework. Out of that seething mass of raw, vital, brutal, gutsy Experience they made two of the greatest novels ever written: Jane Eyre  and  Wuthering Heights .

Now, of course they were writing from experience; writing about what they knew, which is what people always tell you to do; but what was their experience? What was it they knew? Very little about “life.” They knew their own souls, they knew their own minds and hearts; and it was not a knowledge lightly or easily gained. From the time they were seven or eight years old, they wrote, and thought, and learned the landscape of their own being, and how to describe it. They wrote with the imagination, which is the tool of the farmer, the plow you plow your own soul with. They wrote from inside, from as deep inside as they could get by using all their strength and courage and intelligence. And that is where books come from. The novelist writes from inside.

I’m rather sensitive on this point, because I write science fiction, or fantasy, or about imaginary countries, mostly—stuff that, by definition, involves times, places, events that I could not possibly experience in my own life. So when I was young and would submit one of these things about space voyages to Orion or dragons or something, I was told, at extremely regular intervals, “You should try to write about things you know about.” And I would say, But I do; I know about Orion, and dragons, and imaginary countries. Who do you think knows about my own imaginary countries, if I don’t?

But they didn’t listen, because they don’t understand, they have it all backward. They think an artist is like a roll of photographic film, you expose it and develop it and there is a reproduction of Reality in two dimensions. But that’s all wrong, and if any artist tells you, “I am a camera,” or “I am a mirror,” distrust them instantly, they’re fooling you, pulling a fast one. Artists are people who are not at all interested in the facts—only in the truth. You get the facts from outside. The truth you get from inside.

OK, how do you go about getting at that truth? You want to tell the truth. You want to be a writer. So what do you do?

Honestly, why do people ask that question? Does anybody ever come up to a musician and say, Tell me, tell me—how should I become a tuba player? No! It’s too obvious. If you want to be a tuba player you get a tuba, and some tuba music. And you ask the neighbors to move away or put cotton in their ears. And probably you get a tuba teacher, because there are quite a lot of objective rules and techniques both to written music and to tuba performance. And then you sit down and you play the tuba, every day, every week, every month, year after year, until you are good at playing the tuba; until you can—if you desire—play the truth on the tuba.

It is exactly the same with writing. You sit down and you do it, and you do it, and you do it, until you have learned how to do it.

Of course, there are differences. Writing makes no noise, except groans, and it can be done anywhere, and it is done alone.

It is the experience or premonition of that loneliness, perhaps, that drives a lot of young writers into this search for rules. I envy musicians very much, myself. They get to play together, their art is largely communal; and there are rules to it, an accepted body of axioms and techniques, which can be put into words or at least demonstrated, and so taught. Writing cannot be shared, nor can it be taught as a technique, except on the most superficial level. All a writer’s real learning is done alone, thinking, reading other people’s books, or writing—practicing. A really good writing class or workshop can give us some shadow of what musicians have all the time—the excitement of a group working together, so that each member outdoes himself—but what comes out of that is not a collaboration, a joint accomplishment, like a string quartet or a symphony performance, but a lot of totally separate, isolated works, expressions of individual souls. And therefore there are no rules, except those each individual makes up.

I know. There are lots of rules. You find them in the books about The Craft of Fiction and The Art of the Short Story and so on. I know some of them. One of them says: Never begin a story with dialogue! People won’t read it; here is somebody talking and they don’t know who and so they don’t care, so—Never begin a story with dialogue.

Well, there is a story I know, it begins like this:

“ Eh bien, mon prince!  so Genoa and Lucca are now no more than private estates of the Bonaparte family!”

It’s not only a dialogue opening, the first four words are in  French , and it’s not even a French novel. What a horrible way to begin a book! The title of the book is  War and Peace .

There’s another Rule I know: introduce all the main characters early in the book. That sounds perfectly sensible, mostly I suppose it is sensible, but it’s not a rule, or if it is somebody forgot to tell it to Charles Dickens. He didn’t get Sam Weller into  The Pickwick Papers for ten chapters—that’s five months, since the book was coming out as a serial in installments.

Now, you can say, All right, so Tolstoy can break the rules, so Dickens can break the rules, but they’re geniuses; rules are made for geniuses to break, but for ordinary, talented, not-yet-professional writers to follow, as guidelines.

And I would accept this, but very very grudgingly, and with so many reservations that it amounts in the end to nonacceptance. Put it this way: if you feel you need rules and want rules, and you find a rule that appeals to you, or that works for you, then follow it. Use it. But if it doesn’t appeal to you or doesn’t work for you, then ignore it; in fact, if you want to and are able to, kick it in the teeth, break it, fold staple mutilate and destroy it.

See, the thing is, as a writer you are free. You are about the freest person that ever was. Your freedom is what you have bought with your solitude, your loneliness. You are in the country where you make up the rules, the laws. You are both dictator and obedient populace. It is a country nobody has ever explored before. It is up to you to make the maps, to build the cities. Nobody else in the world can do it, or ever could do it, or ever will be able to do it again.

___________________________________

Excerpted from  THE LANGUAGE OF THE NIGHT  by Ursula K. Le Guin. Copyright © 1989 by Ursula K. Le Guin. Reprinted by permission of Scribner, a Division of Simon & Schuster, LLC.

• Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)

Ursula K. Le Guin

Previous article, next article, support lit hub..

Join our community of readers.

to the Lithub Daily

Popular posts.

Follow us on Twitter

Why You Should Let Your Family Read Your Memoir in Advance

• RSS - Posts

Literary Hub

Created by Grove Atlantic and Electric Literature

Sign Up For Our Newsletters

How to Pitch Lit Hub

Advertisers: Contact Us

Privacy Policy

Support Lit Hub - Become A Member

Become a Lit Hub Supporting Member : Because Books Matter

For the past decade, Literary Hub has brought you the best of the book world for free—no paywall. But our future relies on you. In return for a donation, you’ll get an ad-free reading experience , exclusive editors’ picks, book giveaways, and our coveted Joan Didion Lit Hub tote bag . Most importantly, you’ll keep independent book coverage alive and thriving on the internet.

Become a member for as low as $5/month

Jump to navigation Skip to content

Search form

• P&W on Facebook
• P&W on Twitter
• P&W on Instagram

Find details about every creative writing competition—including poetry contests, short story competitions, essay contests, awards for novels, grants for translators, and more—that we’ve published in the Grants & Awards section of Poets & Writers Magazine during the past year. We carefully review the practices and policies of each contest before including it in the Writing Contests database, the most trusted resource for legitimate writing contests available anywhere.

Find a home for your poems, stories, essays, and reviews by researching the publications vetted by our editorial staff. In the Literary Magazines database you’ll find editorial policies, submission guidelines, contact information—everything you need to know before submitting your work to the publications that share your vision for your work.

Whether you’re pursuing the publication of your first book or your fifth, use the Small Presses database to research potential publishers, including submission guidelines, tips from the editors, contact information, and more.

Research more than one hundred agents who represent poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers, plus details about the kinds of books they’re interested in representing, their clients, and the best way to contact them.

Every week a new publishing professional shares advice, anecdotes, insights, and new ways of thinking about writing and the business of books.

Find publishers ready to read your work now with our Open Reading Periods page, a continually updated resource listing all the literary magazines and small presses currently open for submissions.

Since our founding in 1970, Poets & Writers has served as an information clearinghouse of all matters related to writing. While the range of inquiries has been broad, common themes have emerged over time. Our Top Topics for Writers addresses the most popular and pressing issues, including literary agents, copyright, MFA programs, and self-publishing.

Our series of subject-based handbooks (PDF format; $4.99 each) provide information and advice from authors, literary agents, editors, and publishers. Now available: The Poets & Writers Guide to Publicity and Promotion, The Poets & Writers Guide to the Book Deal, The Poets & Writers Guide to Literary Agents, The Poets & Writers Guide to MFA Programs, and The Poets & Writers Guide to Writing Contests.

Find a home for your work by consulting our searchable databases of writing contests, literary magazines, small presses, literary agents, and more.

Poets & Writers lists readings, workshops, and other literary events held in cities across the country. Whether you are an author on book tour or the curator of a reading series, the Literary Events Calendar can help you find your audience.

Get the Word Out is a new publicity incubator for debut fiction writers and poets.

Research newspapers, magazines, websites, and other publications that consistently publish book reviews using the Review Outlets database, which includes information about publishing schedules, submission guidelines, fees, and more.

Well over ten thousand poets and writers maintain listings in this essential resource for writers interested in connecting with their peers, as well as editors, agents, and reading series coordinators looking for authors. Apply today to join the growing community of writers who stay in touch and informed using the Poets & Writers Directory.

Let the world know about your work by posting your events on our literary events calendar, apply to be included in our directory of writers, and more.

Find a writers group to join or create your own with Poets & Writers Groups. Everything you need to connect, communicate, and collaborate with other poets and writers—all in one place.

Find information about more than two hundred full- and low-residency programs in creative writing in our MFA Programs database, which includes details about deadlines, funding, class size, core faculty, and more. Also included is information about more than fifty MA and PhD programs.

Whether you are looking to meet up with fellow writers, agents, and editors, or trying to find the perfect environment to fuel your writing practice, the Conferences & Residencies is the essential resource for information about well over three hundred writing conferences, writers residencies, and literary festivals around the world.

Discover historical sites, independent bookstores, literary archives, writing centers, and writers spaces in cities across the country using the Literary Places database—the best starting point for any literary journey, whether it’s for research or inspiration.

Search for jobs in education, publishing, the arts, and more within our free, frequently updated job listings for writers and poets.

Establish new connections and enjoy the company of your peers using our searchable databases of MFA programs and writers retreats, apply to be included in our directory of writers, and more.

• Register for Classes

Each year the Readings & Workshops program provides support to hundreds of writers participating in literary readings and conducting writing workshops. Learn more about this program, our special events, projects, and supporters, and how to contact us.

The Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award introduces emerging writers to the New York City literary community, providing them with a network for professional advancement.

Find information about how Poets & Writers provides support to hundreds of writers participating in literary readings and conducting writing workshops.

Bring the literary world to your door—at half the newsstand price. Available in print and digital editions, Poets & Writers Magazine is a must-have for writers who are serious about their craft.

View the contents and read select essays, articles, interviews, and profiles from the current issue of the award-winning Poets & Writers Magazine .

Read essays, articles, interviews, profiles, and other select content from Poets & Writers Magazine as well as Online Exclusives.

View the covers and contents of every issue of Poets & Writers Magazine , from the current edition all the way back to the first black-and-white issue in 1987.

Every day the editors of Poets & Writers Magazine scan the headlines—publishing reports, literary dispatches, academic announcements, and more—for all the news that creative writers need to know.

In our weekly series of craft essays, some of the best and brightest minds in contemporary literature explore their craft in compact form, articulating their thoughts about creative obsessions and curiosities in a working notebook of lessons about the art of writing.

The Time Is Now offers weekly writing prompts in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction to help you stay committed to your writing practice throughout the year. Sign up to get The Time Is Now, as well as a weekly book recommendation for guidance and inspiration, delivered to your inbox.

Every week a new author shares books, art, music, writing prompts, films—anything and everything—that has inspired and shaped the creative process.

Listen to original audio recordings of authors featured in Poets & Writers Magazine . Browse the archive of more than 400 author readings.

Ads in Poets & Writers Magazine and on pw.org are the best ways to reach a readership of serious poets and literary prose writers. Our audience trusts our editorial content and looks to it, and to relevant advertising, for information and guidance.

Start, renew, or give a subscription to Poets & Writers Magazine ; change your address; check your account; pay your bill; report a missed issue; contact us.

Peruse paid listings of writing contests, conferences, workshops, editing services, calls for submissions, and more.

Poets & Writers is pleased to provide free subscriptions to Poets & Writers Magazine to award-winning young writers and to high school creative writing teachers for use in their classrooms.

Read select articles from the award-winning magazine and consult the most comprehensive listing of literary grants and awards, deadlines, and prizewinners available in print.

• Subscribe Now

Mind the (Memory) Gap

• Printable Version
• Log in to Send
• Log in to Save

In our Craft Capsules series, authors reveal the personal and particular ways they approach the art of writing. This is no. 201.

Gaining readers’ trust is an essential part of writing a memoir: If readers are going to be all in on the story you’re telling, they have to believe that you’re being honest and transparent. Acknowledging what you don’t remember can go a long way toward this goal; if you admit uncertainty regarding some events, readers will take you at your word on others. But this move is best used sparingly.

It’s easy to start pointing out every little gap in your recollection of events, hedging every memory with a disclaimer. But too many of these admissions can get distracting and irritating, leading readers to wonder, “Well, what do you remember?” or “If you can’t remember anything, why are you telling this story?”

To avoid overusing the confession of a memory gap, I use a simple litmus test, limiting my acknowledgement of such lapses to instances that meet at least one of two criteria:

1. The gap itself is emotionally or narratively significant. Sometimes the very fact that you don’t remember something is part of the story. For example, trauma can affect memory, and in memoir silences about traumatic experience can speak louder than any attempt to fill them with conjecture or reportage. Defining the shapes of these silences allows you to write into them, which can be very powerful.

2. There are important details lost to the gap, and it would feel evasive not to explain why they aren’t included. This is a less artistic, more logistical reason to state directly that you don’t remember something—but it’s still a good one. This metric can be misleading, though: What counts as an important detail? When is it important to explain that you left out part of the story because you can’t remember it, and when can you just skip over what you don’t remember without drawing attention to it? Do you need to say you don’t know how you got from a party back to your apartment, for instance, or can you just cut from a scene at the party to a scene at your apartment? If you’re not sure whether an omission will trip readers up, a good rule of thumb is to start by just skipping over the missing details, and address them only if multiple early readers ask about it.

If a lost memory does fit one or both categories, being transparent about what you can’t remember buys you a lot of leeway: Once that admission is out of the way, you’re free to speculate or wonder on the page about what might have happened—or to skip over it and keep the story moving without looking evasive.

Sometimes memory gaps can even dictate the shape of the story, or your attempts to fill them through research can be the source of tension that drives the narrative. But even in a story that’s driven by its blank spots, remember not to overdo it by pointing out every inconsequential detail you’re not 100 percent certain of. Part of gaining readers’ trust means trusting them in return to follow you wherever you lead, which means not overexplaining or qualifying every little thing.

Lilly Dancyger  is the author of  First Love: Essays on Friendship  (Dial Press, 2024) and  Negative Space  (Santa Fe Writers Project, 2021). She lives in New York City, and is a 2023 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in nonfiction from the New York Foundation for the Arts. Find her on Instagram at @lillydancyger and on Substack at the  Word Cave .

Welcome to the new Ploughshares website! To learn more about logging in and what to expect, read here .

Regular Reading Period

Ploughshares welcomes unsolicited submissions of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction during our regular reading period,  open from June 1 to January 15   at noon EST . The literary journal is published four times a year: blended poetry and prose issues in the Winter and Spring, a prose issue in the Summer, and a special longform prose issue in the Fall. Our Spring and Summer issues are guest-edited by different writers of prominence.  To submit to the journal, including the Fall Longform Issue, please see our  guidelines here .

Our Look2 essay series seeks to publish essays about under-appreciated or overlooked writers. The Look2 essay should take stock of a writer’s entire oeuvre with the goal of bringing critical attention to the neglected writer and his or her relevance to a contemporary audience.  To submit a Look2 essay query to the journal, see the  guidelines here .

Emerging Writer’s Contest

In the spirit of the journal’s founding mission, the Ploughshares Emerging Writer’s Contest recognizes work by an emerging writer in each of three genres: fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. One winner in each genre per year will receive $2,000 and publication in the literary journal. We consider authors “emerging” if they haven’t published or self-published a book.  The 2024 contest—judged by Dantiel W. Moniz in fiction, Porsha Olayiwola in poetry, and Augusten Burroughs in nonfiction—has closed. The winners will be announced this fall.

Manuscript Submission

Review cart.

No products in the cart.

Advertisement

Supported by

How a Self-Published Book Broke ‘All the Rules’ and Became a Best Seller

Keila Shaheen’s “The Shadow Work Journal” shows how radically book sales and marketing have been changed by TikTok.

• Share full article

By Alexandra Alter

Last summer, a book changed Kohn Glay’s life.

A TikTok ad had steered him to “The Shadow Work Journal,” a slim workbook that directs readers to explore hidden parts of their unconscious — their shadow selves, in the book’s vernacular. He ordered a copy, and soon was back on TikTok, fervently recommending it to his followers.

“If you’re on your spiritual journey, you absolutely need to go and get you one of these,” he says in the video , urging viewers to buy the book in the TikTok store.

The video went viral, eventually drawing more than 58 million views. Glay, who is 43 and lives in Baltimore, began holding online classes to guide people through the journal. Over the next few months, people who watched his videos bought more than 40,000 copies of the book on TikTok, and Glay earned more than $150,000 in commissions. By December, he had quit his job as a sales representative for Home Depot and now runs his own business, “Happy Healin,” which offers subscribers spiritual mentorship and coaching through Zoom sessions.

Glay is part of the army of TikTok influencers who helped turn “The Shadow Work Journal” into a mega best seller. He’s so closely associated with the book that people often assume he wrote it. “It became a daily thing to tell people I’m not the author,” he said.

@girldadsos For those on a spiritual Journey #theshadowworkjournal #shadowwork #spiritualhealing #spiritualawakening #healingjourney #healingtiktok #healing #spiritualtiktok #spirituality #emotionalhealing ♬ original sound - GIRL_DAD

The real creator of “The Shadow Work Journal” is Keila Shaheen, a 25-year-old writer from Texas with a background in marketing who self-published the book in 2021, and has since been crowned “the self-help queen of TikTok .”

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?  Log in .

Want all of The Times?  Subscribe .

by R.J. Palacio

Wonder metaphors and similes, "so sending him off to middle school like a lamb to the slaughter..." section i, pg. 10.

Early on in the novel, Dad remarks that sending Auggie to a real school would be like sending a lamb off to be slaughtered, which shows just how vulnerable Auggie is assumed to be and how much the Pullmans want to protect him. But going to school eventually shapes Auggie in many positive ways; though he struggles, he eventually comes out on top.

"Your deeds are your monuments." Section I, pg. 65

Mr. Browne's October precept is a metaphor that emphasizes how a person's actions can create a lasting impact. Monuments are created to commemorate people; the precept states that people will be remembered for their deeds, good or bad. This is certainly true of middle school, where kids are known at large for how they treat others.

"But after she died, I held on to that secret and let it cover me like a blanket." Section II, pg. 87

Via will always remember the way Grans took the time to look out for her and cherish her. When Grans told Via that Via was her angel, her favorite, Via let that secret become her security blanket, her reassurance that someone really did care even though her needs were often pushed to the side in her family.

"The universe takes care of all of its birds." Section V, pg. 204

At the end of his section, Justin likens humans to birds, and insists that while the universe may be unkind in some ways, it always compensates in other ways so that everyone is cared for. A bird metaphor naturally implies flight and opportunity -- suggesting that the universe takes care of its "birds" in order to give them the ability to keep flying. For instance, the universe has given Auggie a loving family, the primary thing he needs to take off and soar.

"It had been a long time since I'd been out without my hearing aids, and it felt like I was miles under the earth." Section VIII, pg. 272

This simile illustrates the uncertainty and sadness that Auggie feels after his fight with the older kids at the nature reserve. Without his hearing aids, he feels lost: he can no longer "hear brightly," so that an essential part of him appears to be missing. He feels like he is miles under the earth both because he cannot hear well and because he is so upset about what has happened.

Wonder Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Wonder is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Why is August homeschooled?

August suffers from facial anomalies or disfiguration. His mother has been homeschooling him because of the negative attention he receives from people who stare at his deformed face. His parents wanted to be sure he could emotionally handle...

Between Februrary and March, explain what changes in the war

February is a difficult month in "the war." Julian leaves notes in August 's locker that call him a freak and an orc from Lord of the Rings. August chooses to ignore the notes, not reporting the notes to administation. Summer , August, and Jack ...

Why does Justin greet the different members of the family in four different ways? from wonder

This is one of the shorter sections, but Justin's segments are extremely important because they give us our first substantial look at Auggie's family from the outside. Summer and Jack only briefly interacted with the rest of Auggie's family, but...

Study Guide for Wonder

Wonder study guide contains a biography of R.J. Palacio, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Wonder
• Wonder Summary
• Wonder Video
• Character List

Lesson Plan for Wonder

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to Wonder
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• Wonder Bibliography

Wikipedia Entries for Wonder

• Introduction
• Film adaptations
• Related books