The standards of reasoning or argumentation in literary studies (Literaturwissenschaft) have not been examined in depth after some studies in the 1970s – a research gap this paper wants to start to fill based on a praxeological approach. In a first step norms, which are often offered as common standards underlying argumentations in general, are analyzed in order to determine where subject-specific aspects come into play. The notions of ‘plausibility’, ‘transparency’ and ‘comprehensibility’ seem to have a special role in argumentations in literary studies. In a second step an intellectual method is outlined allowing the reconstruction of argumentations in literary studies in a non-reductive way. The main aim of such reconstructions is a way to take into account how these standards of argumentation in literary studies – as common, subject-specific or group-specific standards – form the way the argument is build and presented.