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Tips and techniques for writing effective and powerful analytical essays.

Are you struggling to craft an effective analytical essay? Do you find yourself getting lost in a sea of information or unsure of how to present your analysis in a clear and concise manner? Look no further – this step-by-step guide will provide you with valuable tips and strategies to elevate your analytical essay writing skills to the next level.

Writing an analytical essay involves carefully examining a subject or topic and providing a thorough analysis and interpretation of the information gathered. It requires critical thinking, attention to detail, and the ability to express ideas and arguments coherently. In this guide, we will explore various techniques and approaches to help you develop and refine your analytical writing skills, allowing you to tackle any analytical essay with confidence and precision.

One crucial aspect of writing an analytical essay is conducting thorough research. To ensure your essay is well-informed and robust, it’s important to delve into reputable sources, such as academic journals, books, and reliable websites. By gathering a wide range of sources related to your topic, you will acquire a solid understanding of the subject matter, which will enable you to provide a comprehensive analysis in your essay.

Another essential element of analytical essay writing is the development of a strong thesis statement. Your thesis should present a clear and concise argument or claim that you will support throughout your essay. It should be specific, debatable, and relevant to the topic at hand. By crafting a well-defined thesis statement, you provide the backbone for your entire essay, guiding your analysis and helping you maintain a focused approach.

Furthermore, an effective analytical essay requires careful organization and structure. Divide your essay into logical paragraphs, each addressing a specific point or aspect of your analysis. Use topic sentences to introduce each paragraph, guiding your reader and providing a clear roadmap of your essay’s progression. Additionally, utilize transitional phrases and words to create smooth transitions between paragraphs, ensuring a cohesive and coherent flow.

Finding a Strong Topic for Your Essay

Choosing the right topic is a crucial first step in writing an analytical essay. The topic sets the tone for the entire essay and determines its scope and focus. It is important to select a topic that is engaging, relevant, and allows for in-depth analysis. This section will provide you with helpful strategies for finding a strong topic that will captivate your readers.

Gathering and Evaluating Reliable Sources

One of the key aspects of writing an analytical essay is gathering and evaluating reliable sources. The quality of your sources can greatly impact the strength and credibility of your arguments. In this section, we will explore the importance of finding trustworthy sources and discuss strategies for evaluating their reliability.

When conducting research for your essay, it is crucial to seek out sources that are authoritative and trustworthy. Reliable sources are those that have been written by experts in the field or have been published in reputable academic journals. These sources are often backed by extensive research and provide accurate and unbiased information.

When evaluating the reliability of a source, there are several factors to consider. Firstly, check the author’s credentials and expertise in the subject matter. Look for individuals who have relevant qualifications or experience in the field. This will help establish their credibility and ensure that they are knowledgeable on the topic.

In addition to the author’s credentials, consider the publication or website where the source is found. Reputable academic journals, books from respected publishers, and reputable websites such as government or educational institutions are generally more reliable sources of information. Be cautious of sources from unknown or biased sources, as they may not provide accurate or unbiased information.

Furthermore, it is important to analyze the content of the source itself. Look for evidence-based arguments, logical reasoning, and a balanced presentation of different perspectives. A reliable source should provide well-supported claims and back them up with relevant evidence and examples.

Finally, consider the date of publication. While older sources can still provide valuable insights, it is important to have up-to-date information, especially in fields that are rapidly evolving or undergoing significant changes. Check for recent studies and publications to ensure that your information is current.

In conclusion, gathering and evaluating reliable sources is a critical step in writing an analytical essay. By seeking out trustworthy sources and analyzing their credibility, you can strengthen your arguments and provide a solid foundation for your essay. Keep in mind the importance of author expertise, publication credibility, content analysis, and the recency of the information. Through careful evaluation, you can ensure that your essay is well-informed and persuasive.

Creating an Outline for Your Essay

One of the most important steps in the essay writing process is creating an outline. An outline serves as a roadmap for your essay, helping you to organize your thoughts and ideas in a logical and coherent manner.

When creating an outline for your essay, it’s important to start by identifying the main points or arguments that you want to make. These main points will serve as the foundation of your essay and should be presented in a clear and concise manner. You can think of these main points as the “backbone” of your essay.

Once you have identified the main points, you can then begin to develop subpoints that support and expand upon each main point. These subpoints should provide specific examples, evidence, or analysis to strengthen your main arguments. In essence, they help to fill in the details and provide a deeper understanding of your main points.

Organizing your main points and subpoints can be done in various ways. One common method is to use a hierarchical structure, such as an outline with Roman numerals, capital letters, and Arabic numerals. Another method is to use bullet points or a numbered list. You can choose the method that works best for you, based on the complexity of your essay and the level of detail you want to include in your outline.

As you create your outline, it’s important to keep in mind the overall structure of your essay. Your introduction should provide a brief overview of the topic and present your thesis statement. The body paragraphs should present and develop your main points and subpoints, providing evidence and analysis to support your arguments. Finally, your conclusion should summarize your main points and restate your thesis in a concise and compelling manner.

Remember that your outline is a flexible tool that can be revised and adjusted as you work on your essay. It’s not set in stone and can be modified as needed to better reflect your evolving ideas and arguments. Don’t be afraid to make changes and reorganize your outline as you go along.

In conclusion, creating an outline for your essay is an essential step in the writing process. It helps you to organize your thoughts, develop your arguments, and maintain a logical flow throughout your essay. By investing time and effort into creating a strong outline, you’ll set yourself up for success and make the writing process much smoother.

Developing a Clear and Coherent Argument

When it comes to writing analytical essays, one of the most important aspects is developing a clear and coherent argument. It is essential to have a well-structured and logical argument in order to effectively convey your ideas and convince your readers.

First and foremost, it is crucial to have a clear understanding of the topic you are writing about. Take the time to thoroughly research and gather relevant information, as this will provide you with the necessary knowledge to build a strong argument. Additionally, make sure to identify any key terms or concepts that are essential to your argument, as this will help you stay focused and ensure coherence throughout your essay.

Once you have a solid foundation of knowledge, it is important to organize your argument in a logical manner. Start by outlining the main points or claims you want to make, and then provide supporting evidence or examples for each of these points. Be sure to clearly state your thesis statement, which should summarize the main argument you are making in your essay.

In order to maintain coherence in your argument, it is important to use logical transitions between your ideas. This can be done through the use of transitional words and phrases, such as “however,” “in addition,” or “on the other hand.” These transitions will help guide your reader through your argument and ensure that your ideas flow smoothly from one point to the next.

Lastly, it is crucial to anticipate and address counterarguments in your essay. By acknowledging opposing viewpoints and effectively refuting them, you can further strengthen your overall argument. This demonstrates that you have considered multiple perspectives and have arrived at your own well-supported conclusion.

In conclusion, developing a clear and coherent argument is essential when writing analytical essays. By thoroughly researching your topic, organizing your ideas in a logical manner, using transitions effectively, and addressing counterarguments, you can effectively convey your ideas and make a convincing argument to your readers.

Strengthening Your Essay with Relevant Evidence

In order to create a compelling and persuasive analytical essay, it is essential to back up your arguments with relevant evidence. This evidence serves to support your claims and gives your essay credibility and authority.

When selecting evidence for your essay, it is important to choose examples and facts that are directly related to your topic. This will help to establish a strong connection between your argument and the evidence you present. Additionally, using relevant evidence allows you to make a more convincing case and gives your readers confidence in the validity of your assertions.

Relevant evidence can come in various forms, such as statistics, research studies, expert opinions, and real-life examples. By incorporating a mix of different types of evidence, you can strengthen the overall impact of your essay and appeal to a wider range of readers.

To ensure that the evidence you include in your essay is relevant, it is necessary to thoroughly research your topic and gather information from reliable sources. This will help you to find the most up-to-date and accurate evidence to support your arguments.

In addition to choosing relevant evidence, it is also crucial to properly integrate it into your essay. Make sure to clearly introduce each piece of evidence and explain how it supports your main points. Use strong and persuasive language to highlight the significance of the evidence and its connection to your argument.

Remember that the purpose of using relevant evidence is not only to support your argument but also to engage your readers and help them understand your perspective. By presenting well-chosen and compelling evidence, you can make your essay more persuasive and leave a lasting impression on your audience.

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• How to write a literary analysis essay | A step-by-step guide

How to Write a Literary Analysis Essay | A Step-by-Step Guide

Published on January 30, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on August 14, 2023.

Literary analysis means closely studying a text, interpreting its meanings, and exploring why the author made certain choices. It can be applied to novels, short stories, plays, poems, or any other form of literary writing.

A literary analysis essay is not a rhetorical analysis , nor is it just a summary of the plot or a book review. Instead, it is a type of argumentative essay where you need to analyze elements such as the language, perspective, and structure of the text, and explain how the author uses literary devices to create effects and convey ideas.

Before beginning a literary analysis essay, it’s essential to carefully read the text and c ome up with a thesis statement to keep your essay focused. As you write, follow the standard structure of an academic essay :

• An introduction that tells the reader what your essay will focus on.
• A main body, divided into paragraphs , that builds an argument using evidence from the text.
• A conclusion that clearly states the main point that you have shown with your analysis.

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Table of contents

Step 1: reading the text and identifying literary devices, step 2: coming up with a thesis, step 3: writing a title and introduction, step 4: writing the body of the essay, step 5: writing a conclusion, other interesting articles.

The first step is to carefully read the text(s) and take initial notes. As you read, pay attention to the things that are most intriguing, surprising, or even confusing in the writing—these are things you can dig into in your analysis.

Your goal in literary analysis is not simply to explain the events described in the text, but to analyze the writing itself and discuss how the text works on a deeper level. Primarily, you’re looking out for literary devices —textual elements that writers use to convey meaning and create effects. If you’re comparing and contrasting multiple texts, you can also look for connections between different texts.

To get started with your analysis, there are several key areas that you can focus on. As you analyze each aspect of the text, try to think about how they all relate to each other. You can use highlights or notes to keep track of important passages and quotes.

Language choices

Consider what style of language the author uses. Are the sentences short and simple or more complex and poetic?

What word choices stand out as interesting or unusual? Are words used figuratively to mean something other than their literal definition? Figurative language includes things like metaphor (e.g. “her eyes were oceans”) and simile (e.g. “her eyes were like oceans”).

Also keep an eye out for imagery in the text—recurring images that create a certain atmosphere or symbolize something important. Remember that language is used in literary texts to say more than it means on the surface.

Narrative voice

Ask yourself:

• Who is telling the story?
• How are they telling it?

Is it a first-person narrator (“I”) who is personally involved in the story, or a third-person narrator who tells us about the characters from a distance?

Consider the narrator’s perspective . Is the narrator omniscient (where they know everything about all the characters and events), or do they only have partial knowledge? Are they an unreliable narrator who we are not supposed to take at face value? Authors often hint that their narrator might be giving us a distorted or dishonest version of events.

The tone of the text is also worth considering. Is the story intended to be comic, tragic, or something else? Are usually serious topics treated as funny, or vice versa ? Is the story realistic or fantastical (or somewhere in between)?

Consider how the text is structured, and how the structure relates to the story being told.

• Novels are often divided into chapters and parts.
• Poems are divided into lines, stanzas, and sometime cantos.
• Plays are divided into scenes and acts.

Think about why the author chose to divide the different parts of the text in the way they did.

There are also less formal structural elements to take into account. Does the story unfold in chronological order, or does it jump back and forth in time? Does it begin in medias res —in the middle of the action? Does the plot advance towards a clearly defined climax?

With poetry, consider how the rhyme and meter shape your understanding of the text and your impression of the tone. Try reading the poem aloud to get a sense of this.

In a play, you might consider how relationships between characters are built up through different scenes, and how the setting relates to the action. Watch out for  dramatic irony , where the audience knows some detail that the characters don’t, creating a double meaning in their words, thoughts, or actions.

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Your thesis in a literary analysis essay is the point you want to make about the text. It’s the core argument that gives your essay direction and prevents it from just being a collection of random observations about a text.

If you’re given a prompt for your essay, your thesis must answer or relate to the prompt. For example:

Essay question example

Is Franz Kafka’s “Before the Law” a religious parable?

Your thesis statement should be an answer to this question—not a simple yes or no, but a statement of why this is or isn’t the case:

Thesis statement example

Franz Kafka’s “Before the Law” is not a religious parable, but a story about bureaucratic alienation.

Sometimes you’ll be given freedom to choose your own topic; in this case, you’ll have to come up with an original thesis. Consider what stood out to you in the text; ask yourself questions about the elements that interested you, and consider how you might answer them.

Your thesis should be something arguable—that is, something that you think is true about the text, but which is not a simple matter of fact. It must be complex enough to develop through evidence and arguments across the course of your essay.

Say you’re analyzing the novel Frankenstein . You could start by asking yourself:

Your initial answer might be a surface-level description:

The character Frankenstein is portrayed negatively in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein .

However, this statement is too simple to be an interesting thesis. After reading the text and analyzing its narrative voice and structure, you can develop the answer into a more nuanced and arguable thesis statement:

Mary Shelley uses shifting narrative perspectives to portray Frankenstein in an increasingly negative light as the novel goes on. While he initially appears to be a naive but sympathetic idealist, after the creature’s narrative Frankenstein begins to resemble—even in his own telling—the thoughtlessly cruel figure the creature represents him as.

Remember that you can revise your thesis statement throughout the writing process , so it doesn’t need to be perfectly formulated at this stage. The aim is to keep you focused as you analyze the text.

Finding textual evidence

To support your thesis statement, your essay will build an argument using textual evidence —specific parts of the text that demonstrate your point. This evidence is quoted and analyzed throughout your essay to explain your argument to the reader.

It can be useful to comb through the text in search of relevant quotations before you start writing. You might not end up using everything you find, and you may have to return to the text for more evidence as you write, but collecting textual evidence from the beginning will help you to structure your arguments and assess whether they’re convincing.

To start your literary analysis paper, you’ll need two things: a good title, and an introduction.

Your title should clearly indicate what your analysis will focus on. It usually contains the name of the author and text(s) you’re analyzing. Keep it as concise and engaging as possible.

A common approach to the title is to use a relevant quote from the text, followed by a colon and then the rest of your title.

If you struggle to come up with a good title at first, don’t worry—this will be easier once you’ve begun writing the essay and have a better sense of your arguments.

“Fearful symmetry” : The violence of creation in William Blake’s “The Tyger”

The introduction

The essay introduction provides a quick overview of where your argument is going. It should include your thesis statement and a summary of the essay’s structure.

A typical structure for an introduction is to begin with a general statement about the text and author, using this to lead into your thesis statement. You might refer to a commonly held idea about the text and show how your thesis will contradict it, or zoom in on a particular device you intend to focus on.

Then you can end with a brief indication of what’s coming up in the main body of the essay. This is called signposting. It will be more elaborate in longer essays, but in a short five-paragraph essay structure, it shouldn’t be more than one sentence.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is often read as a crude cautionary tale about the dangers of scientific advancement unrestrained by ethical considerations. In this reading, protagonist Victor Frankenstein is a stable representation of the callous ambition of modern science throughout the novel. This essay, however, argues that far from providing a stable image of the character, Shelley uses shifting narrative perspectives to portray Frankenstein in an increasingly negative light as the novel goes on. While he initially appears to be a naive but sympathetic idealist, after the creature’s narrative Frankenstein begins to resemble—even in his own telling—the thoughtlessly cruel figure the creature represents him as. This essay begins by exploring the positive portrayal of Frankenstein in the first volume, then moves on to the creature’s perception of him, and finally discusses the third volume’s narrative shift toward viewing Frankenstein as the creature views him.

Some students prefer to write the introduction later in the process, and it’s not a bad idea. After all, you’ll have a clearer idea of the overall shape of your arguments once you’ve begun writing them!

If you do write the introduction first, you should still return to it later to make sure it lines up with what you ended up writing, and edit as necessary.

The body of your essay is everything between the introduction and conclusion. It contains your arguments and the textual evidence that supports them.

Paragraph structure

A typical structure for a high school literary analysis essay consists of five paragraphs : the three paragraphs of the body, plus the introduction and conclusion.

Each paragraph in the main body should focus on one topic. In the five-paragraph model, try to divide your argument into three main areas of analysis, all linked to your thesis. Don’t try to include everything you can think of to say about the text—only analysis that drives your argument.

In longer essays, the same principle applies on a broader scale. For example, you might have two or three sections in your main body, each with multiple paragraphs. Within these sections, you still want to begin new paragraphs at logical moments—a turn in the argument or the introduction of a new idea.

Robert’s first encounter with Gil-Martin suggests something of his sinister power. Robert feels “a sort of invisible power that drew me towards him.” He identifies the moment of their meeting as “the beginning of a series of adventures which has puzzled myself, and will puzzle the world when I am no more in it” (p. 89). Gil-Martin’s “invisible power” seems to be at work even at this distance from the moment described; before continuing the story, Robert feels compelled to anticipate at length what readers will make of his narrative after his approaching death. With this interjection, Hogg emphasizes the fatal influence Gil-Martin exercises from his first appearance.

Topic sentences

To keep your points focused, it’s important to use a topic sentence at the beginning of each paragraph.

A good topic sentence allows a reader to see at a glance what the paragraph is about. It can introduce a new line of argument and connect or contrast it with the previous paragraph. Transition words like “however” or “moreover” are useful for creating smooth transitions:

… The story’s focus, therefore, is not upon the divine revelation that may be waiting beyond the door, but upon the mundane process of aging undergone by the man as he waits.

Nevertheless, the “radiance” that appears to stream from the door is typically treated as religious symbolism.

This topic sentence signals that the paragraph will address the question of religious symbolism, while the linking word “nevertheless” points out a contrast with the previous paragraph’s conclusion.

Using textual evidence

A key part of literary analysis is backing up your arguments with relevant evidence from the text. This involves introducing quotes from the text and explaining their significance to your point.

It’s important to contextualize quotes and explain why you’re using them; they should be properly introduced and analyzed, not treated as self-explanatory:

It isn’t always necessary to use a quote. Quoting is useful when you’re discussing the author’s language, but sometimes you’ll have to refer to plot points or structural elements that can’t be captured in a short quote.

In these cases, it’s more appropriate to paraphrase or summarize parts of the text—that is, to describe the relevant part in your own words:

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The conclusion of your analysis shouldn’t introduce any new quotations or arguments. Instead, it’s about wrapping up the essay. Here, you summarize your key points and try to emphasize their significance to the reader.

A good way to approach this is to briefly summarize your key arguments, and then stress the conclusion they’ve led you to, highlighting the new perspective your thesis provides on the text as a whole:

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By tracing the depiction of Frankenstein through the novel’s three volumes, I have demonstrated how the narrative structure shifts our perception of the character. While the Frankenstein of the first volume is depicted as having innocent intentions, the second and third volumes—first in the creature’s accusatory voice, and then in his own voice—increasingly undermine him, causing him to appear alternately ridiculous and vindictive. Far from the one-dimensional villain he is often taken to be, the character of Frankenstein is compelling because of the dynamic narrative frame in which he is placed. In this frame, Frankenstein’s narrative self-presentation responds to the images of him we see from others’ perspectives. This conclusion sheds new light on the novel, foregrounding Shelley’s unique layering of narrative perspectives and its importance for the depiction of character.

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How To Write an Analytical Essay

If you enjoy exploring topics deeply and thinking creatively, analytical essays could be perfect for you. They involve thorough analysis and clever writing techniques to gain fresh perspectives and deepen your understanding of the subject. In this article, our expert research paper writer will explain what an analytical essay is, how to structure it effectively and provide practical examples. This guide covers all the essentials for your writing success!

What Is an Analytical Essay

An analytical essay involves analyzing something, such as a book, movie, or idea. It relies on evidence from the text to logically support arguments, avoiding emotional appeals or personal stories. Unlike persuasive essays, which argue for a specific viewpoint, a good analytical essay explores all aspects of the topic, considering different perspectives, dissecting arguments, and evaluating evidence carefully. Ultimately, you'll need to present your own stance based on your analysis, synthesize findings, and decide whether you agree with the conclusions or have your own interpretation.

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How to Structure an Analytical Essay

Crafting an excellent paper starts with clear organization and structuring of arguments. An analytical essay structure follows a simple outline: introduction, body, and conclusion.

Introduction: Begin by grabbing the reader's attention and stating the topic clearly. Provide background information, state the purpose of the paper, and hint at the arguments you'll make. The opening sentence should be engaging, such as a surprising fact or a thought-provoking question. Then, present your thesis, summarizing your stance in the essay.

Body Paragraphs: Each paragraph starts with a clear topic sentence guiding the reader and presents evidence supporting the thesis. Focus on one issue per paragraph and briefly restate the main point at the end to transition smoothly to the next one. This ensures clarity and coherence in your argument.

Conclusion: Restate the thesis, summarize key points from the body paragraphs, and offer insights on the significance of the analysis. Provide your thoughts on the topic's importance and how your analysis contributes to it, leaving a lasting impression on the reader.

Meanwhile, you might also be interested in how to write a reflection paper , so check out the article for more information!

How to Write an Analytical Essay in 6 Simple Steps

Once you've got a handle on the structure, you can make writing easier by following some steps. Preparing ahead of time can make the process smoother and improve your essay's flow. Here are some helpful tips from our experts. And if you need it, you can always request our experts to write my essay for me , and we'll handle it promptly.

Step 1: Decide on Your Stance

Before diving into writing, it's crucial to establish your stance on the topic. Let's say you're going to write an analytical essay example about the benefits and drawbacks of remote work. Before you start writing, you need to decide what your opinion or viewpoint is on this topic.

• Do you think remote work offers flexibility and improved work-life balance for employees?
• Or maybe you believe it can lead to feelings of isolation and decreased productivity?

Once you've determined your stance on remote work, it's essential to consider the evidence and arguments supporting your position. Are there statistics or studies that back up your viewpoint? For example, if you believe remote work improves productivity, you might cite research showing increased output among remote workers. On the other hand, if you think it leads to isolation, you could reference surveys or testimonials highlighting the challenges of remote collaboration. Your opinion will shape how you write your essay, so take some time to think about what you believe about remote work before you start writing.

Step 2: Write Your Thesis Statement

Once you've figured out what you think about the topic, it's time to write your thesis statement. This statement is like the main idea or argument of your essay.

If you believe that remote work offers significant benefits, your thesis statement might be: 'Remote work presents an opportunity for increased flexibility and work-life balance, benefiting employees and employers alike in today's interconnected world.'

Alternatively, if you believe that remote work has notable drawbacks, your thesis statement might be: 'While remote work offers flexibility, it can also lead to feelings of isolation and challenges in collaboration, necessitating a balanced approach to its implementation.'

Your thesis statement guides the rest of your analytical essay, so make sure it clearly expresses your viewpoint on the benefits and drawbacks of remote work.

Step 3: Write Topic Sentences

After you have your thesis statement about the benefits and drawbacks of remote work, you need to come up with topic sentences for each paragraph while writing an analytical essay. These sentences introduce the main point of each paragraph and help to structure your essay.

Let's say your first paragraph is about the benefits of remote work. Your topic sentence might be: 'Remote work offers employees increased flexibility and autonomy, enabling them to better manage their work-life balance.'

For the next paragraph discussing the drawbacks of remote work, your topic sentence could be: 'However, remote work can also lead to feelings of isolation and difficulties in communication and collaboration with colleagues.'

And for the paragraph about potential solutions to the challenges of remote work, your topic sentence might be: 'To mitigate the drawbacks of remote work, companies can implement strategies such as regular check-ins, virtual team-building activities, and flexible work arrangements.'

Each topic sentence should relate back to your thesis statement about the benefits and drawbacks of remote work and provide a clear focus for the paragraph that follows.

Step 4: Create an Outline

Now that you have your thesis statement and topic sentences, it's time to create an analytical essay outline to ensure your essay flows logically. Here's an outline prepared by our analytical essay writer based on the example of discussing the benefits and drawbacks of remote work:

Step 5: Write Your First Draft

Now that you have your outline, it's time to start writing your first draft. Begin by expanding upon each point in your outline, making sure to connect your ideas smoothly and logically. Don't worry too much about perfection at this stage; the goal is to get your ideas down on paper. You can always revise and polish your draft later.

As you write, keep referring back to your thesis statement to ensure that your arguments align with your main argument. Additionally, make sure each paragraph flows naturally into the next, maintaining coherence throughout your essay.

Once you've completed your first draft, take a break and then come back to review and revise it. Look for areas where you can strengthen your arguments, clarify your points, and improve the overall structure and flow of your essay.

Remember, writing is a process, and it's okay to go through multiple drafts before you're satisfied with the final result. Take your time and be patient with yourself as you work towards creating a well-crafted essay on the benefits and drawbacks of remote work.

Step 6: Revise and Proofread

Once you've completed your first draft, it's essential to revise and proofread your essay to ensure clarity, coherence, and correctness. Here's how to approach this step:

• Check if your ideas make sense and if they support your main point.
• Make sure your writing style stays the same and your format follows the rules.
• Double-check your facts and make sure you've covered everything important.
• Cut out any extra words and make your sentences clear and short.
• Look for mistakes in spelling and grammar.
• Ask someone to read your essay and give you feedback.

What is the Purpose of an Analytical Essay?

Analytical essays aim to analyze texts or topics, presenting a clear argument. They deepen understanding by evaluating evidence and uncovering underlying meanings. These essays promote critical thinking, challenging readers to consider different viewpoints.

They're also great for improving critical thinking skills. By breaking down complex ideas and presenting them clearly, they encourage readers to think for themselves and reach their own conclusions.

This type of essay also adds to academic discussions by offering fresh insights. By analyzing existing research and literature, they bring new perspectives or shine a light on overlooked parts of a topic. This keeps academic conversations lively and encourages more exploration in the field.

Analytical Essay Examples

Check out our essay samples to see theory in action. Crafted by our dissertation services , they show how analytical thinking applies to real situations, helping you understand concepts better.

With our tips on how to write an analytical essay, you're ready to boost your writing skills and craft essays that captivate your audience. With practice, you'll become a pro at analytical writing, ready to tackle any topic with confidence. And, if you need help to buy essay online , just drop us a line saying ' do my homework for me ' and we'll jump right in!

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Daniel Parker

is a seasoned educational writer focusing on scholarship guidance, research papers, and various forms of academic essays including reflective and narrative essays. His expertise also extends to detailed case studies. A scholar with a background in English Literature and Education, Daniel’s work on EssayPro blog aims to support students in achieving academic excellence and securing scholarships. His hobbies include reading classic literature and participating in academic forums.

is an expert in nursing and healthcare, with a strong background in history, law, and literature. Holding advanced degrees in nursing and public health, his analytical approach and comprehensive knowledge help students navigate complex topics. On EssayPro blog, Adam provides insightful articles on everything from historical analysis to the intricacies of healthcare policies. In his downtime, he enjoys historical documentaries and volunteering at local clinics.

The Ultimate Guide to Analytical Essay Writing: How to Craft an A-Grade Paper?

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17 minutes read

Author:  Kate Smith

An analytical essay is often considered the most challenging piece of writing. However, those who have dealt with it at least once are a step closer to calling themselves masters of essay writing. This type of paper requires plenty of analytical skills to carry out an in-depth analysis of the assigned topic. Yet, the main goal of an analytical essay is not only to demonstrate your ability to learn the basics of the theme.

You also need to think critically, analyze facts, express your standpoint, and clearly show a deep understanding of key concepts. In short, your main task as an author is to prove the validity of your views by coming up with strong arguments that do not beg any questions.

The given guide provides a full analytical essay definition, as well as specifies its features and structural aspects. The following information will help you properly start your paper, choose a relevant topic, and come up with compelling conclusions. 

What is an Analytical Essay?

An analytical essay is a piece of writing aimed to provide a thorough analysis of a definite phenomenon using persuasive arguments and supporting assertions. Analysis in the analytical essay writing process stands for a method of research that allows one to study specific features of an object. Analytical papers also have to do with analysis of a specific problem; that is consideration of the problem itself and identification of its key patterns. The subject matter of analysis can be a well-known or little-studied scientific phenomenon, artistic work, historical event, social problem, etc.

The content of an analytical essay will totally depend on the object that has been chosen for analysis. Thus, when shedding light on any kind of scientific work, an analytical essay can be devoted to the analysis of research credibility, its relevance, or the adequacy of conclusions. When considering a work of art, an essay writer can focus on the analysis of the author’s artistic techniques or issues raised in the book. For this reason, it is essential to accurately determine the topic and subject matter of your future analytical essay.

Steps to Take Before Writing

The preparational stage of analytical essay writing cannot be omitted. It lays the basis for the A-grade paper and should be carefully completed. If you don’t know how to start an analytical essay, read a few handy tips that will ensure a solid foundation for your paper.  

Define a subject matter

You first need to clearly understand the issue you will base your essay on. Since analytical essays imply an in-depth analysis of a specific problem, you need to define its core. Try to split the analysis into several components and provide arguments taken either from a book, a research, a scientific work, or a movie (depending on the subject matter of your analysis), and support your views comprehensively.

Decide on the content of your analytical essay

If you are a student who was given an analytical essay topic, read the task several times before you are 100% sure that you clearly understand the requirements as to the analytical essay format. In case you were lucky to choose the topic of the analytical paper by yourself, make sure the theme you will be dealing with is familiar or at least seems interesting to you. 

Remember that different subject matters require a different approach to their analysis. If you examine some literature work, you can prove your opinion based on the deeds of a certain or several characters. But if you have been assigned the task to elaborate on some historic events, analyze their main causes, driving forces that have affected their course, and their global consequences.  

Take care of the proper start

Don’t forget to start your analytical essay with a thesis statement. It is a sentence or a couple of sentences that aim to summarize the key statements of your paper. A thesis statement should provide readers with a preliminary idea of what your essay is all about.  

Find extra reasoning

Make sure your thesis is supported by compelling arguments. To find enough evidence, you should carry out a thorough analysis of the assigned topic. List the crucial points of your research and ponder over the ways they can be used to prove your final opinion. 

Elaborate the outline

A sound outline elaborated at the preparation stage will help you ensure a proper analytical essay structure and make the overall writing process easier. As a rule, an analytical essay consists of an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Your outline plan should include the key arguments you want to discuss in each paragraph. 

Analytical Essay Thesis

A thesis statement represents the central idea of your paper and must serve as strong proof of your standpoint. While elaborating your thesis statement, it is crucial to include it at the end of the first paragraph and thus set a direction for the overall paper. 

Analytical Essay Outline

An outline is not a required element of analytical essays writing and should not be included in the text, but it can greatly facilitate the whole process of paper writing.

The analytical essay structure looks as follows:

Introduction

In the introduction of an analytical essay, you will need to identify your paper’s subject matter. Mention the purpose of your work and specify its scope of research. Don’t forget to include a thesis to let readers know what your work is about.

Body Section

As has already been mentioned, the body section covers three or more main paragraphs, each being supported with arguments and details. Besides, you need to provide a small conclusion to each statement to make your essay sound professional and persuasive. 

At this stage, you need to summarize the points elucidated in your paper and make sure there is a smooth and logical transition from the body section to the concluding part of the text. If you don’t know how to conclude an analytical essay, try to restate the thesis statement without copying it word for word.  

Analytical Essay Examples

Writing an analytical essay may seem to be a thorny way. If you are still not sure how to properly craft one, try to find some examples that will help you go in the right direction. Below, there are some great examples of analytical essays. Take a look at their structure and try to write something similar based on your views and ideas:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JeR4i4RIZIj448W3KVFyHP-eS3QPN7gW/view

https://stlcc.edu/docs/student-support/academic-support/college-writing-center/rhetorical-analysis-sample-essay.pdf

https://www.germanna.eduhttp://handmadewriting.com/wp-content/uploads/tutoring/handouts/Literary-Analysis-Sample-Paper.pdf

30 Analytical Essay Topics

If you were allowed to choose the theme for your paper by yourself, check on the following analytical essay topics. Each of them can bring you the highest score:

General topics

• The influence of social networks on the life of teens
• Are salaries of football players too high?
• Wearing uniforms in schools should be banned
• A person in society: the problems of loneliness and privacy
• Sociology of corporate relationships
• Does the observation of space need more investments?
• Should the voting age in the UK be decreased?
• Reasons why capital punishment should be brought back in the UK
• A world with no rules: a new human era or a road to the global collapse?
• Life without technologies: will modern people survive?
• Should scientists test drugs on animals to fight cancer?
• The problem of keeping the balance between career and family life
• The importance of listening to your body 
• Problems caused by the lack of communication
• Food addiction and the problems it causes
• Problems of vaccination in the XXI century
• Does evil really rule the world?
• How does body size affect life quality?
• Pros and cons of video games 
• The role of a family model in the life and career of a person

Analytical Essay Topics on Literature

• “Robinson Crusoe”: fantasy vs reality
• Observation of the artistic uniqueness in the comedy by W. Shakespeare “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” 
• Observe the social problems in the novel by John Steinbeck “The Grapes of Wrath”
• Convulsions and death of the “little man” in the networks of impersonal, alienated forces in the novel “The Metamorphosis”
• Observation of the problems of a man on a plagued land in the novel “The Plague”
• Revolt of the protagonist in the novel by J. Salinger “The Catcher in the Rye”
• Observation of friendship and love in the fate of humanity in the XX century
• The triumph of immorality in the novel by F. Sagan “Hello Sadness”
• Observation of the personality of an American student in the novel by J. Salinger “The Catcher in the Rye”
• Eternal tragedies of humanity in the tragedy by W. Shakespeare “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark”

How to Write a Well-Structured Analytical Essay With a Solid Argument

Writing an analytical essay with a clear structure might be challenging unless you are thoroughly prepared. We decided to help you out and create a detailed guide listing the main things to consider when creating an analytical essay outline. You need to explain your main idea in a concise way to bring your point across. As analytical writing has high requirements, it pays off to find an analytical essay example and analyze how this text was written. It will allow you to understand the analytical essay format better and learn how to provide substantive analysis on various topics. Read on to learn how to write a top-level analytical paper and submit it on time.

Main Tips for Writing an Analytical Essay

An analytical essay should provide a comprehensive analysis of a chosen topic. What makes an analysis essay different from other assignments is that it includes a personal opinion of an author. This is why analytical writing should be persuasive.

Below, we have rounded up the key tips you need to follow when producing an analytical essay outline and the main body of your text. Read on to learn more about the analytical essay format and create a text that will fully meet the requirements.

Select an Analytical Essay Topic

Before creating an analytical essay outline, make sure to pick a topic that you are interested in. It should be provocative enough to engage your readers. A widely-debated topic will help you write an analytical essay that grabs the attention of a wide audience.

Consider your goals and conduct thorough research to see if you have enough sources to support the main thesis of your analysis essay.

Come Up With a Strong Analytical Thesis Statement

When writing an analytical essay, start by formulating a thesis statement that includes the topic and the main goal of your text. It will help you create an analytical essay outline and show your readers what you will discuss in your analysis essay.

Add it to the last paragraph of your analytical essay introduction. Due to this, your analytical essay outline will look better structured. Look at any analytical essay example to see how you can introduce your subject. In most cases, one sentence will suffice to state your analysis essay’s goal. However, a complex analytical essay outline might require you to use two sentences for a thesis statement.

Write an Analytical Essay Body with a Clear Structure

Your analytical essay outline should include 3-4 paragraphs. However, a literary analysis essay usually consists of 5 paragraphs. When it comes to analytical writing, it is important to cover a different point in each section of the main body of an analysis paper.

After writing an analytical essay, check whether each paragraph contains an introduction and the main point. Besides, it should contain evidence. An expertly written analytical essay outline will help you reach out to your target audience more effectively.

Conduct Research Before Writing an Analytical Essay Outline

While this step is preparatory, it is a must for those who want to write a well-grounded analytical paper.

• First, select the best ideas for your essay
• Then, emphasize the problems with works written by other researchers
• Finally, write your analytical essay outline to demonstrate what approach you want to take

Examine the context and find examples to illustrate the scope of the issue. You may draw parallels to emphasize your point and make your topic more relatable.

Analyze the Implications of the Evidence

After listing your pieces of evidence and demonstrating how it is related to your thesis, show why it is important. You need to explore it deeply and use it to support your argument. It will make your analytical essay outline well-grounded facts.

Write an Analytical Essay Conclusion

Whether you write a literary analysis essay or other types of assignments, there is no need to add any new data at the end of your analysis paper. Instead, summarize the arguments you mentioned in your analytical essay outline. The conclusion of your analysis essay should be short and clear. Here, you need to demonstrate that you have achieved your goals.

Analytical Essay Writing Tips

If you want to get the highest grade for your analytical essay, you need to know a little bit more than just the basics of paper writing. Read these handy tips to write a perfect essay you will be proud of:

• Double-check your paper for spelling and grammar mistakes. In case your essay contains too many errors, neither an in-depth analysis nor the elaborate writing style will make it look any better. Situations when essays of great value in terms of research and a message they convey are poorly assessed because of the abundance of mistakes are not rare. Make sure you have enough time to proofread your paper before submission. Also, you may consider asking somebody to take a fresh look at your essay and check it for you.
• Reading your analytical essay out loud helps you discover all types of errors or weak phrases. This method might seem a bit uncomfortable, but it has proved to be very effective for many students. Note that silent reading of your paper isn’t even half as helpful as reading it aloud. 
• Another great idea to check on the rhythm and flow of your paper is to ask someone to read it for you. While listening to the text, you could perceive it from another perspective and discover even more inconsistencies and mistakes.  
• Double-check the facts you use in your analytical essay. The names of people, books, research, publications, as well as dates of historical events are too important to be misspelled. Things like these show your professionalism and the way you treat your readers.

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Sat / act prep online guides and tips, 5 steps to write a great analytical essay.

General Education

Do you need to write an analytical essay for school? What sets this kind of essay apart from other types, and what must you include when you write your own analytical essay? In this guide, we break down the process of writing an analytical essay by explaining the key factors your essay needs to have, providing you with an outline to help you structure your essay, and analyzing a complete analytical essay example so you can see what a finished essay looks like.

What Is an Analytical Essay?

Before you begin writing an analytical essay, you must know what this type of essay is and what it includes. Analytical essays analyze something, often (but not always) a piece of writing or a film.

An analytical essay is more than just a synopsis of the issue though; in this type of essay you need to go beyond surface-level analysis and look at what the key arguments/points of this issue are and why. If you’re writing an analytical essay about a piece of writing, you’ll look into how the text was written and why the author chose to write it that way. Instead of summarizing, an analytical essay typically takes a narrower focus and looks at areas such as major themes in the work, how the author constructed and supported their argument, how the essay used literary devices to enhance its messages, etc.

While you certainly want people to agree with what you’ve written, unlike with persuasive and argumentative essays, your main purpose when writing an analytical essay isn’t to try to convert readers to your side of the issue. Therefore, you won’t be using strong persuasive language like you would in those essay types. Rather, your goal is to have enough analysis and examples that the strength of your argument is clear to readers.

Besides typical essay components like an introduction and conclusion, a good analytical essay will include:

• A thesis that states your main argument
• Analysis that relates back to your thesis and supports it
• Examples to support your analysis and allow a more in-depth look at the issue

In the rest of this article, we’ll explain how to include each of these in your analytical essay.

How to Structure Your Analytical Essay

Analytical essays are structured similarly to many other essays you’ve written, with an introduction (including a thesis), several body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Below is an outline you can follow when structuring your essay, and in the next section we go into more detail on how to write an analytical essay.

Introduction

Your introduction will begin with some sort of attention-grabbing sentence to get your audience interested, then you’ll give a few sentences setting up the topic so that readers have some context, and you’ll end with your thesis statement. Your introduction will include:

• Brief background information explaining the issue/text
• Your thesis

Body Paragraphs

Your analytical essay will typically have three or four body paragraphs, each covering a different point of analysis. Begin each body paragraph with a sentence that sets up the main point you’ll be discussing. Then you’ll give some analysis on that point, backing it up with evidence to support your claim. Continue analyzing and giving evidence for your analysis until you’re out of strong points for the topic. At the end of each body paragraph, you may choose to have a transition sentence that sets up what the next paragraph will be about, but this isn’t required. Body paragraphs will include:

• Introductory sentence explaining what you’ll cover in the paragraph (sort of like a mini-thesis)
• Analysis point
• Evidence (either passages from the text or data/facts) that supports the analysis
• (Repeat analysis and evidence until you run out of examples)

You won’t be making any new points in your conclusion; at this point you’re just reiterating key points you’ve already made and wrapping things up. Begin by rephrasing your thesis and summarizing the main points you made in the essay. Someone who reads just your conclusion should be able to come away with a basic idea of what your essay was about and how it was structured. After this, you may choose to make some final concluding thoughts, potentially by connecting your essay topic to larger issues to show why it’s important. A conclusion will include:

• Paraphrase of thesis
• Summary of key points of analysis
• Final concluding thought(s)

5 Steps for Writing an Analytical Essay

Follow these five tips to break down writing an analytical essay into manageable steps. By the end, you’ll have a fully-crafted analytical essay with both in-depth analysis and enough evidence to support your argument. All of these steps use the completed analytical essay in the next section as an example.

#1: Pick a Topic

You may have already had a topic assigned to you, and if that’s the case, you can skip this step. However, if you haven’t, or if the topic you’ve been assigned is broad enough that you still need to narrow it down, then you’ll need to decide on a topic for yourself. Choosing the right topic can mean the difference between an analytical essay that’s easy to research (and gets you a good grade) and one that takes hours just to find a few decent points to analyze

Before you decide on an analytical essay topic, do a bit of research to make sure you have enough examples to support your analysis. If you choose a topic that’s too narrow, you’ll struggle to find enough to write about.

For example, say your teacher assigns you to write an analytical essay about the theme in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath of exposing injustices against migrants. For it to be an analytical essay, you can’t just recount the injustices characters in the book faced; that’s only a summary and doesn’t include analysis. You need to choose a topic that allows you to analyze the theme. One of the best ways to explore a theme is to analyze how the author made his/her argument. One example here is that Steinbeck used literary devices in the intercalary chapters (short chapters that didn’t relate to the plot or contain the main characters of the book) to show what life was like for migrants as a whole during the Dust Bowl.

You could write about how Steinbeck used literary devices throughout the whole book, but, in the essay below, I chose to just focus on the intercalary chapters since they gave me enough examples. Having a narrower focus will nearly always result in a tighter and more convincing essay (and can make compiling examples less overwhelming).

#2: Write a Thesis Statement

Your thesis statement is the most important sentence of your essay; a reader should be able to read just your thesis and understand what the entire essay is about and what you’ll be analyzing. When you begin writing, remember that each sentence in your analytical essay should relate back to your thesis

In the analytical essay example below, the thesis is the final sentence of the first paragraph (the traditional spot for it). The thesis is: “In The Grapes of Wrath’s intercalary chapters, John Steinbeck employs a variety of literary devices and stylistic choices to better expose the injustices committed against migrants in the 1930s.” So what will this essay analyze? How Steinbeck used literary devices in the intercalary chapters to show how rough migrants could have it. Crystal clear.

#3: Do Research to Find Your Main Points

This is where you determine the bulk of your analysis--the information that makes your essay an analytical essay. My preferred method is to list every idea that I can think of, then research each of those and use the three or four strongest ones for your essay. Weaker points may be those that don’t relate back to the thesis, that you don’t have much analysis to discuss, or that you can’t find good examples for. A good rule of thumb is to have one body paragraph per main point

This essay has four main points, each of which analyzes a different literary device Steinbeck uses to better illustrate how difficult life was for migrants during the Dust Bowl. The four literary devices and their impact on the book are:

• Lack of individual names in intercalary chapters to illustrate the scope of the problem
• Parallels to the Bible to induce sympathy for the migrants
• Non-showy, often grammatically-incorrect language so the migrants are more realistic and relatable to readers
• Nature-related metaphors to affect the mood of the writing and reflect the plight of the migrants

#4: Find Excerpts or Evidence to Support Your Analysis

Now that you have your main points, you need to back them up. If you’re writing a paper about a text or film, use passages/clips from it as your main source of evidence. If you’re writing about something else, your evidence can come from a variety of sources, such as surveys, experiments, quotes from knowledgeable sources etc. Any evidence that would work for a regular research paper works here.

In this example, I quoted multiple passages from The Grapes of Wrath  in each paragraph to support my argument. You should be able to back up every claim you make with evidence in order to have a strong essay.

#5: Put It All Together

Now it's time to begin writing your essay, if you haven’t already. Create an introductory paragraph that ends with the thesis, make a body paragraph for each of your main points, including both analysis and evidence to back up your claims, and wrap it all up with a conclusion that recaps your thesis and main points and potentially explains the big picture importance of the topic.

Analytical Essay Example + Analysis

So that you can see for yourself what a completed analytical essay looks like, here’s an essay I wrote back in my high school days. It’s followed by analysis of how I structured my essay, what its strengths are, and how it could be improved.

One way Steinbeck illustrates the connections all migrant people possessed and the struggles they faced is by refraining from using specific titles and names in his intercalary chapters. While The Grapes of Wrath focuses on the Joad family, the intercalary chapters show that all migrants share the same struggles and triumphs as the Joads. No individual names are used in these chapters; instead the people are referred to as part of a group. Steinbeck writes, “Frantic men pounded on the doors of the doctors; and the doctors were busy.  And sad men left word at country stores for the coroner to send a car,” (555). By using generic terms, Steinbeck shows how the migrants are all linked because they have gone through the same experiences. The grievances committed against one family were committed against thousands of other families; the abuse extends far beyond what the Joads experienced. The Grapes of Wrath frequently refers to the importance of coming together; how, when people connect with others their power and influence multiplies immensely. Throughout the novel, the goal of the migrants, the key to their triumph, has been to unite. While their plans are repeatedly frustrated by the government and police, Steinbeck’s intercalary chapters provide a way for the migrants to relate to one another because they have encountered the same experiences. Hundreds of thousands of migrants fled to the promised land of California, but Steinbeck was aware that numbers alone were impersonal and lacked the passion he desired to spread. Steinbeck created the intercalary chapters to show the massive numbers of people suffering, and he created the Joad family to evoke compassion from readers.  Because readers come to sympathize with the Joads, they become more sensitive to the struggles of migrants in general. However, John Steinbeck frequently made clear that the Joads were not an isolated incident; they were not unique. Their struggles and triumphs were part of something greater. Refraining from specific names in his intercalary chapters allows Steinbeck to show the vastness of the atrocities committed against migrants.

Steinbeck also creates significant parallels to the Bible in his intercalary chapters in order to enhance his writing and characters. By using simple sentences and stylized writing, Steinbeck evokes Biblical passages. The migrants despair, “No work till spring. No work,” (556).  Short, direct sentences help to better convey the desperateness of the migrants’ situation. Throughout his novel, John Steinbeck makes connections to the Bible through his characters and storyline. Jim Casy’s allusions to Christ and the cycle of drought and flooding are clear biblical references.  By choosing to relate The Grapes of Wrath to the Bible, Steinbeck’s characters become greater than themselves. Starving migrants become more than destitute vagrants; they are now the chosen people escaping to the promised land. When a forgotten man dies alone and unnoticed, it becomes a tragedy. Steinbeck writes, “If [the migrants] were shot at, they did not run, but splashed sullenly away; and if they were hit, they sank tiredly in the mud,” (556). Injustices committed against the migrants become greater because they are seen as children of God through Steinbeck’s choice of language. Referencing the Bible strengthens Steinbeck’s novel and purpose: to create understanding for the dispossessed.  It is easy for people to feel disdain for shabby vagabonds, but connecting them to such a fundamental aspect of Christianity induces sympathy from readers who might have otherwise disregarded the migrants as so many other people did.

The simple, uneducated dialogue Steinbeck employs also helps to create a more honest and meaningful representation of the migrants, and it makes the migrants more relatable to readers. Steinbeck chooses to accurately represent the language of the migrants in order to more clearly illustrate their lives and make them seem more like real paper than just characters in a book. The migrants lament, “They ain’t gonna be no kinda work for three months,” (555). There are multiple grammatical errors in that single sentence, but it vividly conveys the despair the migrants felt better than a technically perfect sentence would. The Grapes of Wrath is intended to show the severe difficulties facing the migrants so Steinbeck employs a clear, pragmatic style of writing.  Steinbeck shows the harsh, truthful realities of the migrants’ lives and he would be hypocritical if he chose to give the migrants a more refined voice and not portray them with all their shortcomings. The depiction of the migrants as imperfect through their language also makes them easier to relate to. Steinbeck’s primary audience was the middle class, the less affluent of society. Repeatedly in The Grapes of Wrath , the wealthy make it obvious that they scorn the plight of the migrants. The wealthy, not bad luck or natural disasters, were the prominent cause of the suffering of migrant families such as the Joads. Thus, Steinbeck turns to the less prosperous for support in his novel. When referring to the superior living conditions barnyard animals have, the migrants remark, “Them’s horses-we’re men,” (556).  The perfect simplicity of this quote expresses the absurdness of the migrants’ situation better than any flowery expression could.

In The Grapes of Wrath , John Steinbeck uses metaphors, particularly about nature, in order to illustrate the mood and the overall plight of migrants. Throughout most of the book, the land is described as dusty, barren, and dead. Towards the end, however; floods come and the landscape begins to change. At the end of chapter twenty-nine, Steinbeck describes a hill after the floods saying, “Tiny points of grass came through the earth, and in a few days the hills were pale green with the beginning year,” (556). This description offers a stark contrast from the earlier passages which were filled with despair and destruction. Steinbeck’s tone from the beginning of the chapter changes drastically. Early in the chapter, Steinbeck had used heavy imagery in order to convey the destruction caused by the rain, “The streams and the little rivers edged up to the bank sides and worked at willows and tree roots, bent the willows deep in the current, cut out the roots of cottonwoods and brought down the trees,” (553). However, at the end of the chapter the rain has caused new life to grow in California. The new grass becomes a metaphor representing hope. When the migrants are at a loss over how they will survive the winter, the grass offers reassurance. The story of the migrants in the intercalary chapters parallels that of the Joads. At the end of the novel, the family is breaking apart and has been forced to flee their home. However, both the book and final intercalary chapter end on a hopeful note after so much suffering has occurred. The grass metaphor strengthens Steinbeck’s message because it offers a tangible example of hope. Through his language Steinbeck’s themes become apparent at the end of the novel. Steinbeck affirms that persistence, even when problems appear insurmountable, leads to success. These metaphors help to strengthen Steinbeck’s themes in The Grapes of Wrath because they provide a more memorable way to recall important messages.

John Steinbeck’s language choices help to intensify his writing in his intercalary chapters and allow him to more clearly show how difficult life for migrants could be. Refraining from using specific names and terms allows Steinbeck to show that many thousands of migrants suffered through the same wrongs. Imitating the style of the Bible strengthens Steinbeck’s characters and connects them to the Bible, perhaps the most famous book in history. When Steinbeck writes in the imperfect dialogue of the migrants, he creates a more accurate portrayal and makes the migrants easier to relate to for a less affluent audience. Metaphors, particularly relating to nature, strengthen the themes in The Grapes of Wrath by enhancing the mood Steinbeck wants readers to feel at different points in the book. Overall, the intercalary chapters that Steinbeck includes improve his novel by making it more memorable and reinforcing the themes Steinbeck embraces throughout the novel. Exemplary stylistic devices further persuade readers of John Steinbeck’s personal beliefs. Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath to bring to light cruelties against migrants, and by using literary devices effectively, he continuously reminds readers of his purpose. Steinbeck’s impressive language choices in his intercalary chapters advance the entire novel and help to create a classic work of literature that people still are able to relate to today. 

This essay sticks pretty closely to the standard analytical essay outline. It starts with an introduction, where I chose to use a quote to start off the essay. (This became my favorite way to start essays in high school because, if I wasn’t sure what to say, I could outsource the work and find a quote that related to what I’d be writing about.) The quote in this essay doesn’t relate to the themes I’m discussing quite as much as it could, but it’s still a slightly different way to start an essay and can intrigue readers. I then give a bit of background on The Grapes of Wrath and its themes before ending the intro paragraph with my thesis: that Steinbeck used literary devices in intercalary chapters to show how rough migrants had it.

Each of my four body paragraphs is formatted in roughly the same way: an intro sentence that explains what I’ll be discussing, analysis of that main point, and at least two quotes from the book as evidence.

My conclusion restates my thesis, summarizes each of four points I discussed in my body paragraphs, and ends the essay by briefly discussing how Steinbeck’s writing helped introduce a world of readers to the injustices migrants experienced during the dust bowl.

What does this analytical essay example do well? For starters, it contains everything that a strong analytical essay should, and it makes that easy to find. The thesis clearly lays out what the essay will be about, the first sentence of each of the body paragraph introduces the topic it’ll cover, and the conclusion neatly recaps all the main points. Within each of the body paragraphs, there’s analysis along with multiple excerpts from the book in order to add legitimacy to my points.

Additionally, the essay does a good job of taking an in-depth look at the issue introduced in the thesis. Four ways Steinbeck used literary devices are discussed, and for each of the examples are given and analysis is provided so readers can understand why Steinbeck included those devices and how they helped shaped how readers viewed migrants and their plight.

Where could this essay be improved? I believe the weakest body paragraph is the third one, the one that discusses how Steinbeck used plain, grammatically incorrect language to both accurately depict the migrants and make them more relatable to readers. The paragraph tries to touch on both of those reasons and ends up being somewhat unfocused as a result. It would have been better for it to focus on just one of those reasons (likely how it made the migrants more relatable) in order to be clearer and more effective. It’s a good example of how adding more ideas to an essay often doesn’t make it better if they don’t work with the rest of what you’re writing. This essay also could explain the excerpts that are included more and how they relate to the points being made. Sometimes they’re just dropped in the essay with the expectation that the readers will make the connection between the example and the analysis. This is perhaps especially true in the second body paragraph, the one that discusses similarities to Biblical passages. Additional analysis of the quotes would have strengthened it.

Summary: How to Write an Analytical Essay

What is an analytical essay? A critical analytical essay analyzes a topic, often a text or film. The analysis paper uses evidence to support the argument, such as excerpts from the piece of writing. All analytical papers include a thesis, analysis of the topic, and evidence to support that analysis.

When developing an analytical essay outline and writing your essay, follow these five steps:

Reading analytical essay examples can also give you a better sense of how to structure your essay and what to include in it.

What's Next?

Learning about different writing styles in school? There are four main writing styles, and it's important to understand each of them. Learn about them in our guide to writing styles , complete with examples.

Writing a research paper for school but not sure what to write about? Our guide to research paper topics has over 100 topics in ten categories so you can be sure to find the perfect topic for you.

Literary devices can both be used to enhance your writing and communication. Check out this list of 31 literary devices to learn more !

Christine graduated from Michigan State University with degrees in Environmental Biology and Geography and received her Master's from Duke University. In high school she scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT and was named a National Merit Finalist. She has taught English and biology in several countries.

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Analytical Essay Guide

Analytical Essay Writing

Last updated on: Feb 9, 2023

How to Write an Analytical Essay - Step-by-Step Guide

By: Dorothy M.

Reviewed By: Chris H.

Published on: Nov 12, 2019

An analytical essay is a common assignment that high school and college students often need to do. It is the most difficult type of essay that requires a thorough investigation of a topic and its substantial analysis.

Are you having difficulty writing a good analytical essay?

Here is a step-by-step guide on how to write an analytical essay.

This blog will help you understand the core basics of an analytical essay. Once you are done reading it, you will be ready to write your essay easily.

On this Page

What is an Analytical Essay?

According to an analytical essay definition, ‘it is a piece of writing in which the writer analyzes, interprets and critiques a work of art, situation, issue, or a particular event.’ Such essays aim to break down a topic into several subparts and dissect and analyze them in detail and find out the main points.

Analytical essay writing significantly differs from other types of essays. High school students often confuse this type of essay with argumentative essays. However, there is a sharp contrast between them.

The main goal of an analytical essay is to analyze the main topic and convince the reader about your viewpoint. On the contrary, an argumentative essay aims to present a claim about the topic and prove it written with evidence.

How to Start an Analytical Essay?

To write a good analytical essay, you must first spend your time planning for it. Let’s take a look at what the prewriting stage looks like.

• Find the Focus

Students can write an analysis essay on a literary work, a film or a play, or even an issue or problem faced by society.

So the first step is figuring out the core focus of your essay and presenting relevant facts. The evidence can be collected from a novel or film, or it could be the findings of your research that back up your point of view.

• Choose Your Topic

You can only start writing your essay once you have a topic in mind. Most professors like to assign a topic themselves; however, if you are allowed to pick the topic yourself, you have an edge.

You can go with the idea that you are passionate about and find interesting. It will make researching and writing the essay itself a fun and simple process for you.

• Form a Thesis Statement

Once you have chosen the topic for your essay, the next step is crafting the analytical essay thesis statement. A thesis statement is the basis of your overall essay.

The purpose of a thesis statement is to inform the readers about the purpose of your essay and the rhetorical question discussed throughout the paper.

• Find Supporting Evidence

The next step is finding evidence that supports your argument. You can opt for primary or secondary sources, depending on the requirements of your assignment. Look for evidence that is authentic yet persuasive and directly related to the thesis to support your claim. Use transition words to create proper linkage in the provided information.

• Add Contextual Evidence

Besides adding facts and evidence from credible and relevant sources, you should add quotes and paraphrased passages from the text. In an analytical essay example on a book, it is necessary to add phrases and quotes from the text as the main evidence. Reading the text from books or credible sources will help you collect relevant examples.

Adding textual examples build credibility as the reader would know that you know your work inside out. It will also help you support your thesis statement and the main claim of the essay.

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How to Write an Analytical Essay?

Analytical writing can prove to be a difficult task for students but certainly not impossible. To learn how to write an analytical essay step-by-step, follow the guidelines given below.

The goal of analytical essay topics and essays is to explain a topic in detail. It aims to increase the reader’s understanding.

Create an Analytical Essay Outline Worksheet

The first step to write a compelling and strong analytical essay is to craft a detailed outline worksheet for your essay. Preparing a good and detailed outline will help you in focusing on the main topic.

The outline includes the following key sections:

• Introduction

1. Write an Impressive Analytical Essay Introduction

The essay introduction aims to provide the reader with basic background information on the issue. An introduction section starts with a hook, an interesting and engaging fact or statement. Consider it first and probably the last chance to impress your readers.

The introduction should be exciting and leave the reader wanting to know more. However, be specific and keep everything brief. Do not overwhelm your readers with tons of information, and keep the details for the latter part of the essay.

2. Write a Concise Thesis Statement

The thesis statement comes after the introduction, and it is usually a one or two-liner. It is the core essence of the entire essay, and this is why it should be brief and to the point. It is usually written at the end of the introduction and is a small section.

To make it impressive, mention the main theme of the essay briefly.

3. Write Analytical Essay Body Paragraphs

The body of any essay is the main part that consists of the flesh of the essay. Writing an analytical essay, the number of body paragraphs varies, depending upon the complexity of the topic.

Generally, each paragraph comprises a topic sentence, analysis of the original text, and evidence from the text that proves your opinion. Use this opportunity to compare and contrast different views about the topic and then present your perspective.

Please remember that each paragraph must present a single idea or topic. Do not try to add multiple ideas into a single paragraph.

4. Write Analytical Essay Conclusion

Want to know how to conclude an analysis paper strongly?

Writing a conclusion has the same importance as the introductory paragraph. Use the conclusion to prove how and why your point of view was correct. Summarize all the main points, bring the discussion closer, and restate the thesis in a global context.

However, don’t introduce new ideas at this stage. It will only confuse your reader further. Explain the importance of the issue and your stance on it to the reader.

How to Perfect Your Analytical Essay?

Once you have finished the writing process, the next step is to perfect your draft. To do so, you must practice the following techniques.

• Make it Error-Free

If your essay tackles an important issue and presents a solid argument, but at the same time, if it has grammatical or spelling errors, then it won’t come across as a well-written piece of writing.

Before the final submission, make sure that your essay is completely error-free. Check for spelling and grammar and make sure that everything is in line with your analytical essay structure.

Make it your habit to get rid of any mistakes before handing in your paper. You can do this easily by using spelling and grammar check software.

• Read the Essay Out Loud

It may sound weird, but reading the paper aloud will help you identify your paper’s shortcomings. When writing, you may not be able to identify any complex or vague words and phrases. Reading it out loud will help you in picking such words and rectifying them before submission.

Reading it this way will also help you notice the readability of your text. In case something is not falling in place, you can change it at this stage.

• Make Sure that You Have Added All the Necessary Details

Every assignment has specific guidelines and requirements, and as a student, you need to follow all of them. Some details include the analytical essay format, the required number of references, the required number of pages and words, etc. Other details include the correct mentioning of the characters’ names and location, as mentioned in the novel, or your chosen subject.

• Ask a Friend or Sibling to Read it For You

Sometimes we miss minor mistakes and errors, and it is natural. This is why having someone else read it for you will help you in rectifying those mistakes. Ask your friend or a sibling to read it for you and point out structural or any other types of errors.

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Analytical Essay Examples

To help you further, we have added some interesting analytical essay examples and essay samples here. You can download them and use them as a guide for your essay writing process.

ANALYTICAL ESSAY OUTLINE TEMPLATE (PDF)

ANALYTICAL ESSAY EXAMPLE (PDF)

Analytical Essay Topics

The range of analytical essay topics is almost limitless. You can write an analytical essay on topics as wide-ranging as the arts, political movements, social phenomena, scientific methods of discoveries, and current events.

To help you choose a topic for your essay, we have presented some topic ideas below:

• How does fashion influence the lives of teenagers?
• Do you think that footballers are overrated in terms of pay? If yes, then why?
• Can you imagine a world without technology? Prove your arguments with strong evidence.
• Express your views on having school uniforms mandatory. Provide strong arguments and proof.
• The voting age in the US should be revised. Agreed?
• Analyze ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and the theme of fate.
• Explain and analyze different literary terms.
• Discuss and analyze the theme of Ambition in the play ‘Macbeth.’
• Analyze the role of different female characters in ‘Hamlet.’
• Analyze Twain’s ‘Huckleberry Finn’ and discuss the themes of white supremacy and black slavery in the book
• Analyze the concept of ‘Power Corrupts’ in Marlowe’s ‘Doctor Faustus.’
• Identify and analyze different symbols in Samuel Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot.’
• How does the novel ‘Of Mice and Men’ discuss the era of the Great Depression?
• Discuss the elements of fantasy and reality in the play ‘A Streetcar Named Desire.’
• Analyze the various symbols in the play ‘The Glass Menagerie.’
• Is higher education directly related to a higher quality of life?
• Are high school and college exams necessary?
• Is peer pressure affecting students today?
• Analyze the latest presidential speech.
• Analyze the differences between identical twins.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is the purpose of an analytical essay.

An analytical essay is a type of writing where the author explains an idea, describes a process or analyzes the text. It differs from summary in that it focuses on critical analysis instead of just retelling what happened without explanation.

What is the difference between an essay and an analysis?

The sole difference is in the definition and the way both of these are conducted. An analysis could be both verbal and written while an essay could be in written form only.

What is an analytical paragraph?

An analytical paragraph writes down and explains a topic by breaking down the information given in charts, clues, outlines, and other material.

Is academic writing analytical?

Not always but most of the time, academic writing is analytical. It breaks down and analyzes a subject and explains it in detail.

What is analysis in simple terms?

An analysis is the breaking down of a theme, a topic, or an idea to understand it in a better manner.

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Dorothy M. is an experienced freelance writer with over five years of experience in the field. She has a wide client base, and her customers keep returning to her because of her great personalized writing. Dorothy takes care to understand her clients' needs and writes content that engages them and impresses their instructors or readers.

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Guide to writing an analytical essay, carla johnson.

• June 13, 2023
• How to Guides

An analytical essay is a type of academic writing in which a complicated topic or idea is broken down into smaller parts, analyzed and looked at, and a well-structured argument or evaluation is given. The main purpose of an analytical essay is to show that the writer has a deep understanding of the topic and can also think critically about it. Analytical essays are important in many fields, such as literature, history, science, and sociology. They require a deep knowledge of the topic and the ability to think critically and objectively about the information given. Analytical essays include things like a literary analysis, a research paper , or an analysis of a piece of rhetoric. Writing an analytical essay is useful because it helps the writer improve their analytical and critical thinking skills. In analytical essays, students must look at and evaluate different sources, find patterns and relationships, and come to meaningful conclusions. When students write analytical essays, they also improve their research skills because they have to find relevant information from multiple sources and put it all together in a logical argument.

Also, analytical essays are important in academic writing because they help students understand ideas, theories, and concepts that are hard to understand. By breaking a topic down into smaller parts, students can better understand it and figure out what the main ideas and themes are. Analytical essays help students get better at writing by making them present their arguments in a way that is clear, concise, and well-organized. Writing an analytical essay is a skill that students need to learn if they want to do well in school and in their careers. For analytical essays, you need to be able to think critically , do research, and write well, all of which are important for success in many fields. By getting better at these skills, students can become better writers and thinkers, which will help them reach their academic and career goals.

What You'll Learn

Understanding the Basics of Analytical Essays

There are a few main things that set an analytical essay apart from other types of essays. One of the most important things about it is that it requires a thorough look at the subject. An analytical essay isn’t just a description of a topic or a point of view. Instead, it calls for a thorough look at the subject, breaking it down into its different parts and evaluating each one carefully.

Argumentative essays try to convince the reader to agree with a certain point of view. Descriptive essays, on the other hand, try to give a detailed description of a topic. Analytical essays, on the other hand, require the writer to look at the topic objectively and judge it, as well as use evidence from different sources to back up their claims. In an analytical essay, you can’t say enough about how important analysis is. Analysis is the process of breaking down big ideas or thoughts into smaller, more manageable pieces. By analyzing the topic, the writer can find the main ideas, patterns, and connections, which can then be used to back up their arguments.

Also, analysis lets the author draw conclusions that make sense based on the evidence given. If there wasn’t any analysis in an analytical essay, it would just be a list of facts and opinions. Analysis is what gives depth and substance to an analytical essay and lets the writer make a well-reasoned, evidence-based argument.

Analytical essays are different from other types of essays because they focus on analysis and evaluation. They require a thorough look at a subject, breaking it down into its different parts and judging each one objectively. Students can get the skills they need to do well in school and in the workplace by learning what makes an analytical essay unique and what role analysis plays in this type of writing.

Choosing a Topic for Your Analytical Essay

It can be hard to decide what to write about in an analytical essay, but there are several ways to come up with ideas. One way to do this is to make a list of possible topics based on your interests, your schoolwork, or what’s going on in the world right now. You can also find possible topics by reading articles, books, or other materials in your field of study. When choosing a topic for your analytical essay, you should think about a few things. First and foremost, the topic must fit with the needs of the course or assignment. It should also be narrow enough to allow for a detailed analysis while still having enough information for research . Also, the topic should be something you’re interested in as a writer. This will make the writing process more interesting and fun.

To help you get started, here are some examples of potential analytical essay topics:

1. The impact of social media on mental health

2. Analyzing the themes of race and identity in Toni Morrison’s “Beloved”

3. The role of technology in modern education

4. An analysis of the effectiveness of the Affordable Care Act

5. Examining the causes and consequences of income inequality in the United States

6. The portrayal of gender roles in Shakespeare’s plays

7. Analyzing the impact of climate change on global food production

8. A critical analysis of the role of the media in shaping public opinion

9. A comparison of different political ideologies and their impact on society

10. An analysis of the ethical implications of gene editing technology.

A topic for an analytical essay must be chosen with care, taking into account several factors such as relevance, scope, and personal interest. By brainstorming ideas, researching different sources, and applying these criteria, you can choose a topic that is both interesting and informative, allowing you to write a well-researched and well-argued analytical essay.

Conducting Research for Your Analytical Essay

In order to write an analytical essay, you need to do research. It lets the writer gather relevant information, find patterns and relationships, and come to conclusions that make sense. If you didn’t do research for your analytical essay, it wouldn’t have much substance or credibility, and the arguments you made would be weak and not backed up. You can gather information for your analytical essay from a number of different places. There are many examples, such as books, academic journals, online databases, government reports, and reputable news sources. When choosing sources, think about how relevant, reliable, and trustworthy they are. Academic sources like peer-reviewed journals and scholarly books are more reliable and credible than popular sources like blogs and social media posts.

To conduct effective research for your analytical essay, here are some tips to keep in mind:

1. Start early: Give yourself plenty of time to conduct research, as it can be a time-consuming process.

2. Use multiple sources: Gather information from a variety of sources to ensure you have a well-rounded understanding of the topic.

3. Take notes: Keep detailed notes on the information you gather, including the source and page number, to make it easier to cite your sources later.

4. Evaluate your sources: Assess the reliability and credibility of your sources, looking for biases or conflicts of interest that may affect the information presented.

5. Organize your research: Create a system for organizing your research, such as using annotated bibliographies or note-taking apps, to keep track of your sources and ideas.

You can conduct effective research for your analytical essay by following these tips, gathering reliable and credible information that supports your arguments and improves the overall quality of your writing.

Developing a Thesis Statement for Your Analytical Essay

A thesis statement is a short sentence that sums up the main argument or point of an essay. It gives the reader a clear idea of where the author stands on the subject and acts as a road map. In an analytical essay, the thesis statement is very important because it sets the tone for the whole essay and shows the writer how to analyze and evaluate the subject . In an analytical essay, you can’t say enough about how important a strong thesis statement is. A well-written thesis statement states the writer’s main point in a clear and concise way, making it easier for the reader to follow the writer’s thought process and understand the purpose of the essay. A strong thesis statement also helps the writer focus their analysis and evaluation, making sure that each paragraph supports the main point and builds on it.

To develop a strong thesis statement for your analytical essay, here are some tips to consider:

1. Start with a question: Ask yourself a question related to your topic and use the answer to develop your thesis statement.

2. Be specific: Your thesis statement should be specific and focused on the main argument of your essay .

3. Use evidence: Support your thesis statement with evidence from your research, such as quotes or statistics, to give it more credibility and strength.

4. Be original: Your thesis statement should be unique and original, providing a fresh perspective on the topic.

5. Revise as needed: As you write your essay , revisit your thesis statement and revise it if necessary to ensure it remains relevant and accurate.

By following these tips, you can develop a strong thesis statement for your analytical essay, providing a clear and concise statement of your main argument and guiding the reader through your analysis and evaluation of the topic.

Analytical Essay Structure

An analytical essay is made up of an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion, just like a regular essay. The purpose of the introduction is to give background on the topic, introduce the thesis statement, and get the reader interested. Through analysis and evaluation of the topic, the body paragraphs should support the thesis statement with evidence and examples . The conclusion should sum up the main points of the essay and restate the thesis statement in a new way that makes sense.

Here is a more detailed breakdown of the structure of an analytical essay:

1. Introduction: The introduction should set the tone for the essay by providing background information on the subject as well as a clear thesis statement. It should also engage the reader and convey the writer’s point of view on the subject.

2. Body paragraphs: The body of the essay should be divided into several paragraphs, each focusing on a different aspect of the topic. Each paragraph should start with a clear topic sentence that supports the thesis statement and then proceed to an analysis and evaluation of the subject matter, using evidence and examples to support the writer’s argument.

3. Conclusion: The conclusion should summarize the essay’s main points and restate the thesis statement in a new and meaningful way. It should also provide the reader with a sense of closure, leaving them with a clear understanding of the writer’s point of view on the subject.

To organize your ideas in an analytical essay, here are some tips to consider:

1. Create an outline: Before you start writing your essay , create an outline that organizes your ideas and supports your thesis statement. This will help you to organize your thoughts and ensure that each paragraph supports the main argument.

2. Use topic sentences: Each paragraph should begin with a clear topic sentence that supports the thesis statement and provides a roadmap for the reader.

3. Use evidence: Use evidence and examples to support each point you make in your essay , ensuring that each paragraph reinforces the main argument.

4. Use transitions: Use transitional phrases and sentences to connect your ideas and ensure that your essay flows smoothly from one paragraph to the next.

By following these tips, you can organize your ideas effectively in an analytical essay, producing a well-structured and well-supported piece of writing.

Writing the Introduction Paragraph

An analytical essay’s introduction paragraph serves as a road map for the reader, providing background information on the topic, introducing the thesis statement, and engaging the reader. The introduction’s purpose is to set the tone for the essay , grab the reader’s attention, and provide a clear understanding of the writer’s viewpoint on the topic.

To write an engaging introduction paragraph for your analytical essay, here are some tips to consider:

1. Start with a hook: Begin your introduction with a hook that captures the reader’s attention and makes them want to keep reading. This could be a surprising statistic, a provocative question, or a striking image.

2. Provide background information: Provide some context for the topic by providing background information and explaining why it is important.

3. Introduce the thesis statement: Clearly state your thesis statement in the introduction, providing a roadmap for the reader and guiding the rest of your essay.

4. Be concise: Keep your introduction concise and to the point, avoiding unnecessary information or tangents.

5. Revise as needed: As you write your essay, revisit your introduction and revise it as needed to ensure that it remains relevant and engaging.

Here are some examples of effective introduction paragraphs for an analytical essay:

1. “Throughout history, the concept of justice has been a subject of debate and controversy. From the ancient Greeks to modern-day philosophers, the definition and application of justice have been explored in depth. In this essay, I will examine the concept of justice in the context of criminal justice reform and argue that a more restorative approach is needed to address the root causes of crime and reduce recidivism.

2. The rise of social media has had a profound impact on our society, transforming the way we communicate, share information, and interact with the world around us. However, this transformation has not been without its challenges. In this essay, I will explore the impact of social media on mental health and argue that we need to take a more proactive approach to addressing the negative effects of social media on our well-being.

3. “Climate change is one of the most pressing issues of our time, affecting everything from the environment to the economy. Despite the overwhelming scientific evidence, there are still those who deny the reality of climate change or refuse to take action. In this essay, I will analyze the reasons for this denial and argue that we need to take urgent action to address the threat of climate change before it’s too late.”

Writing the Body Paragraphs

An analytical essay’s body paragraphs are where the writer presents their analysis and evaluation of the topic. The purpose of the body paragraphs is to provide evidence and examples to support the thesis statement, while using clear and concise language to make the argument as persuasive as possible.

To write clear and concise body paragraphs for your analytical essay, here are some tips to consider:

1. Use topic sentences: Each body paragraph should begin with a clear topic sentence that supports the thesis statement and provides a roadmap for the reader.

2. Provide evidence: Use evidence and examples to support each point you make in your essay , ensuring that each paragraph reinforces the main argument. The evidence should be relevant, reliable, and credible.

3. Use analysis and evaluation: Analyze and evaluate the evidence you present to demonstrate how it supports your argument. This shows the reader that you have thought deeply about the topic and considered multiple perspectives.

4. Be clear and concise: Use clear and concise language to make your argument as persuasive as possible. Avoid using jargon, complex sentences, or overly technical language that may confuse the reader.

5. Use transitions: Use transitional phrases and sentences to connect your ideas smoothly and ensure that your essay flows from one paragraph to the next.

Here are some examples of effective body paragraphs for an analytical essay:

1. The first reason why a restorative approach to criminal justice reform is necessary is that it addresses the root causes of crime. Rather than simply punishing offenders, restorative justice encourages dialogue between the offender and the victim, allowing both parties to understand the harm that has been caused and work together to find a solution. This approach has been shown to reduce recidivism rates and promote healing within communities.”

2. One of the most significant negative effects of social media on mental health is the increase in anxiety and depression. Studies have shown that social media use is associated with feelings of isolation, comparison, and low self-esteem, all of which contribute to poor mental health . In order to address this issue, we need to take a more proactive approach to promoting mental health and well-being, such as limiting social media use, encouraging face-to-face interactions, and providing mental health resources for those in need.

3. One of the main reasons why climate change denial persists is due to the influence of special interest groups and political ideology . These groups use their resources to spread misinformation and discredit the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change. In order to combat this, we need to prioritize education and awareness, promote scientific literacy, and hold those who spread misinformation accountable for their actions.”

Writing the Conclusion Paragraph

The conclusion paragraph of an analytical essay summarizes the author’s main points and emphasizes the significance of the thesis statement. The conclusion’s goal is to leave a lasting impression on the reader by bringing the essay to a close and reinforcing the main argument .

To write a strong conclusion for your analytical essay, here are some tips to consider:

1. Restate the thesis statement: The conclusion should restate the thesis statement in a new and meaningful way, emphasizing its importance and relevance to the topic.

2. Summarize the main points: Summarize the main points of the essay, highlighting the evidence and examples that support the thesis statement .

3. Provide a final thought: End the essay with a final thought or reflection on the topic, leaving the reader with something to think about or consider.

4. Be concise: Keep the conclusion concise and to the point, avoiding any new information or arguments.

5. Make it memorable: Use language and phrasing that is memorable and impactful, leaving a lasting impression on the reader.

Here are some examples of effective conclusion paragraphs for an analytical essay:

1. “In conclusion, a restorative approach to criminal justice reform is not only necessary but essential. By addressing the root causes of crime, promoting dialogue and understanding, and fostering healing within communities, we can create a more just and equitable society for all.”

2. In order to address the negative effects of social media on mental health , we need to take a more proactive approach to promoting well-being. By limiting social media use, encouraging face-to-face interactions, and providing mental health resources, we can create a healthier and more connected society.

3. “Climate change is one of the most pressing issues of our time, and we must take urgent action to address it. By promoting education and awareness, prioritizing scientific literacy, and holding those who spread misinformation accountable, we can create a more sustainable and equitable future for generations to come.”

Editing and Proofreading Your Analytical Essay

The editing and proofreading stages of the essay writing process are critical. It ensures that the essay is clear, concise, and error-free, improving overall writing quality and the credibility of the arguments presented.

To edit and proofread your analytical essay, here are some tips to consider:

1. Take a break: After completing your essay, take a break before editing and proofreading it. This will allow you to approach the essay with fresh eyes and a clear mind.

2. Read it out loud: Reading the essay out loud can help you to identify awkward phrasing, grammatical errors, and other issues.

3. Be consistent: Ensure that you are consistent in your use of language, formatting, and citation styles throughout the essay.

4. Use a checklist: Use a checklist to ensure that you have addressed all the necessary components of the essay, such as the thesis statement, evidence, and analysis.

5. Get feedback: Ask a friend or colleague to read your essay and provide feedback on areas that need improvement.

Common mistakes to avoid in analytical essays include:

1. Using overly complicated language or jargon that may confuse the reader.

2. Failing to provide evidence or examples to support the thesis statement.

3. Neglecting to address counterarguments or alternative perspectives on the topic.

4. Making unsupported claims or presenting opinions as facts.

5. Failing to proofread and edit the essay thoroughly, leading to grammatical errors and typos.

By following these tips and avoiding common mistakes, you can edit and proofread your analytical essay effectively, producing a well-written and error-free piece of writing.

Analytical Essay Examples

Here are some examples of successful analytical essays:

1. “The Symbolism of the Green Light in The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald: This essay analyzes the symbolism of the green light in the novel, arguing that it represents Gatsby’s hopes and dreams and his ultimate failure to achieve them.

2. “The Rhetoric of Malcolm X” by Malcolm X: In this essay, Malcolm X analyzes his own rhetorical strategies, explaining how he uses language and persuasion to achieve his goals.

3. “The Role of Women in Shakespeare’s Macbeth” by William Shakespeare: This essay analyzes the role of women in the play, arguing that they are often marginalized and oppressed by the male characters.

Each of these essays follows a clear and well-structured format, with a strong thesis statement, supporting evidence, and a clear conclusion. The writers use analysis and evaluation to present their arguments, using evidence and examples to support their claims.

When using analytical essay examples to improve your writing, here are some tips to consider:

1. Choose examples that are relevant to your topic or subject matter.

2. Read the example essays carefully, paying attention to the structure, language, and evidence used.

3. Identify the thesis statement and main arguments of the essay.

4. Analyze the evidence used to support the arguments, evaluating its relevance and credibility.

5. Consider how the writer uses language and rhetoric to persuade the reader.

6. Use The examples as a guide for structuring your own essay, but be sure to use your own unique ideas and perspective.

7. Practice writing your own analytical essays and seek feedback from others to improve your writing skills.

8. Avoid copying or plagiarizing the example essays, as this can lead to serious academic consequences.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. what is an analytical essay.

An analytical essay is a type of academic writing that requires the writer to analyze and evaluate a specific topic or subject matter. The writer presents an argument or thesis statement and supports it with evidence and examples, using analysis and evaluation to persuade the reader.

2. What are the main characteristics of an analytical essay?

The main characteristics of an analytical essay include:

– A clear and concise thesis statement that presents the writer’s argument

– Use of evidence and examples to support the argument

– Analysis and evaluation of the evidence presented

– Clear and logical structure, with well-developed paragraphs and transitions between them

– Use of formal and academic language

– Objective and impartial tone

3. What are some tips for writing an analytical essay?

Here are some tips for writing an analytical essay:

– Choose a topic that interests you and that you can analyze in depth

– Develop a clear and concise thesis statement that presents your argument

– Use evidence and examples to support your argument, ensuring that they are relevant, reliable, and credible

– Analyze and evaluate the evidence presented, demonstrating your critical thinking skills

– Use a clear and logical structure, with well-developed paragraphs and transitions between them

– Use formal and academic language, avoiding slang and colloquialisms

– Edit and proofread your essay thoroughly, ensuring that it is error-free and well-written.

To summarize, writing an effective analytical essay necessitates a thorough understanding of the subject matter, a well-developed thesis statement, strong evidence and analysis, and a clear and logical structure. To summarize the main points covered in this guide:

– The writer of an analytical essay must analyze and evaluate a specific topic or subject matter.

– A clear thesis statement, evidence and examples to support the argument, analysis and evaluation of the evidence, a clear and logical structure, formal and academic language, and an objective tone are the main characteristics of an analytical essay.

– Choosing a relevant topic, developing a clear thesis statement, using credible evidence and examples, analyzing and evaluating the evidence, using a clear and logical structure, using formal and academic language, and thoroughly editing and proofreading the essay are all tips for writing a successful analytical essay.

An effective analytical essay demonstrates critical thinking skills as well as the ability to analyze and evaluate complex issues. It is an important skill for both academic and professional success.

Finally, practicing writing on a regular basis, seeking feedback from others, and reading and analyzing examples of successful analytical essays can all help you improve your own writing skills.

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The Power of Analysis: Tips and Tricks for Writing Analysis Essays: Home

Crystal sosa.

Helpful Links

• Super Search Webpage Where to start your research.
• Scribbr Textual analysis guide.
• Analyzing Texts Prezi Presentation A prezi presentation on analyzing texts.
• Writing Essays Guide A guide to writing essays/
• Why is it important?
• Explanation & Example
• Different Types of Analysis Essays

Text analysis and writing analysis texts are important skills to develop as they allow individuals to critically engage with written material, understand underlying themes and arguments, and communicate their own ideas in a clear and effective manner. These skills are essential in academic and professional settings, as well as in everyday life, as they enable individuals to evaluate information and make informed decisions.

What is Text Analysis?

Text analysis is the process of examining and interpreting a written or spoken text to understand its meaning, structure, and context. It involves breaking down the text into its constituent parts, such as words, phrases, and sentences, and analyzing how they work together to convey a particular message or idea.

Text analysis can be used to explore a wide range of textual material, including literature, poetry, speeches, and news articles, and it is often employed in academic research, literary criticism, and media analysis. By analyzing texts, we can gain deeper insights into their meanings, uncover hidden messages and themes, and better understand the social and cultural contexts in which they were produced.

What is an Analysis Essay?

An analysis essay is a type of essay that requires the writer to analyze and interpret a particular text or topic. The goal of an analysis essay is to break down the text or topic into smaller parts and examine each part carefully. This allows the writer to make connections between different parts of the text or topic and develop a more comprehensive understanding of it.

In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses the first-person point of view and vivid descriptions of the protagonist’s surroundings to convey the protagonist’s psychological deterioration. By limiting the reader’s understanding of the story’s events to the protagonist’s perspective, Gilman creates a sense of claustrophobia and paranoia, mirroring the protagonist’s own feelings. Additionally, the use of sensory language, such as the “smooch of rain,” and descriptions of the “yellow wallpaper” and its “sprawling flamboyant patterns,” further emphasize the protagonist’s sensory and emotional experience. Through these techniques, Gilman effectively communicates the protagonist’s descent into madness and the effects of societal oppression on women’s mental health.

There are several different types of analysis essays, including:

Literary Analysis Essays: These essays examine a work of literature and analyze various literary devices such as character development, plot, theme, and symbolism.

Rhetorical Analysis Essays: These essays examine how authors use language and rhetoric to persuade their audience, focusing on the author's tone, word choice, and use of rhetorical devices.

Film Analysis Essays: These essays analyze a film's themes, characters, and visual elements, such as cinematography and sound.

Visual Analysis Essays: These essays analyze visual art, such as paintings or sculptures, and explore how the artwork's elements work together to create meaning.

Historical Analysis Essays: These essays analyze historical events or documents and examine their causes, effects, and implications.

Comparative Analysis Essays: These essays compare and contrast two or more works, focusing on similarities and differences between them.

Process Analysis Essays: These essays explain how to do something or how something works, providing a step-by-step analysis of a process.

Analyzing Texts

• General Tips
• How to Analyze
• What to Analyze

When writing an essay, it's essential to analyze your topic thoroughly. Here are some suggestions for analyzing your topic:

Read carefully: Start by reading your text or prompt carefully. Make sure you understand the key points and what the text or prompt is asking you to do.

Analyze the text or topic thoroughly: Analyze the text or topic thoroughly by breaking it down into smaller parts and examining each part carefully. This will help you make connections between different parts of the text or topic and develop a more comprehensive understanding of it.

Identify key concepts: Identify the key concepts, themes, and ideas in the text or prompt. This will help you focus your analysis.

Take notes: Take notes on important details and concepts as you read. This will help you remember what you've read and organize your thoughts.

Consider different perspectives: Consider different perspectives and interpretations of the text or prompt. This can help you create a more well-rounded analysis.

Use evidence: Use evidence from the text or outside sources to support your analysis. This can help you make your argument stronger and more convincing.

Formulate your thesis statement: Based on your analysis of the essay, formulate your thesis statement. This should be a clear and concise statement that summarizes your main argument.

Use clear and concise language: Use clear and concise language to communicate your ideas effectively. Avoid using overly complicated language that may confuse your reader.

Revise and edit: Revise and edit your essay carefully to ensure that it is clear, concise, and free of errors.

• Understanding the assignment: Make sure you fully understand the assignment and the purpose of the analysis. This will help you focus your analysis and ensure that you are meeting the requirements of the assignment.

Read the essay multiple times: Reading the essay multiple times will help you to identify the author's main argument, key points, and supporting evidence.

Take notes: As you read the essay, take notes on key points, quotes, and examples. This will help you to organize your thoughts and identify patterns in the author's argument.

Take breaks: It's important to take breaks while reading academic essays to avoid burnout. Take a break every 20-30 minutes and do something completely different, like going for a walk or listening to music. This can help you to stay refreshed and engaged.

Highlight or underline key points: As you read, highlight or underline key points, arguments, and evidence that stand out to you. This will help you to remember and analyze important information later.

Ask questions: Ask yourself questions as you read to help you engage critically with the text. What is the author's argument? What evidence do they use to support their claims? What are the strengths and weaknesses of their argument?

Engage in active reading: Instead of passively reading, engage in active reading by asking questions, making connections to other readings or personal experiences, and reflecting on what you've read.

Find a discussion partner: Find someone to discuss the essay with, whether it's a classmate, a friend, or a teacher. Discussing the essay can help you to process and analyze the information more deeply, and can also help you to stay engaged.

• Identify the author's purpose and audience: Consider why the author wrote the essay and who their intended audience is. This will help you to better understand the author's perspective and the purpose of their argument.

Analyze the structure of the essay: Consider how the essay is structured and how this supports the author's argument. Look for patterns in the organization of ideas and the use of transitions.

Evaluate the author's use of evidence: Evaluate the author's use of evidence and how it supports their argument. Consider whether the evidence is credible, relevant, and sufficient to support the author's claims.

Consider the author's tone and style: Consider the author's tone and style and how it contributes to their argument. Look for patterns in the use of language, imagery, and rhetorical devices.

Consider the context : Consider the context in which the essay was written, such as the author's background, the time period, and any societal or cultural factors that may have influenced their perspective.

Evaluate the evidence: Evaluate the evidence presented in the essay and consider whether it is sufficient to support the author's argument. Look for any biases or assumptions that may be present in the evidence.

Consider alternative viewpoints: Consider alternative viewpoints and arguments that may challenge the author's perspective. This can help you to engage critically with the text and develop a more well-rounded understanding of the topic.

• Last Updated: Jun 21, 2023 1:01 PM
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• Writing Tips

 How to Write a Perfect Analytical Paragraph

8-minute read

• 30th January 2023

If you are looking up how to write an analytical paragraph, you are most likely writing an argumentative or analytical essay. Analytical essays are similar to other essays, such as descriptive essays, in that you have a central idea, organize supporting ideas into body paragraphs, and make conclusions.

However, analytical essays differ from other essays because the writer must go further. They require the writer to interpret and analyze a given text or information using evidence to support their central idea or thesis statement. This analysis takes place in analytical paragraphs, or body paragraphs, if you are writing an analytical essay .

In this article, you’ll learn the components of a perfect analytical paragraph: the topic sentence, evidence, analysis, and conclusion. Keep reading to learn more.

What Is an Analytical Paragraph?

An analytical paragraph is a paragraph that breaks down a piece of literature, an idea, or a concept into smaller parts and analyzes each part to understand the whole. Being able to write an effective and successful analytical paragraph reflects a writer’s critical thinking and organizational writing skills. All in all, like any other type of writing, writing an analytical paragraph requires skill and practice.

Write the Topic Sentence

A topic sentence is usually the first, or sometimes second, sentence at the beginning of anybody paragraph. Your topic sentence should contain one main idea related to the thesis statement . If it is not related to your thesis statement, then you are likely off topic.

Pro Tip: If your topic sentence is the second sentence of your paragraph, then your first sentence should be a transitional sentence .

Let’s look at a thesis statement and some topic sentences to get a better idea.

Topic: Examine and analyze the marriages in George Eliot’s Middlemarch .

Thesis Statement: Eliot uses three different marriages to give depth to everyday people and show the reader the struggles of marriage within the nineteenth century’s societal standards of submissive roles, class range, and financial status.

Topic Sentence 1: Lydgate and Rosamond had a terrible marriage in Middlemarch , like all other marriages during this time.

This topic sentence is not effective because it is not specific enough and does not directly relate to the thesis statement. It does not mention how their “terrible” marriage is related to submissive roles, class range, or financial status. Additionally, the overly generalized language of “all” marriages being terrible marriages during this time is a weak argument.

Topic Sentence 2: Financial matters play a huge role in the Lydgate and Rosamond marriage, as Lydgate has no money and Rosamond is a big spender.

This topic sentence is effective because it directly supports the thesis statement. It is focused on the financial status of this marriage.

Provide Evidence

The type of evidence you use to support your topic sentence will largely depend on the topic of your analytical essay. For example, if you are writing an essay related to a work of literature, you will need to provide direct quotes, paraphrasing, specific details, or a summary from the work to support your main idea. If your topic is related to analyzing data, then you may use figures, statistics, or charts and graph evidence to support your topic sentence.

Regardless of what type of evidence you provide, it must be appropriate and directly relate to and support your topic sentence.

For example, if we take the above thesis and topic sentence, we might select direct quotes, paraphrases, or summaries from the novel Middlemarch that depict the marriage’s financial stress.

Pro Tip: When using direct quotes, make sure you always provide an in-text citation and use correct punctuation to ensure your essay is neat and clean.

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Once you have provided evidence, you should analyze it to illustrate its significance and how it relates to the topic sentence. In your analysis, you can discuss how an author uses certain literary devices to emphasize character traits, themes, patterns, and connections in a literary work.

Be sure that your analysis always connects to the topic sentence/main idea of the paragraph. Avoid introducing new ideas in this section. Save those for later paragraphs or consider creating a new one to explore and analyze the new point.

Conclude Your Paragraph

When closing an analytical paragraph, you can consider doing two things:

●  Briefly emphasize the main point your reader should take away after having read the paragraph.

●  Begin a transition if the analysis continues into the next paragraph. (This strategy may be more suitable for longer, more in-depth analytical essays).

Using the above example topic sentence, we might conclude the paragraph as follows:

Notice how this concluding statement not only emphasizes the main points from the paragraph but also ties back into the thesis statement.

Writing Tips For Analytical Paragraphs

Leave out first person language.

Avoid using language such as “in my opinion,” “from my perspective,” or “I think.” While the analysis is your interpretation of a text or information, you should rely on and focus on using evidence to support your ideas. Overall, you should aim to maintain an objective tone .

Instead of saying “I think Rosamond is manipulative,” you should use evidence from the text to show that she was manipulative. For example, “Rosamond shows a pattern of manipulation throughout Middlemarch , specifically toward her husband. For instance, she says, ‘…’”

Do Writing Exercises

When writing, especially in the early drafts of an essay, it is typical to find the main idea of a paragraph at the end. This is a natural course for our thinking process. However, the main idea should be presented as your topic sentence at the beginning of this paragraph. Additionally, most students leave this main idea at the end because they do not identify it as the main idea.

To overcome this dilemma, try a looping prewriting exercise . In this exercise, you write continuously for a designated time (maybe 10 minutes, your choice). At the end of that time, read over what you’ve written and circle the main idea of the text (this is usually at the end). In the next cycle, you start with this main idea at the beginning and further examine and analyze it.

This is a wonderful exercise to help you pick out main ideas and delve deeper into your analysis.

Get Feedback

If you are a student, there are several options to get feedback for free. Ask a friend to read your essay. Go to your writing center to get feedback and help with your writing. Go to your professor’s office hours with your writing or questions to get detailed advice. More often than not, they are happy to see you take advantage of their expertise.

As a working professional, writer, or author, you can look to fellow authors or bookish friends to read your work. You can find free beta readers online from sites such as Goodreads to get feedback from your target audience. You can also find writing groups on social media platforms.

Proofread Your Work

It can be easy to finish writing an essay and think “Finally, I’m done!” Unfortunately, that is only half the process. Be sure to always read and reread your writing before hitting submit. Check for stray commas, spelling errors, or awkward sentences to make your main ideas and hard work shine. Learn about 6 Quick and Easy Tips for Proofreading you can do at home.

Writing an analytical paragraph doesn’t have to be stressful. Be sure to include a topic sentence at the beginning of your paragraph that connects to the thesis statement. Provide a variety of evidence to support your main idea, analyze the text by highlighting literary devices used, themes, and patterns, and end with a brief concluding statement.

If you need more help with writing analysis, descriptive essays, or any other type of essay, then Proofed is here to help. Try our free trial today!

What Is a Topic Sentence?

A topic sentence goes at the beginning of a body paragraph and clearly states the main idea of the paragraph.

How Do I Organize an Analytical Paragraph?

An analytical paragraph has four components: topic sentence, evidence, analysis, and conclusion. The topic sentence is the most important part of any body paragraph because it establishes the main idea of the paragraph and relates to the thesis statement.

What Makes a Good Analytical Paragraph?

A good analytical paragraph has a clear topic sentence, strong evidence, and a thorough analysis that reflects the writer’s critical thinking and writing skills. It should conclude by emphasizing the main idea of the paragraph and how it supports the essay overall.

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How to Write an Analysis Essay: The Ultimate Study Guide

Have an analytical essay to write? We get it. We’ve been there. Fortunately, we are here for you, with some insights into writing a successful analytical paper. Keep reading this article.

Analytical Essay Definition

How to write an analytical essay: step by step, analysis essay outline, analytical essay topic.

An analytical essay is a writing assignment. Your goal here is to introduce and discuss a claim as well as to deliver a detailed review of a given topic.

You can write analysis essays on topics from different fields. These include such topics as politics, economics, art, philosophy, music, literature, etc. Analytical assignments are a substantial part of any academic work. That is why university and college students often have to compose such papers. An outstanding analytical essay intends to explain and contextualize any topic—both the author and the reader benefit from it. In order to get a clearer picture of what this type of work should look like, check out some examples in our free essays collection.

Types of Analytical Essay

There are different types of analytical essays. It is important to find out what kind of essay you will write to use the correct structure.

📌 Cause and effect analytical essay. Also known as reason and result essay, this type of work discusses the purpose of something, which then enables us to analyze it while studying its effect on other things. 📌 Comparison and contrast analysis. This essay type examines two subjects to highlight their subtle similarities or differences through contrasting, comparison, or both processes at once. 📌 Classification. This type provides classification of things with common similarities into groups or categories to better learn their nature and carry out the analysis. 📌 Process essay. Such works talk about the way of doing something in order to give some sort of guidance or directions to readers. 📌 Definition. These essays comprise research to define an idea, concept, or term and provide evidence to support it. They also contain explanation through examples.

We use all these types of analytical essays while writing different kinds of analyses. The most common variants of analysis are literary analysis, painting analysis, and analysis of speech.

Find their detailed descriptions down below!

What is a Literary Analysis

While writing a literary analysis essay, you don’t always have to study a work of literature in its entirety. Sometimes you need to describe only a particular character or one aspect of the work. When studying various literary work elements, you are likely to understand the whole piece better. This process makes literary analysis one of the most exciting types of papers.

There are two main ways of composing the work – from the style perspective and from the literature piece elements perspective.

If you want to concentrate on the style , you can consider following criteria:

• Structure and organization
• Point of view
• Word choice
• Figurative language

In case of choosing to look into the elements of the work, you need to describe these aspects:

It is also possible to analyze all these elements considering different analytical essays: cause and effect, comparison and contrast, classification, process, and definition papers.

It would be a mistake to think that an analysis of literary work is just a summary of a piece of writing. On the contrary, it is rather a debate about the work that conveys a writer’s interpretation of the work.

How to Write Painting Analysis

Analyzing a painting is never easy. If you aren’t sure where to start, remember that you don’t need to be a painter or an expert in the field. Start your writing by answering some of these questions:

🤔 When was the painting made? 🤔 How big/small is it? 🤔 What kind of painting is it? It could be a portrait, a landscape, or still life. 🤔 How does the artist use colors and shapes? 🤔 What is your idea of the mood of the picture? 🤔 Is there a story behind the image? 🤔 Do you know who the artist is? 🤔 Did the artist use any symbols in the painting? 🤔 How would you describe the brushwork? Is the paint thick or thin?

Some more tips on how to analyze a work of art :

• “Description of a painting” does not mean “analysis of a painting,” so do not dive into too much detail. Going beyond stating the obvious, a student can demonstrate a more profound understanding of the piece of art.
• Try to avoid such judgmental expressions as “I like this” or “I don’t like this.” Remember to support your opinion with evidence or justification.
• Talk about several visual elements. Make sure you discuss different visual aspects of the artwork. Do not limit your analysis to talking only about colors or patterns. Try to show the painting from different perspectives.

Speech Analysis: Overview

While writing a speech analysis, you need to answer two questions. The first question you need to discuss here is WHAT the speaker says. Analyze their speech according to the standard procedure of text analysis, conversation analysis, and dialogue analysis.

The second important question is HOW the speaker expresses the ideas. Sometimes you need to analyze it to read between the lines and get the speaker’s view better. Important messages in speeches are often sent through appearance and behavior.

When analyzing a speech, try to consider the following questions :

🔎 Who is giving a speech? 🔎 What does the speaker look like? 🔎 How are they dressed? 🔎 What is the speaker’s behavior? 🔎 Does the speaker use gestures? 🔎 What is their voice like?

Some more tips on how to analyze a speech:

• A good piece of advice is to analyze the speaker and the audience they are talking to. You can describe their background and education, the atmosphere of the meeting, the general mood of the audience.
• It is also possible to talk about the meeting itself. Maybe it is a conference or a TV show, a workshop or a big plenary. All these details are crucial because they influence the speaker directly.

Writing an analytical essay can be tricky. You need to consider many aspects if you want your work to sound competent. We’ve prepared a list of 5 key steps that will help you create the best analytical essay possible.

5 Key Steps to a Perfect Analytical Essay

1. pick a good topic.

Before talking about any topic, it is helpful to study it from the ground up. When you become a real expert on the subject, you realize that analysis is relatively simple.

Check websites of trustworthy institutions to see if they have works on similar issues, or just google published papers on related topics. They can help you structure your work better.

They can also give you inspiration about the ideas you might discuss in your work.

2. Produce an analytical thesis statement

A thesis statement is the foundation of your work. It can be expressed in one sentence and supported by the most important arguments.

A working thesis statement gives the readers a general idea of the structure of your paper. It also provides them with the central point of your work and the main arguments supporting the idea. Aside from that, it declares a position about the subject that needs discussing and proving.

Here is an example of a good thesis statement:

“Worldwide nature preserving measures should concentrate on saving endangered species. It would allow many rare kinds of animals to live and breed in a safe environment.”

3. Do your research

Before writing an essay, it is vital to study the topic thoroughly. Do not skip this step, as it is essential to demonstrate that you have learned the topic and are ready to present your results, supported by arguments. So, get ready! Read relevant studies, do experiments, collect statistics – everything counts!

4. Set a realistic goal

When choosing a goal for your research, stay realistic. Try to make your goal as precise as possible. In this case, it will be easy for you to achieve your aim and to demonstrate your results at their best. It is also easier to find arguments for and against your thesis statement if your goal is precise and narrow.

5. Create an analysis essay outline

Any written assignment needs thorough planning, and analytical essays need it too. Before you write, make a well-structured outline of your work, including every paragraph’s essential points.

An analysis essay consists of an introduction, several main body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Let’s investigate this part in more detail.

There are many ways to structure an analytical assignment. Which format is best depending on the type of essay and the main goals of the writing task? We have prepared three different kinds of outlines for you.

The first type of structure is perfect when you need to state the central position in the text and defend it. Concentrate on the position you take, but don’t forget to mention alternative perspectives as well. In this type of work, you do not need to explain why the alternative ways are wrong. Show the readers that they exist.

The second type is good for when you not only want to defend your position. You also aim to explain why the other perspectives are wrong. In this case, you need to think carefully about arguments for your position. You will also need arguments against the different opinions.

And the third type is a perfect fit if you aim to demonstrate a wide range of several issues.For each of them, you have the central position and defending arguments. This type of essay tends to be the longest, as it covers several issues. It also includes alternative positions on all the problems. The thing is – there is no need to prove the alternative ideas wrong. You should only defend your main statement.

Analytical Essay Introduction: Examples

The purpose of the introduction of your essay is to make the readers focus. To keep the attention, you need to include a hook in the introduction . The hook can look like a rhetorical or provocative question, a quotation, or a bold statement.

A good intro also mentions the issue you will talk about. Besides, it states the position you are taking and background information on the topic. It is usually situated at the end of the introductory paragraph.

Some examples of good introductions:

✅ “The symbolism in JD Salinger’s Franny and Zooey” keeps the feeling of melancholia and uncertainty throughout the entire novel.” ✅ “Although there are many reasons for the 2nd World War, it is nationalism that formed hatred and provoked the War’s start.” ✅ “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal.” Animal Farm is full of ironic and provocative phrases, which invite the reader to continue exploring the story. ✅ In Animal Farm, the author uses irony types to show totalitarianism and to manifest its inability to make every member of society equal.

Analysis Essay Body: Paragraph Format + Examples

The main body is a part of an essay with the aim to show readers the main idea development. Here, you need to add some evidence to support your thesis. Usually, there are three paragraphs. It depends on how broad the thesis statement is. Writers typically look for the evidence in different resources. It can be in the form of a summary, a quotation, or a paraphrase.

Here is an example of how to start a body paragraph:

“In the article, the author describes a particular scenario of doing house chores with her husband. She is paving the way for the following discussion of…”

Remember to include topic sentences in each paragraph! The main idea of the paragraph should be there. It also should be connected to your work’s central position. It is crucially important to support every claim in the thesis statement with proof. Try to include arguments supported by research and strong evidence. That is the reason to have a narrow thesis statement. The broader your thesis is – the more paragraphs the main body will contain.

For example:

“At first look, the plot of the story seems direct. It tells a story of… The central question of the story is looking for meaning in life. For instance: “Never have I had such a strong fish nor one who acted so strangely. Perhaps he is too wise to jump…”. This passage shows the readers the simple structure of …”

❓ How to Write an Analysis Essay?

To write an analysis essay, you need to study your topic thoroughly and conduct a research. After that, it is a good idea to think about the structure of your essay. Decide on the position, that you are going to defend. Besides, think about the opposite arguments and the evidence for the support of your central point.

❓ How to Write an Analytical Thesis?

The Thesis Statement is the root of your assignment. It needs to be further discussed and supported by evidence while writing. Before writing the main body and discussing quotes, make sure that your statement is clear and debatable. Do not forget to make your thesis statement persuasive. In this case, the audience will see your perspective and believe what you are saying.

❓ What Are the Characteristics of an Effective Introduction?

The goal of the introduction of your essay is to keep the readers’ focus. To bring this attention to your topic, you need to start with a hook. The hook can be in the form of a rhetorical or provocative question, a quotation, or a bold statement. A good introduction also includes the question you will discuss. Apart from that, it states the position you are taking and background information on the topic. It is usually placed at the end of the introductory paragraph.

❓ Can I Use a Quote in My Conclusion?

It is better to use a quotation in the introduction or the essay body. But if the quote can logically finish your analysis, then use it! Just make sure that your quotation does not include any new ideas or information. The reason is that the aim of the conclusion is to restate your thesis statement and your topic.

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How to write a good analytical essay

Published September 27, 2020. Updated June 7, 2022.

Analytical Essay Definition

An analytical essay is an essay that provides an analysis of a work or issue.

Overview of Analytical Essay Writing

An analytical essay is used to analyze just about anything. Mostly, students will be asked to analyze a piece of writing, a film, or a specific issue. Topics for analytical essays should be neither too broad nor too narrow and should have enough sources to support the analysis. An analytical essay should be structured with an outline that consists of an introduction, body, and conclusion. Enough time should be spent writing, rewriting, and revising thoroughly. Line editing, spell-checking, and proofreading should be done carefully, and the sentence flow should be checked to create the final analytical essay.

Worried about your writing? Submit your paper for a Chegg Writing essay check , or for an Expert Check proofreading . Both can help you find and fix potential writing issues.

What is an analytical essay?

So, first things first: what is an analytical essay? Analytical essays are just what they sound like — they are, simply put, an analysis. To analyze is to “study or determine the nature and relationship of the parts of something” (Merriam-Webster). An analytical essay can analyze just about anything, but most often, students are asked to analyze a piece of writing, a film, or a specific issue.

It’s important to note the difference between argumentative and analytical essays. Though they are similar, there is a distinction: argumentative papers aim to prove a point through a well-researched, persuasive argument, while analytical papers posit a question and explore possible answers.

Some analytical essays will set out to prove a point, which can make them easily confused with argumentative essays. Remember, the main goal of argumentative essays is to argue a point. The main objective of analytical essays is to analyze a work or idea. Often, a firm stance will be used as a vehicle to create a more structured analysis. But, it’s not the point of the essay.

How to prepare to write an analytical essay

Before you dive into brainstorming topics for your analytical essay, be sure to read and reread the rubric for the assignment. Depending on your field of study, the guidelines will vary. For instance, psychology, education, and the sciences tend to use APA format, while the humanities, languages, and the fine arts tend to use MLA or Chicago style.

Once you know which format to use, take heed of any specific expectations your instructor has for this assignment. For example:

• When is it due?
• What is the expected page count?
• Will your instructor expect to see an outline before the draft?
• Is there a set topic list, or can you choose your own?
• Is there someplace to look at sample analytical essays that got A’s?

If anything is unclear, don’t hesitate to ask your instructor.

How to brainstorm the perfect topic for your analytical essay

Some instructors will offer their students a set of essay topics to choose from. That makes it easy for you — just pick the topic that intrigues you the most! Since your instructor has approved all the topics, you shouldn’t have to worry about any of them being too “broad” or “narrow.”

On the other hand, many instructors expect students to brainstorm their own topics. In this case, you will need to ensure your topic is relevant and not too broad or narrow.

After you think of a topic that interests you and is neither too broad nor too narrow, make sure you can find an adequate number of reputable sources to substantiate your analysis. You’ll need to evaluate all your sources’ credibility and probably include a few peer-reviewed journal articles (tip: use a database).

Many good sources can be found online or at your school’s library (in-person and online). If you’re having trouble finding useful sources, it may be a warning sign that your idea is too broad or narrow. If you’re stuck finding sources at all, ask your librarian for help.

How to structure an analytical essay

Now that you’ve found a good topic, it’s time to get organized! Even if you prefer to write spontaneously, creating an outline (even a loose one) can help you stay on track while you draft. The traditional outline for an analytical essay looks like the following:

Introduction

• main point #1
• main point #2
• main point #3

Works cited

Let’s examine each section.

No good analytical essay is complete without a super-strong introductory paragraph. It’s like the title screen at the beginning of a movie. Without it, you’d have no idea what the movie’s about!

A good introduction should state:

• the topic of your essay
• your thesis statement (the one- or two-line gist of your paper)
• the question or idea you’ll analyze
• your research methodology

The body of your essay is not limited to three points, as shown above, but three is typically considered the minimum for a good analysis. To make your analysis more compelling, present your points and arguments in a “strong, stronger, strongest” format.

• strong supporting evidence #1
• stronger supporting evidence #2
• strongest supporting evidence #3

Many students struggle with writing conclusions for their essays. It can feel unnecessary to restate what’s already been said, right? But really, a strong conclusion does much more than repeat what’s already been said. Your conclusion should:

• restate your thesis statement
• hit on all the main points of the essay
• explore the implications of the main points

Works cited 

A works cited or bibliography page should be the final section of your paper. A works-cited page includes a list of the resources you quoted or cited within the body of your work. A bibliography includes these, plus any resources you consulted and didn’t refer to in the paper, or any resources that influenced your ideas on the topic. Check your assignment to see which of these two pages you will need to have.

How to write an analytical essay

It might not seem like it when you’re staring at that blank document and flashing cursor, but this is the easy part! If you’ve adequately researched and planned your analysis, the writing process will flow much more quickly.

Remember, it’s usually not possible to write an essay in one sitting. Don’t wait until the last minute to get started! You’ll need to factor in time for breaks, meetings with your writing tutor, and the dreaded writer’s block.

Don’t expect your first draft to be perfect. It is normal (and smart) to write multiple drafts. You may even need to change your main argument halfway through your draft. That’s okay! Be ready to re-brainstorm, re-outline, and rewrite.

How to revise an analytical essay

Revision may just be the most crucial step of the essay-writing process. Even if you brainstorm the perfect topic, create a brilliant outline, and write a strong first draft, none of that brilliance will shine through if your paper is full of typos, grammar errors, and rambling tangents.

You’ll want to complete these steps of editing, in this order:

• line editing
• spell-checking
• proofreading

Revision deals with broad issues, such as an argument that doesn’t make sense or a source that doesn’t support your thesis. Line editing, spell-checking, and proofreading have more to do with your writing, the flow of your sentences, and any spelling or grammatical errors.

After you finish, it also doesn’t hurt to check your paper for plagiarism !

Example analytical essay on folklore and current events

Before you turn in that paper, don’t forget to cite your sources in APA format , MLA format , or a style of your choice.

Key takeaways

• An analytical essay is, simply put, an analysis of a work or issue.
• Be sure to understand your instructor’s expectations before you dive into writing an analytical essay.
• Topics for analytical essays need to be neither too broad nor too narrow and should have enough sources to support your analysis.
• The basic outline for an analytical essay consists of an introduction, body, conclusion, and works cited (or bibliography).
• Leaving yourself enough time to write, rewrite, and revise thoroughly is a vital part of writing an analytical essay that earns an A.

“Analyze.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/analyze.

By Jolee McManus. Jolee earned a BA in English from the University of Georgia. She has several years of experience as a writing tutor and freelance copywriter and editor.

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How to Write an Analysis Essay: Examples + Writing Guide

An analysis / analytical essay is a standard assignment in college or university. You might be asked to conduct an in-depth analysis of a research paper, a report, a movie, a company, a book, or an event. In this article, you’ll find out how to write an analysis paper introduction, thesis, main body, and conclusion, and analytical essay example.

So, what is an analytical essay? This type of assignment implies that you set up an argument and analyze it using a range of claims. The claims should be supported by appropriate empirical evidence. Note that you need to explore both the positive and negative sides of the issue fully.

Analytical skills are the key to getting through your academic career. Moreover, they can be useful in many real-life situations. Keep reading this article by Custom-writing experts to learn how to write an analysis!

❓ What Is an Analytical Essay?

• 🤔 Getting Started

📑 Analytical Essay Outline

• 📔 Choosing a Title
• 💁 Writing an Introduction
• 🏋 Writing a Body
• 🏁 Writing a Conclusion

🔗 References

Before you learn how to start an analysis essay, you should understand some fundamentals of writing this type of paper. It implies that you analyze an argument using a range of claims supported by facts . It is essential to understand that in your analysis essay, you’ll need to explore the negative sides of the issue and the positive ones. That’s what distinguishes an analytical essay from, say, a persuasive one.

These are the steps to write an academic paper :

• Review the literature . Before starting any paper, you should familiarize yourself with what has already been written in the field. And the analytical essay is no exception. The easiest way is to search on the web for the information.
• Brainstorm ideas. After you’ve done your search, it is time for a brainstorm! Make a list of topics for your analysis essay, and then choose the best one. Generate your thesis statement in the same way.
• Prepare an outline . Now, when you’ve decided on the topic and the thesis statement of your analytical essay, think of its structure. Below you will find more detailed information on how your paper should be structured.
• Write the first draft. You’ve done a lot of work by now. Congratulations! Your next goal is to write the first version of your analysis essay, using all the notes that you have. Remember, you don’t need to make it perfect!
• Polish your draft. Now take your time to polish and edit your draft to transform it into the paper’s final version.

You are usually assigned to analyze an article, a book, a movie, or an event. If you need to write your analytical essay on a book or an article, you’ll have to analyze the style of the text, its main points, and the author’s purported goals.

🤔 Analytical Essay: Getting Started

The key to writing an analysis paper is to choose an argument that you will defend throughout it. For example: maybe you are writing a critical analysis paper on George Orwell’s Animal Farm The first and imperative task is to think about your thesis statement. In the case of Animal Farm , the argument could be:

In Orwell’s Animal Farm , rhetoric and language prove to be more effective ways to keep social control than physical power.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill gives a great explanation of the thesis statement , how to create one, and what its function is.

But that’s not all. Once you have your thesis statement, you need to break down how you will approach your analysis essay to prove your thesis. To do this, follow these steps:

• Define the main goal(s) of your analysis . Remember that it is impossible to address each and every aspect in a single paper. Know your goal and focus on it.
• Conduct research , both online and offline, to clarify the issue contained within your thesis statement.
• Identify the main parts of the issue by looking at each part separately to see how it works.
• Try to clearly understand how each part works.
• Identify the links between the various aspects of the topic .
• By using the information you found, try to solve your main problem .

At this point, you should have a clear understanding of both the topic and your thesis statement. You should also have a clear direction for your analysis paper firmly planted in your mind and recorded in writing.

This will give you what you need to produce the paper’s outline.

An outline is the starting point for your work. A typical analytical essay features the usual essay structure. A 500-word essay should consist of a one-paragraph introduction, a three-paragraph body, and a one-paragraph conclusion. Find below a great analytical essay outline sample. Feel free to use it as an example when doing your own work!

Analysis Essay: Introduction

• Start with a startling statement or provocative question.

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal”. Animal Farm abounds in ironic and provocative phrases to start an analytical essay.

• Introduce the work and its author.
• Give background information that would help the reader understand your opinion.
• Formulate a thesis statement informing the reader about the purpose of the essay. Essay format does not presuppose telling everything possible on the given topic. Thus, a thesis statement tells what you are going to say, implying what you will not discuss, establishing the limits.

In Animal Farm, Orwell uses different irony types to ridicule totalitarianism to manifest its inability to make every member of society equal and happy.

Analysis Essay: Body

The analytical essay structure requires 2-3 developmental paragraphs, each dedicated to one separate idea confirming your thesis statement. The following template should be used for each of the body paragraphs.

• Start with a topic sentence that supports an aspect of your thesis.

Dramatic irony is used in Animal Farm to point out society’s ignorance.

• Continue with textual evidence (paraphrase, summary, direct quotations, specific details). Use several examples that substantiate the topic sentence.

Animals are unaware of the fact that Boxer was never sent to the hospital. He was sent to the slaughterhouse. However, the reader and writer understand that this is a lie.

• Conclude with an explanation.

By allowing the readers to learn some essential facts before the characters, dramatic irony creates suspense and shows how easy it is to persuade and manipulate the public.

Analysis Essay Conclusion

The next four points will give you a short instruction on how to conclude an analytical essay.

• Never use new information or topics here.
• Restate your thesis in a different formulation.
• Summarize the body paragraphs.
• Comment on the analyzed text from a new perspective.

📔 Choosing a Title for Your Analysis Essay

Choosing a title seems like not a significant step, but it is actually very important. The title of your critical analysis paper should:

• Entice and engage the reader
• Be unique and capture the readers’ attention
• Provide an adequate explanation of the content of the essay in just a few carefully chosen words

In the Animal Farm example, your title could be:

“How Do the Pigs Manage to Keep Social Control on Animal Farm?”

Analysis Essay Topics

• Analyze the media content.
• Analyze the specifics and history of hip-hop culture.  
• Sociological issues in the film Interstellar .
• Discuss the techniques M. Atwood uses to describe social issues in her novel The Handmaid’s Tale .
• Compare and analyze the paintings of Van Gogh and George Seurat.
• Analysis of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Black Cat . 
• Examine the juvenile crime rates.  
• Describe the influence of different parenting styles on children’s mind.
• Analyze the concept of the Ship of Theseus .
• Compare and analyze the various views on intelligence .
• Analysis of The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman .
• Discuss the techniques used by W. Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night’s Dream . 
• Analyze the biography of Frederic Chopin .
• Manifestation of the Chicano culture in the artwork An Ofrenda for Dolores del Rio .
• Similarities and differences of Roman, Anglo-Saxon, and Spanish Empires .
• Describe the problem of stalking and its impact on human mental health.
• Examine the future of fashion .
• Analyze the topicality of the article Effectiveness of Hand Hygiene Interventions in Reducing Illness Absence .
• Discuss Thomas Paine’s impact on the success of American revolution.
• Meaningful messages in Recitatif by Toni Morrison .
• Explore the techniques used by directors in the film Killing Kennedy .  
• Compare the leadership styles of Tang Empress Wu Zetian and the Pharaoh Cleopatra .
• Evaluate the credibility of Kristof’s arguments in his article Remote Learning Is Often an Oxymoron.
• Analyze genetically modified food. 
• Examine the influence of Europeans on Indian tribes in The Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson .
• Describe the rhetoric techniques used in The Portrait of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde .
• The importance of fighting against violence in communities in the documentary film The Interrupters .
• Analyze indoor and outdoor pollution. 
• Analyze the issue of overprotective parenthood .
• Explore the connection between eating habits and advertisement.
• Discuss the urgence of global warming issue.  
• Influence of sleep on people’s body and mental health.
• Analyze the relationship between Christianity and sports .
• Discuss the concept of leadership and its significance for company efficiency. 
• Analyze the key lessons of the book Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki.  
• Examine the specifics of nursing ethic.  
• The theme of emotional sufferings in the short story A Rose for Emily .  
• Analysis of bias in books for children .
• Analyze the rhetoric of the article Public Monuments .
• Describe the main messages in Jean-Paul Sartre’s Nausea .
• Explore the problem of structural racism in healthcare.
• The reasons of tango dance popularity.  
• The shortcomings of the American educational system in Waiting for Superman.
• Analyze and compare Erin’s Law and Megan’s Law. 
• Analyze the James Madison’s essay Federalist 10 .
• Examine symbols in the movie The Joker.   
• Compare the thematic connection and stylistic devices in the poems The Road Not Taken and Find Your Way . 
• Describe and analyze the life of Eddie Bernice Johnson.
• Explore the social classes in America. 
• Crucial strengths and weaknesses of the main translation theories .

💁 Writing Your Analytical Essay Introduction

You must understand how to compose an introduction to an analysis paper. The University of Wollongong describes the introduction as a “map” of any writing. When writing the introduction, follow these steps:

• Provide a lead-in for the reader by offering a general introduction to the topic of the paper.
• Include your thesis statement , which shifts the reader from the generalized introduction to the specific topic and its related issues to your unique take on the essay topic.
• Present a general outline of the analysis paper.

Watch this great video for further instructions on how to write an introduction to an analysis essay.

Example of an Analytical Essay Introduction

“Four legs good, two legs bad” is one of the many postulates invented by George Orwell for his characters in Animal Farm to vest them with socialist ideology and control over the animal population. The social revolution on Manor Farm was built on language instruments, first for the collective success of the animals, and later for the power consolidation by the pigs. The novel was written in 1945 when the transition from limitless freedoms of socialist countries transformed into dictatorship. Through his animal protagonists, the author analyzes the reasons for peoples’ belief in the totalitarian regime. In Orwell’s Animal Farm , rhetoric and language prove to be more effective ways to keep social control than physical power.

🏋 Writing Your Analytical Essay Body

The body of the paper may be compared to its heart. This is the part where you show off your talent for analysis by providing convincing, well-researched, and well-thought-out arguments to support your thesis statement. You have already gathered the information, and now all you may start crafting your paper.

To make the body of an analytical essay, keep the following in mind:

• Discuss one argument per paragraph , although each argument can relate to multiple issues
• Strike a balance between writing in an unbiased tone, while expressing your personal opinion
• Be reasonable when making judgments regarding any of the problems you discuss
• Remember to include the opposing point of view to create a balanced perspective

The bottom line is: you want to offer opposing views, but you must pose your arguments so they will counter those opposing views and prove your point of view. Follow these steps when constructing each body paragraph:

• Choose the main sentence. The main or topic sentence will be the first line in your essay. The topic sentence is responsible for presenting the argument you will discuss in the paragraph and demonstrate how this argument relates to the thesis statement.
• Provide the context for the topic sentence , whether it relates to a quote, a specific incident in society, or something else. Offer evidence on who, what, where, when, why, and how.
• Give your analysis of the argument and how it adequately proves your thesis.
• Write a closing sentence that sums up the paragraph and provides a transition to the following paragraph.

Example of an Analytical Essay Body

Literacy can grant power, provided that there are animals who cannot read or write. In the beginning, the animals’ literacy and intellect are relatively the same. Old Major is the cleverest pig; he is the kind old philosopher, like Karl Marx or Vladimir Lenin. During his retirement, he develops a theory that all humans are the root of evil. His speech was the foundation for the pigs’ assumption of power. They refined his ideas into a new ideology and called it Animalism. They also learned how to read. It allowed the pigs to declare themselves the “mind workers.” Therefore, the pigs’ literacy assured the illiterate animals in their objective superiority.

Meanwhile, as the pigs were the intellectual elite, they were not supposed to work, which raised their social status by itself. Snowball tried to promote education among all the animals, but most of them failed to master the alphabet. This is a metaphor for the general public being predominantly ignorant and easy to manipulate. At the same time, Boxer and other animals that spend most of the day in hard work merely have no time to develop their intellect. Thus, the pigs’ intention to build a school for pig children was highly efficient. Unequal access to education and unequal ability to express one’s thoughts in perspective reinforce the social divide, making the pigs smarter and more powerful and undermining other animals’ self-esteem.

At this point, the pigs resort to propaganda and rhetoric. Squealer uses his oratorical gift to refine the pigs’ message to the other animals. Upon Napoleon’s order, he breaks the Seven Commandments of farm governance. At night, he climbs the ladder to change them, and once even falls from the ladder trying to change the commandment on alcohol. The “proletarian” animals soon forget what the Seven Commandments were like in the first place and are unsure if they have ever been altered. Further on, Minimus writes a poem praising Napoleon. Finally, Squealer replaces the Commandments with a single assertion: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” Language is no longer used to convince. It is used to control and manipulate.

🏁 Writing Your Analytical Essay Conclusion

The conclusion is short and sweet. It summarizes everything you just wrote in the essay and wraps it up with a beautiful shiny bow. Follow these steps to write a convincing conclusion:

• Repeat the thesis statement and summarize your argument. Even when using the best summary generator for the task, reread it to make sure all the crucial points are included.
• Take your argument beyond what is simply stated in your paper. You want to show how it is essential in terms of the bigger picture. Also, you may dwell on the influence on citizens of the country.

Example of an Analytical Essay Conclusion

Because of everything mentioned above, it becomes clear that language and rhetoric can rise to power, establish authority, and manipulate ordinary people. Animal Farm is the simplified version of a communist society. It shows how wise philosophers’ good intentions can be used by mean leaders to gain unopposed power and unconditional trust. Unfortunately, this can lead to the death of many innocent animals, i.e., people, as totalitarianism has nothing to do with people’s rule. Therefore, language and oratory are potent tools that can keep people oppressed and weak, deprive them of any chance for improvement and growth, and make them think that there is no other possible existence.

Now you are ready to write an analysis essay! See, it’s easier than you thought.

Of course, it’s always helpful to see other analysis essay examples. The University of Arkansas at Little Rock provides some great examples of an analytical paper .

✏️ Analysis Essay FAQ

A great analytical paper should be well-structured, cohesive, and logically consistent. Each part of the essay should be in its place, creating a smooth and easy-to-read text. Most importantly, the statements should be objective and backed by arguments and examples.

It is a paper devoted to analyzing a certain topic or subject. An analysis essay is all about reviewing certain details of the subject and interpreting them. For example, such an analysis for a poem includes a description of artistic means that helped the poet convey the idea.

Writing an analytical essay on a book/movie/poem start with an outline. Point out what catches the eye when reviewing the subject. See how these details can be interpreted. Make sure that you refer to the main idea/message. Add an appropriate introduction and a logical conclusion.

Being more analytical in writing can be essential for a student. This is a skill that can be self-taught: try to start noticing subtle details and describe them. As you write, interpret the facts and strive to draw conclusions. Try to be as objective as possible.

• Elements of Analysis
• How Can I Create Stronger Analysis?
• How to Write a Literary Analysis Essay: Bucks.edu
• Essay Structure | – Harvard College Writing Center
• Analytical Writing: Looking Closely (Colostate.edu)
• Analytical Thesis Statements – University of Arizona
• Writing an analytic essay – UTSC – University of Toronto
• Organizing Your Analysis // Purdue Writing Lab
• How to Write an Analytical Essay: 15 Steps (with Pictures)
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How to Write an Analysis

Last Updated: April 3, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Christopher Taylor, PhD and by wikiHow staff writer, Megaera Lorenz, PhD . Christopher Taylor is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of English at Austin Community College in Texas. He received his PhD in English Literature and Medieval Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014. There are 14 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 297,764 times.

An analysis is a piece of writing that looks at some aspect of a document in detail. To write a good analysis, you’ll need to ask yourself questions that focus on how and why the document works the way it does. You can start the process by gathering information about the subject of your analysis and defining the questions your analysis will answer. Once you’ve outlined your main arguments, look for specific evidence to support them. You can then work on putting your analysis together into a coherent piece of writing.

Gathering Information and Building Your Argument

• If your analysis is supposed to answer a specific question or focus on a particular aspect of the document you are analyzing.
• If there are any length or formatting requirements for the analysis.
• The citation style your instructor wants you to use.
• On what criteria your instructor will evaluate your analysis (e.g., organization, originality, good use of references and quotations, or correct spelling and grammar).

• The title of the document (if it has one).
• The name of the creator of the document. For example, depending on the type of document you’re working with, this could be the author, artist, director, performer, or photographer.
• The form and medium of the document (e.g., “Painting, oil on canvas”).
• When and where the document was created.
• The historical and cultural context of the work.

• Who you believe the intended audience is for the advertisement.
• What rhetorical choices the author made to persuade the audience of their main point.
• What product is being advertised.
• How the poster uses images to make the product look appealing.
• Whether there is any text in the poster, and, if so, how it works together with the images to reinforce the message of the ad.
• What the purpose of the ad is or what its main point is.

• For example, if you’re analyzing an advertisement poster, you might focus on the question: “How does this poster use colors to symbolize the problem that the product is intended to fix? Does it also use color to represent the beneficial results of using the product?”

• For example, you might write, “This poster uses the color red to symbolize the pain of a headache. The blue elements in the design represent the relief brought by the product.”
• You could develop the argument further by saying, “The colors used in the text reinforce the use of colors in the graphic elements of the poster, helping the viewer make a direct connection between the words and images.”

• For example, if you’re arguing that the advertisement poster uses red to represent pain, you might point out that the figure of the headache sufferer is red, while everyone around them is blue. Another piece of evidence might be the use of red lettering for the words “HEADACHE” and “PAIN” in the text of the poster.
• You could also draw on outside evidence to support your claims. For example, you might point out that in the country where the advertisement was produced, the color red is often symbolically associated with warnings or danger.

Tip: If you’re analyzing a text, make sure to properly cite any quotations that you use to support your arguments. Put any direct quotations in quotation marks (“”) and be sure to give location information, such as the page number where the quote appears. Additionally, follow the citation requirements for the style guide assigned by your instructor or one that's commonly used for the subject matter you're writing about.

Organizing and Drafting Your Analysis

• For example, “The poster ‘Say! What a relief,’ created in 1932 by designer Dorothy Plotzky, uses contrasting colors to symbolize the pain of a headache and the relief brought by Miss Burnham’s Pep-Em-Up Pills. The red elements denote pain, while blue ones indicate soothing relief.”

Tip: Your instructor might have specific directions about which information to include in your thesis statement (e.g., the title, author, and date of the document you are analyzing). If you’re not sure how to format your thesis statement or topic sentence, don’t hesitate to ask.

• a. Background
• ii. Analysis/Explanation
• iii. Example
• iv. Analysis/Explanation
• III. Conclusion

• For example, “In the late 1920s, Kansas City schoolteacher Ethel Burnham developed a patent headache medication that quickly achieved commercial success throughout the American Midwest. The popularity of the medicine was largely due to a series of simple but eye-catching advertising posters that were created over the next decade. The poster ‘Say! What a relief,’ created in 1932 by designer Dorothy Plotzky, uses contrasting colors to symbolize the pain of a headache and the relief brought by Miss Burnham’s Pep-Em-Up Pills.”

• Make sure to include clear transitions between each argument and each paragraph. Use transitional words and phrases, such as “Furthermore,” “Additionally,” “For example,” “Likewise,” or “In contrast . . .”
• The best way to organize your arguments will vary based on the individual topic and the specific points you are trying to make. For example, in your analysis of the poster, you might start with arguments about the red visual elements and then move on to a discussion about how the red text fits in.

• For example, you might end your essay with a few sentences about how other advertisements at the time might have been influenced by Dorothy Plotzky’s use of colors.

• For example, in your discussion of the advertisement, avoid stating that you think the art is “beautiful” or that the advertisement is “boring.” Instead, focus on what the poster was supposed to accomplish and how the designer attempted to achieve those goals.

Polishing Your Analysis

• For example, if your essay currently skips around between discussions of the red and blue elements of the poster, consider reorganizing it so that you discuss all the red elements first, then focus on the blue ones.

• For example, you might look for places where you could provide additional examples to support one of your major arguments.

• For example, if you included a paragraph about Dorothy Plotzky’s previous work as a children’s book illustrator, you may want to cut it if it doesn’t somehow relate to her use of color in advertising.
• Cutting material out of your analysis may be difficult, especially if you put a lot of thought into each sentence or found the additional material really interesting. Your analysis will be stronger if you keep it concise and to the point, however.

• You may find it helpful to have someone else go over your essay and look for any mistakes you might have missed.

Tip: When you’re reading silently, it’s easy to miss typos and other small errors because your brain corrects them automatically. Reading your work out loud can make problems easier to spot.

Sample Analysis Outline and Conclusion

Expert Q&A

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://lsa.umich.edu/sweetland/undergraduates/writing-guides/how-do-i-make-sure-i-understand-an-assignment-.html
• ↑ https://www.bucks.edu/media/bcccmedialibrary/pdf/HOWTOWRITEALITERARYANALYSISESSAY_10.15.07_001.pdf
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/visual_rhetoric/analyzing_visual_documents/elements_of_analysis.html
• ↑ https://lsa.umich.edu/sweetland/undergraduates/writing-guides/how-can-i-create-stronger-analysis-.html
• ↑ https://lsa.umich.edu/sweetland/undergraduates/writing-guides/how-do-i-decide-what-i-should-argue-.html
• ↑ https://lsa.umich.edu/sweetland/undergraduates/writing-guides/how-do-i-effectively-integrate-textual-evidence-.html
• ↑ https://writingcenter.uagc.edu/writing-a-thesis
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/visual_rhetoric/analyzing_visual_documents/organizing_your_analysis.html
• ↑ https://lsa.umich.edu/sweetland/undergraduates/writing-guides/how-do-i-write-an-intro--conclusion----body-paragraph.html
• ↑ http://utminers.utep.edu/omwilliamson/engl0310/Textanalysis.htm
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/graduate_writing/graduate_writing_topics/graduate_writing_organization_structure_new.html
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/mechanics/sentence_clarity.html
• ↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/conciseness-handout/
• ↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/editing-and-proofreading/

About This Article

If you need to write an analysis, first look closely at your assignment to make sure you understand the requirements. Then, gather background information about the document you’ll be analyzing and do a close read so that you’re thoroughly familiar with the subject matter. If it’s not already specified in your assignment, come up with one or more specific question’s you’d like your analysis to answer, then outline your main arguments. Finally, gather evidence and examples to support your arguments. Read on to learn how to organize, draft, and polish your analysis! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Using Evidence: Analysis

Beyond introducing and integrating your paraphrases and quotations, you also need to analyze the evidence in your paragraphs. Analysis is your opportunity to contextualize and explain the evidence for your reader. Your analysis might tell the reader why the evidence is important, what it means, or how it connects to other ideas in your writing.

Note that analysis often leads to synthesis , an extension and more complicated form of analysis. See our synthesis page for more information.

Example 1 of Analysis

Without analysis.

Embryonic stem cell research uses the stem cells from an embryo, causing much ethical debate in the scientific and political communities (Robinson, 2011). "Politicians don't know science" (James, 2010, p. 24). Academic discussion of both should continue (Robinson, 2011).

With Analysis (Added in Bold)

Embryonic stem cell research uses the stem cells from an embryo, causing much ethical debate in the scientific and political communities (Robinson, 2011). However, many politicians use the issue to stir up unnecessary emotion on both sides of the issues. James (2010) explained that "politicians don't know science," (p. 24) so scientists should not be listening to politics. Instead, Robinson (2011) suggested that academic discussion of both embryonic and adult stem cell research should continue in order for scientists to best utilize their resources while being mindful of ethical challenges.

Note that in the first example, the reader cannot know how the quotation fits into the paragraph. Also, note that the word both was unclear. In the revision, however, that the writer clearly (a) explained the quotations as well as the source material, (b) introduced the information sufficiently, and (c) integrated the ideas into the paragraph.

Example 2 of Analysis

Trow (1939) measured the effects of emotional responses on learning and found that student memorization dropped greatly with the introduction of a clock. Errors increased even more when intellectual inferiority regarding grades became a factor (Trow, 1939). The group that was allowed to learn free of restrictions from grades and time limits performed better on all tasks (Trow, 1939).

In this example, the author has successfully paraphrased the key findings from a study. However, there is no conclusion being drawn about those findings. Readers have a difficult time processing the evidence without some sort of ending explanation, an answer to the question so what? So what about this study? Why does it even matter?

Trow (1939) measured the effects of emotional responses on learning and found that student memorization dropped greatly with the introduction of a clock. Errors increased even more when intellectual inferiority regarding grades became a factor (Trow, 1939). The group that was allowed to learn free of restrictions from grades and time limits performed better on all tasks (Trow, 1939). Therefore, negative learning environments and students' emotional reactions can indeed hinder achievement.

Here the meaning becomes clear. The study’s findings support the claim the reader is making: that school environment affects achievement.

Analysis Video Playlist

Note that these videos were created while APA 6 was the style guide edition in use. There may be some examples of writing that have not been updated to APA 7 guidelines.

Related Resources

Didn't find what you need? Email us at [email protected] .

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How to Analyse in an Essay

No matter what subject you are studying, at some point you will be asked to ‘analyse’ in an essay. This essay question covers a multitude of topics, from English to Medicine so learning how to analyse in an essay correctly will save you a lot of time and upset in the long run. The word ‘analyse’ will often be entwined with phrases like ‘Critical Analysis’ and ‘Using Supporting literature’. These phrases go hand in hand, and there will always be an element of critical analysis within analysis and supporting literature will almost always be used.

What Is analysis?

The act of analysing should always begin by breaking down your subject into its principal parts. Break down each contributing factor and think about how it contributes to the overall point you are trying to prove. Do this in a draft form at first, think about all your contributing elements and then think how you may be able to analyse them in a way that flows nicely together and forms natural links. Marks are often lost when ideas jump around and don’t seem fluid within an essay. Using signposting throughout your essay can help the flow seem more natural.

Consider multiple perspectives

It is essential that you look at the arguments both for and against your question. Think about how the contributing factors can either support or go against your point and demonstrate this. You may find it easier to use your earlier separation of contributing factors and break them into three groups – for, against and both.

The key here is to try to link these together and prove that despite a contributing factor going against your argument, the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that your argument is correct (or not!). Remember to stay on topic and always relate it back to answering the essay question.

Ask yourself: What point am I trying to make and why am I trying to make it? Is it a beneficial use of words? Could I be more succinct or does the idea need developing more? There is no point having great ideas in your head if you do not translate these to the screen.

The importance of references

You will need to support your analysis throughout with academic literature; the best sources you can get will be in the form of peer-reviewed journals and books. You will need to find literature that supports what you are saying but also find some that goes against what you are saying and the key to scoring high points is linking these together.

There is a world of literature out there to search, finding sources should be easy enough to do, although a lot of time will be spent here reading this supporting documentation and learning from it. It is here your learning will develop into the field you are writing on.

Make sure to keep your sources as recent and relevant as possible. By searching through literature databases like this also helps you to find gaps in the literature which create excellent opportunities for further research. Mentioning a gap in literature is almost always required in research to demonstrate why the research paper is necessary.

Make the analysis ‘critical’

A common error and slip up where marks are lost is in providing a descriptive analysis and not a critical one. Avoid merely describing the contributing factors to what you are analysing and then supporting this by describing the literature. You must not merely state what has already been written by others; you must find what has been written by others and work out how this supports or goes against what you are trying to say and apply it. This may be in the form of a framework or theory or it may be primary or secondary research. Either way, the point is not to DESCRIBE the contributing literature and make sure you are APPLYING it in an ANALYTICAL way.

Getting started

Some helpful phrases to ensure your work is analytical may look like this:

• The evidence suggests…
• ‘name’ argues that…
• X believes that, but Y argues that…
• There is evidence to suggest X… but some of this evidence is weak…

Analysing in an essay will come more naturally once you have done it a few times. It will get easier, but rarely gets less time-consuming. Not factoring in the time it takes to search through literature is a common mishap with these essays and whilst the word count is sometimes shorter, do not be fooled into thinking this means less time should be allocated to writing it! Thinking deeply and really pulling apart your subject will help you in your overall learning and is where the top marks await you!

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A Complete Guide to Write an Analytical Essay in 6 Simple Steps

Table of Contents

What Is an Analytical Essay?

Purpose of an analytical essay, how to structure an analytical essay, how to write an analytical essay, example of an analytical essay.

• Get Our Expert’s Assistance for Your Write-up

Do you know how to write an analytical essay? Or what does it mean? Knowing about this write-up is crucial for you as a student. Analytical essays require meticulous research and analysis of the topic. It can be a challenging experience for a student. However, worry not, as you are on the right platform here you will find a comprehensive guide to writing an analytical essay. So, let us start understanding its meaning by reading the following section.

There is no specific analytical essay definition, it is one of the seven types of essays in which you must write about a topic and conduct a deep analysis. In these write-ups, you have to explore a topic that can be challenging. So, you can also narrow down your subject into tiny bits to make your research convenient. Such essays often deal with creative writing like, arts, literature, film, global trends and more. To make your research process easy, you can take help of newspapers or internet sites. It can also help you to collect evidence for the essay.

Now, you must have understood the meaning of analytical essays. However, for deep understanding, you should also know what is the purpose of an analytical essay. So, read the next section to gain knowledge about it.

Analytical essays are based on in-depth research and analysis. This write-up aims at presenting a clear argument about the subject through evidence. Their purpose is to promote critical thinking and self-belief in a student. You learn about different viewpoints, when you begin your research for this analysis essay.Therefore, they induce critical thinking and compel the student to consider diverse perspectives to conclude.They can be challenging sometimes, but they genuinely improve your skills. It also encourages healthy discussion in the classroom by promoting effective learning.

So, now you must understand the purpose that analytical essays serve. Now, read the next section to know how you can structure your essay. Also, read our other blog on how to write a comparative essay .

Do you know how to structure an analytical essay? No? Then, read the following pointers and clear your doubts about the steps to writing an analytical essay.

Introduction

It is very crucial to know how to write an analytical essay introduction. In this initial part, you should introduce the reader to the subject of your write-up. You can frame some catchy sentences, or you can also put up a question to hook the attention of the reader. In this step, you can also mention some background information to make it more informative. However, remember that the introduction part is always the most significant section that makes the first impression of your essay, so write it accordingly.

The next major part of this analytical paper is the main body of the essay, where you showcase your analysis and research. In this step, you can divide the entire part into small paragraphs and separate the data accordingly. You can create an outline to understand how you will divide information into different paragraphs. In addition, you also have to remember that you relate your content with the thesis statement, and it does not contradict it.

Do you know how to write a conclusion in an analytical essay? It is the final part, where you have to summarize everything you have written in your essay. In this, you restate the main topic and give a brief about it. You can write it in a way that your readers are satisfied enough and do not have any doubts. However, remember that you do not introduce anything new in it, as it will only lead to confusion and vagueness for readers.

So, that was it with the structure part you must have understood all about analytical essay structure. Now, for the next section, you will find six tips for writing an effective analytical essay.

Do you want to know the secret of how you can write an effective essay? If yes, Read the following pointers to know how to start an analytical essay and write it in a way that shine.

Frame Catchy Title

First and foremost, frame a catchy title to make the first impression on your professors. For that purpose, you can choose something attractive that hooks the attention. You can start with a question for that remember that your purpose is to compel the readers to read the whole write-up. In addition, you should know how to write a thesis for an analytical essay, as it is also a part of the introduction only.

Do Proper Research

The next step is to carry out proper research about the subject. As you know, research is the foremost thing in an analytical essay. You should gather every detail about the topic, try to find the material from your college library, or ask your teachers and professors for materials. Use all such resources and do your research. Remember that it can also help you with analytical essay topics.

Create an Outline

The next step after gathering the information is to make an analytical essay outline. It is a significant step where you plan your whole document. In this part, you have to plan how you will divide your information in the main body of your essay. It is a crucial step that many students miss, and it leads their documents to look unstructured and baseless. Therefore, never miss this step if you want to get an A+ in your essay.

Create First Draft

Now, when you have everything planned, you can create your first draft. You can now actually start your writing part. In this part, you have to frame the introduction as well, and for that, you can take the help of an analytical essay introduction example. Begin with writing a rough draft so you do not make any mistakes in the final one. However, remember to use formal language in your write-up for better results.

Review First Draft

After you have completed writing the first draft, it is now time for you to review it. It is a crucial step as you can point out the mistakes that you might have made. Due to this step, writing the final draft becomes easy. You can take the help of your teachers to gather feedback, or you can also do it yourself. However, never miss this step because it can lead to blunders in your final draft.

Proofread the Essay

After you have completed your write-up, proofreading comes into play. Many of the students miss this step, and thus, they face rejection in their document submission. Proofreading saves you from any lingering errors you might have made while writing. In addition, it also helps you to point out any spelling or grammatical errors. Therefore, do not miss this step if you do not want your document rejected.

That was it, with this part, you might have got some insight into how the experts write their essays. Follow these steps and see the difference for yourself. Also, read our other blog on how to write a narrative essay . Now, for the next part, you will find some of the examples that could help you in proper understanding.

Struggling with writing an analytical essay? Go through the following analytical essay example to see how the experts draft their perfect document and frame the analytical essay format.

Topic: Is Artificial Intelligence a Blessing or Curse?

• Briefly describe artificial intelligence for better understanding.
• Thesis Statement: Artificial intelligence is a blessing in disguise for youth.

Body Paragraph 1

• AI has made life convenient for people by saving much of their time.
• It has improved access to education, healthcare, entertainment and more.

Body Paragraph 2

• AI is a blessing for the youth that can help them in their education.
• It has made it convenient for teachers and students to access the resources.

Remind the reader about the advantages of artificial intelligence.

Artificial intelligence is the main target of the people, but little do they know about its advantages and benefits like...

So, from the above example, you must have understood how you can write an analytical essay. Hence, go through the above example and frame your essay accordingly. However, you can also use essay typer tools or seek an expert's assistance for an effortless experience. Read the following section to know how you can make your task convenient.

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You must have solved many of your queries from this comprehensive guide about how to write an analytical essay. However, if you still have any issues, you can take the help of our experts, who will help you draft your perfect analytical essay. Global Assignment Help can provide you with an efficient write-up that stands out. Our expert writers are highly experienced and educated individuals who have never failed to deliver a single document on time. So, stop wasting your time and get an essay writing service now.

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How to Structure an Essay

Essay writing is a fundamental skill, a basic task, that is expected of those who choose to pursue their undergraduate and master’s degrees. It constitutes a key requirement for students to complete a given course credit. However, many students and early career researchers find themselves struggling with the challenge of organizing their thoughts into a coherent, engaging structure. This article is especially for those who see essay writing as a daunting task and face problems in presenting their work in an impactful way.  

Table of Contents

• Writing an essay: basic elements and some key principles  
• Essay structure template 
• Chronological structure 
• Problem-methods-solutions structure 
• Compare and contrast structures 
• Frequently asked questions on essay structure 

Read on as we delve into the basic elements of essay writing, outline key principles for organizing information, and cover some foundational features of writing essays.  

Writing an essay: basic elements and some key principles

Essays are written in a flowing and continuous pattern but with a structure of its own. An introduction, body and conclusion are integral to it. The key is to balance the amount and kind of information to be presented in each part. Various disciplines may have their own conventions or guidelines on the information to be provided in the introduction.  

A clear articulation of the context and background of the study is important, as is the definition of key terms and an outline of specific models or theories used. Readers also need to know the significance of the study and its implications for further research. Most importantly, the thesis or the main proposition should be clearly presented.  

The body of the essay is therefore organized into paragraphs that hold the main ideas and arguments and is presented and analyzed in a logical manner. Ideally, each paragraph of the body focuses on one main point or a distinct topic and must be supported by evidence and analysis. The concluding paragraph should bring back to the reader the key arguments, its significance and food for thought. It is best not to re-state all the points of the essay or introduce a new concept here. 

In other words, certain general guidelines help structure the information in the essay. The information must flow logically with the context or the background information presented in the introductory part of the essay. The arguments are built organically where each paragraph in the body of the essay deals with a different point, yet closely linked to the para preceding and following it. Importantly, when writing essays, early career researchers must be careful in ensuring that each piece of information relates to the main thesis and is a building block to the arguments. 

Essay structure template

• Introduction 
• Provide the context and share significance of the study 
• Clearly articulate the thesis statement 
• Body  
• Paragraph 1 consisting of the first main point, followed by supporting evidence and an analysis of the findings. Transitional words and phrases can be used to move to the next main point. 
• There can be as many paragraphs with the above-mentioned elements as there are points and arguments to support your thesis. 
• Conclusion  
• Bring in key ideas and discuss their significance and relevance 
• Call for action 
• References 

Essay structures

The structure of an essay can be determined by the kind of essay that is required.  

Chronological structure

Also known as the cause-and-effect approach, this is a straightforward way to structure an essay. In such essays, events are discussed sequentially, as they occurred from the earliest to the latest. A chronological structure is useful for discussing a series of events or processes such as historical analyses or narratives of events. The introduction should have the topic sentence. The body of the essay should follow a chorological progression with each para discussing a major aspect of that event with supporting evidence. It ends with a summarizing of the results of the events.  

Problem-methods-solutions structure

Where the essay focuses on a specific problem, the problem-methods-solutions structure can be used to organize the essay. This structure is ideal for essays that address complex issues. It starts with presenting the problem, the context, and thesis statement as introduction to the essay. The major part of the discussion which forms the body of the essay focuses on stating the problem and its significance, the author’s approach or methods adopted to address the problem along with its relevance, and accordingly proposing solution(s) to the identified problem. The concluding part offers a recap of the research problem, methods, and proposed solutions, emphasizing their significance and potential impact. 

Compare and contrast structures

This structure of essay writing is ideally used when two or more key subjects require a comparison of ideas, theories, or phenomena. The three crucial elements, introduction, body, and conclusion, remain the same. The introduction presents the context and the thesis statement. The body of the essay seeks to focus on and highlight differences between the subjects, supported by evidence and analysis. The conclusion is used to summarize the key points of comparison and contrast, offering insights into the significance of the analysis.  

Depending on how the subjects will be discussed, the body of the essay can be organized according to the block method or the alternating method. In the block method, one para discusses one subject and the next para the other subject. In the alternative method, both subjects are discussed in one para based on a particular topic or issue followed by the next para on another issue and so on.  

Frequently asked questions on essay structure

An essay structure serves as a framework for presenting ideas coherently and logically. It comprises three crucial elements: an introduction that communicates the context, topic, and thesis statement; the body focusing on the main points and arguments supported with appropriate evidence followed by its analysis; and a conclusion that ties together the main points and its importance .  

An essay structure well-defined essay structure enhances clarity, coherence, and readability, and is crucial for organizing ideas and arguments to effectively communicate key aspects of a chosen topic. It allows readers to better understand arguments presented and demonstrates the author’s ability to organize and present information systematically. 

Yes, while expert recommend following an essay structure, early career researchers may choose how best to adapt standard essay structures to communicate and share their research in an impactful and engaging way. However, do keep in mind that deviating too far from established structures can hinder comprehension and weaken the overall effectiveness of the essay,  By understanding the basic elements of essay writing and employing appropriate structures such as chronological, problem-methods-solutions, or compare and contrast, researchers can effectively organize their ideas and communicate their findings with clarity and precision. 

Paperpal is a comprehensive AI writing toolkit that helps students and researchers achieve 2x the writing in half the time. It leverages 21+ years of STM experience and insights from millions of research articles to provide in-depth academic writing, language editing, and submission readiness support to help you write better, faster.  

Get accurate academic translations, rewriting support, grammar checks, vocabulary suggestions, and generative AI assistance that delivers human precision at machine speed. Try for free or upgrade to Paperpal Prime starting at US$19 a month to access premium features, including consistency, plagiarism, and 30+ submission readiness checks to help you succeed.  

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How to Write a Literary Analysis Essay in 8 Quick Steps

A good literary analysis involves more than just summarizing a story or poem. It's about digging deep into the text to understand its themes, characters, and writing techniques. In this article, we'll explore how to do just that. Whether you're a seasoned pro or new to the game, these tips will help you learn how to write a literary analysis essay that'll impress your readers. Let's dive in!

How to Write a Literary Analysis Essay?

Writing a good literary analysis is like taking a closer look at a painting to understand what makes it beautiful. In this section, we'll break down the steps to help you write a literary analysis essay on a book or poem. We'll explore things like characters, themes, and writing style so you can really understand what the author is trying to say. If you’re in a hurry, our experts can write paper for you overnight according to your particular instructions.

Choose Your Original

Select a source that intrigues you or one assigned by your instructor. Opt for a work that resonates with you emotionally or intellectually, as this connection will fuel your evaluation and keep you engaged throughout the process. Whether it's a classic novel, a contemporary poem, or a play, ensure that the content is rich in themes, characters, and stylistic devices to provide ample material for scrutinizing.

Read Carefully and Analyze

Once you've chosen your source, read it attentively, making notes on significant passages, character developments, and recurring themes. Pay close attention to the author's writing style, language choices, and penmanship devices such as imagery, symbolism, and foreshadowing. Analyze how these elements contribute to the overall meaning and impact of the original, and consider how they evoke emotions or convey the author's message to the reader. If you need critical analysis essay examples , here are some compelling samples for your inspiration and motivation.

Formulate a Thesis Statement

After thoroughly analyzing the text, formulate a clear and concise thesis statement that encapsulates your interpretation or claim about the work. Your thesis should assert a specific claim or perspective regarding the work's meaning, theme, or literature elements, providing a roadmap for your composition and guiding your reader's understanding of your assignment's purpose.

Develop Your Argument

With your thesis statement in mind, develop a coherent argument supporting your text interpretation. Draw on evidence from the original, including quotations, plot details, and character interactions, to substantiate your claims and illustrate your examination. Consider how each piece of evidence contributes to your overall argument and use it to build a persuasive case for your interpretation of the material. By the way, you can ask our experts, ‘ do my PowerPoint presentation ,’ and our specialists will address such an assignment, too.

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Outline Your Document

Create a detailed outline that organizes your ideas and evidence logically and sequentially. Divide your paper into an introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion, each addressing a specific aspect of your exploration. Outline the main points you'll discuss in each paragraph and the evidence you'll use to support them, ensuring a clear and structured progression of ideas throughout your document.

Write Your Introduction

Begin with an engaging introduction that provides context for your brainstorming and introduces your thesis statement to the reader. Hook your audience with an intriguing opening line or a thought-provoking question, then provide background information about the document and its author to orient your reader. Finally, present your thesis, outlining the main points you'll address in your speculation and setting the stage for the rest of your work.

Craft Your Body Paragraphs

In the main body, develop each point of your argument in separate paragraphs, providing evidence from the work to support your claims. Start each paragraph with a topic sentence that introduces the main idea or statement of the paragraph, then follow it with evidence from the original, such as quotations or textual survey, to illustrate and substantiate your point. Analyze each piece of evidence in relation to your thesis, explaining how it supports your interpretation of the source and contributes to your overall argument.

Conclude Thoughtfully

Finally, conclude your assignment with a thoughtful conclusion summarizing your arguments and reinforcing your thesis. Review the main points you've discussed in your paper, highlighting your key insights or discoveries about the text. Avoid introducing new information or arguments in your conclusion; reiterate the significance of your research and its broader implications for understanding the manuscript. End your work with a compelling closing statement that leaves a lasting impression on your reader and encourages further reflection on the work's meaning and significance. Shop for an essay for sale if both your schedule and budget are tight.

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What Is a Literary Analysis Essay?

It is a type of academic writing that examines and interprets a work, such as a novel, poem, or play. It aims to delve into the deeper layers of the text to uncover its themes, characters, symbolism, and stylistic devices.

What Is the Purpose of a Literary Analysis Essay?

The purpose of this essay is to critically analyze a piece of literature, providing insights into its meaning, significance, and artistic techniques employed by the author. By dissecting the elements of the text, the paper seeks to understand how they contribute to the overall message or purpose of the work.

How to Start off a Literary Analysis Essay?

To start off such an essay, begin by introducing the work and its author, providing context for the research. Then, craft a thesis statement that presents your interpretation or claim about the source's meaning or significance. Finally, outline the main points you'll address in your document to guide the reader through your composition.

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What We Lost During Last Night’s Cringeworthy Debate

T he first presidential debate of this protracted presidential season was a horror show. Preceded by what seemed like weeks of excited speculation, idiotic predictions, and presumptive pre-debate analysis, when the debate actually happened, it demonstrated the dire choice that the two major political parties have given the electorate: pick the ranting liar and fear-mongering xenophobe, or choose the befuddled, stumbling man whose attempts to explain policy. (“I support Roe v. Wade , which had three trimesters”?) It was painful to watch.

One might rightly wonder what purpose presidential debates serve, particularly this year. We already know both candidates pretty well, and if we don’t, we have four more months to learn that Trump neither cares for the duties of office or the complexities of foreign affairs (and cultures), but does possess a talent for stirring up prejudice, for making people laugh, and for making them fearful. He does not answer questions. Last night, he avoided the question on the war in Gaza. He punted on the opioid crisis and climate change. He makes no appeal to decency, which is Biden’s forte (or was). But decency without backbone is what makes Biden appear, well, doddery. And we can watch that too until November. In fact, this otherwise consequential president seemed most focused when he talked about hitting a golf ball.

Read More: Calls for Biden to Step Aside Are About to Get Deafening

Part of the problem is that we live in a visual age. As a result, though we value them, our presumptive leaders become leaders even if they lack oratorical skills. In fact, it’s not surprising that the first well-known presidential debate , in 1960, occurred when television was a relatively new medium, and it did Richard Nixon no favors. No one remembers what he said, just how he looked. (Actually, the first televised debate, between candidates Adlai Stevenson and Dwight Eisenhower , took place four years earlier but without them; they used stand-ins, Eleanor Roosevelt and Margaret Chase Smith.) Before that, presidents depended on radio, with Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “fireside chats” bringing him, and his voice, with its powers of persuasion, into one’s home. Before that, we debated in the public square of newspapers. Word, skillfully written, can change minds. Consider Lincoln and Douglas, a debate for a seat in the Senate, and the rest is history.

So oratory matters. The ability to persuade, through words, mattered. It still does, which is why last night’s debate was so chilling. When William Jennings Bryan was nominated by Democrats as their presidential candidate for the third time in 1908, even though he’d been unsuccessful twice before, it was because of his oratorical gift. His voice, once heard, was never forgotten. He could address a crowd of 20,000 and make the audience feel as though he spoke directly to each and everyone one of them and he understood what they needed. They called him the “Great Commoner.” He even started a newspaper so he could write column after column and deliver what amounted to sermons.

And, like all good orators, he knew how to perform. He did not want his tie too straight. Bryan practiced parts of his famous “Cross of Gold” speech , one of the most famous in American political history, for months and months before he delivered it in 1896 at the Democratic National Convention. He bounded onto the stage, raised his arms, and then spoke in the lyrical, cadenced phrases of Scripture. “We are fighting in the defense of our homes, our families, and posterity,” Bryan declared. “We have petitioned, and our petitions have been scorned; we have entreated, and our entreaties have been disregarded; we have begged, and they have mocked when our calamity came. We beg no longer; we entreat no more; we petition no more.” It was good stuff.

Read More: These Are the Biggest Moments in the First Presidential Debate

But performance needs substance. And so Bryan would eventually meet his nemesis when he was confronted by an orator even more practiced, clever, and dramatic than he. That was Clarence Darrow, the celebrated lawyer in rumpled clothes whose talent for mesmerizing juries with his impression of humility (some of which was genuine) was unparalleled. Though not a politician, or at least not a professional one, Darrow was a man who could deliver a rational argument with much emotion. It was a winning combination.

Take his defense of Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, two teenagers accused of the gruesome and motiveless murder of 14 year-old Bobby Franks. Darrow had Leopold and Loeb plead guilty to avoid a jury trial so he could argue before the judge that their lives should be spared. Claiming Leopold and Loeb were just adolescents, the products of genetics and environment, Darrow said they were essentially without free will. “They killed,” said Darrow, “because hey were made that way.” At the same time, let us not blindly and cruelly call for yet another death, he implored the judge. Let us acknowledge that capital punishment grows out of our primitive need for vengeance, and let’s acknowledge that our killing two defective, two abnormal adolescents would not prevent other impaired boys or malevolent men or vicious women from committing murder.

“I sometimes wonder whether I am dreaming, whether I am not living in centuries long gone by, when savagery roamed wild, and the world was wet with human blood?” he concluded at the trial’s end. It was a consummate performance: a rational argument topped off by an emotional one. Leopold and Loeb received life sentences.

When Darrow and Bryan confronted each other in the courtroom, both of them, like Biden and Trump, were considered past their prime. Certainly they weren’t vying for the Oval Office, and their confrontation took place in a court of law, not on a television set. But they were jousting over the meaning of America and America’s future with far more passion, compassion, and reasonableness than anything that happened last night on the debate stage. For all his faults, Bryan was an optimistic idealist who thought he could improve the lives of ordinary men and women. He was a progressive who sincerely believed—and fought for—such reforms as the government ownership of utilities, a graduated income tax, currency reform, woman's suffrage and, for better and worse, Prohibition, which, in his mind, would help purify the nation by abolishing alcoholism, child abuse, and violence against women.

But when he wanted to turn the country into a Christian theocracy, Darrow objected. Their showdown took place in the summer of 1925 over a law recently passed by the Tennessee legislature that barred teaching the theory of evolution in public schools. It later became known, famously, as the Scopes Trial .

Darrow volunteered to defend the young schoolteacher who had purposefully broken the law (to test it), and he mustered, once again, all his oratorical skills. “Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and needs feeding,” Darrow declared. “Today it is the public school teachers, tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth century when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind."

“No subject possesses the minds of men like religious bigotry and hate,” Darrow concluded, “and these fires are being lighted today in America.”

He spoke without notes. He was persuasive and passionate. That’s what I thought about—what we had lost—as I watched last night’s sad, cringeworthy debate.

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• Essay Editor

How to Write Essay Thesis Statement: A Comprehensive Analysis

In academic writing, creating an impactful text that can deftly relay your opinion and persuade your audience is one of the key skills. That’s why it is essential to learn how to write a strong thesis statement. In this article, you will find all you need to know for creating a persuasive thesis statement.

What is an essay thesis?

In academic essays, a thesis is a part of the introduction that expresses the main idea and purpose of the essay. It aims to give the audience a brief overview of the contents of the essay, the author’s position, and potential line of argument.

A thesis statement in essay writing is an essential part that cannot be omitted. Apart from introducing the main idea of the essay, the thesis gives directions to authors and helps them not stray from the topic at hand.

As for the thesis statement layout, it usually appears at the end of the introduction, giving the author an opportunity to start their line of reasoning.

Types of essay thesis

Depending on the type of your essay, the contents and intent of your thesis statement can also vary. Let’s explore the main differences and functions of thesis statements in various essays.

• Argumentative thesis statement . This is probably the most well-known type of persuasive essay thesis statements. It introduces a certain position about a topic and hints at the line of support and evidence that will follow in the main body of the essay. An argumentative thesis consists of a topic, an author’s position, and brief mentions of the author’s arguments. Example: Prioritizing ocean exploration over space exploration is essential because the oceans are home to natural resources that could significantly contribute to global food security and economic development.
• Expository thesis statement . Unlike the aforementioned type, an expository thesis aims to give readers an explanation of what is going to be discussed. It is fairly objective and should not include an author’s opinion. This thesis type consists of a topic followed by several categories which will be used to extrapolate on the topic later. Example: Sunbathing can have both beneficial and harmful effects on human skin, including the synthesis of vitamin D, the risk of sunburn, premature aging, and an increased chance of developing skin cancer.
• Analytical thesis statement . This essay thesis type introduces the results of your analysis. It gives readers an idea of the conclusions of your analytical research and encourages them to read and see how you arrived at these conclusions. An analytical thesis typically includes a topic, the object of your analysis, and a conclusion. Example: The extinction of mammoths can be attributed to habitat loss caused by post-Ice Age climate changes and the pressure from human hunting .

As you can see, the contents of your essay thesis depend on what your essay aims to achieve. Understanding the different types of thesis statements helps you craft a clear and effective argument that suits your essay’s purpose and audience.

How to write a strong thesis statement

A thesis statement is the key to creating a perfect essay because the main body of your paper depends on it. Let’s explore what you should do to craft a persuasive thesis statement.

1. Do your research

Researching your essay topic is important to provide a good line of reasoning. But it is also essential for writing an essay thesis. Without understanding the topic, you cannot come up with a clear idea of how to build your essay or what exactly you are going to argue for or against.

2. Determine the type of your paper

The type of your essay affects how you should build your thesis. If you need to write a neutral overview of some issue, then you should go for an expository thesis statement. But if you aim to give your opinion and defend it, an argumentative thesis is your way.

3. Formulate the thesis

The easiest way to come up with a thesis is the question-answer method. First, ask yourself a question about the essay topic. If the topic is AI technologies, your question can be, “Can AI technologies replace humans?”

Then, you should answer this question. Make sure your answer is direct, clear, and concise. But don’t make it too broad since you have to cover it comprehensively within the scope of your paper. So, the answer to the question above should look like “AI technologies will not fully replace humans due to the irreplaceable value of human creativity, emotional intelligence, and complex decision-making abilities.” This answer will become your essay thesis statement.

4. Give specific examples

You can use the thesis statement as a sneak peak into the contents of your paper. Indicate the key points you will discuss in your essay to support your thesis. For instance, if your essay is about mitigating stress, give a brief overview of what you plan to cover in your paper: “Effective stress mitigation techniques include regular physical exercise, mindfulness practices like meditation, and a strong social support network for emotional well-being.”

5. Make changes if needed

As you begin to write the main part of your paper, you might find out that your initial essay thesis is weak or untrue. If it happens, you shouldn’t go against common sense to try making it work. Go back to the beginning and use the new-found knowledge to come up with another, more suitable thesis statement that better reflects the issues at hand.

With this guide, you will be able to come up with a persuasive thesis statement in no time. And if you still have trouble writing a strong thesis, you can use AI-generator Aithor to help you find the perfect thesis for your academic paper.

Summary: Thesis statement in essay

A thesis statement is an essential element in any essay. It provides an introduction into the topic of a paper and the claims the writer intends to prove. A strong thesis statement should be specific, clear, concise, and give the audience a brief overview of an essay’s contents.

Try using AI-generator Aithor and come up with a persuasive thesis statement in mere seconds.

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This Clarence Thomas Dissent Reveals His Favorite Tactic for Constitutional Mayhem

This is part of  Opinionpalooza , Slate’s coverage of the major decisions from the Supreme Court this June. Alongside  Amicus , we kicked things off this year by explaining  How Originalism Ate the Law . The best way to support our work is by joining  Slate Plus . (If you are already a member, consider a  donation  or  merch !)

Justice Clarence Thomas is a master at the art of bogus history—rewriting the past to give the Constitution a new, dubious meaning that happens to align with the Republican Party platform. Even by his own lofty standards, the justice outdid himself in Moore v. U.S. , last week’s major tax case. Thomas’ dissent is a masterwork of partisan historical revisionism, manipulating reality so seamlessly that an unsuspecting reader might actually think he is telling the truth. He isn’t, not even close: Thomas’ goal in Moore is to eviscerate the 16 th Amendment, which legalized the federal income tax in 1913. And, as is so often the case, the justice marshals his argument by diminishing a progressive constitutional amendment as some illegitimate affront to the Framers’ original, divinely inspired design. At this point, it is unclear whether Thomas even acknowledges the full validity of the amendments that made this nation more equal and egalitarian. He is, at a minimum, committed to reading many hard-fought post–Civil War constitutional reforms out of the law altogether.

Conservative attorneys manufactured Moore as a preemptive challenge to a potential future “wealth tax” on affluent Americans’ net assets, including personal property. They seized upon an obscure 2017 provision of the Trump-era tax cuts that taxed shareholders of U.S.–owned corporations located overseas by collecting money on undistributed income. These lawyers argued that the tax was unconstitutional under the 16 th Amendment, which allows Congress “to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived.” The word income , they argued, has a “realization requirement”—meaning that the money must reach a taxpayer’s pockets before the government takes a cut of it. This theory would forestall a wealth tax, since Elon Musk, for instance, hasn’t yet made money on the tens of billions of dollars in Tesla stock he owns.

The Supreme Court wound up ducking the “realization” issue altogether, holding simply that a company’s undistributed income can be attributed to its shareholders. Thomas wrote an angry dissent chastising the majority for “ignoring” the larger question. He embarked upon a journey through a version of history that had not, in fact, occurred, to shrink the 16 th Amendment down to a “narrow meaning” that only “slightly altered” the original Constitution. In the process, he elevated a muddy accommodation for slavery over a signal triumph of the Progressive Era. That’s business as usual for our amateur historian in chief.

Thomas’ sleight of hand revolves around the direct tax clause of the original Constitution. This provision was part and parcel of the three-fifths compromise, which counted enslaved people as three-fifths of a person for purposes of representation and certain taxes. There was, at the time, a common form of taxation that imposed a “head tax” on each individual taxpayer. Delegates to the Constitutional Convention called this a “direct tax.” In exchange for counting slaves as three-fifths of a person with regard to representation—boosting its share of seats in Congress—the South agreed to count slaves as three-fifths of a person with regard to any future “direct tax.” The slave states demanded and received another safeguard: Any direct tax had to be “apportioned” among the states according to their population (with each slave counting as three-fifths of a person). This system would impose wildly disparate tax burdens on Americans and has always been seen as basically impossible.

Thus, as professor Bruce Ackerman has definitively shown , the direct tax emerged as a sordid trade-off with the slave states, giving “a fig-leaf for antislavery Northerners opposed to the explicit grant of extra representation for Southern slaves.” Yes, the South got extra representation because of its slaves, but it also had to pay more taxes—except that the delegates all knew that new direct taxes were highly unlikely, in part because of how this compromise was structured. In fact, they weren’t even sure what a direct tax might look like , beyond the head tax imposed on individuals. Famously, by James Madison’s account, when one delegate asked the convention “what was the precise meaning of direct taxation,” nobody answered . In 1796 the Supreme Court clarified that a head tax was “direct,” as would be an express tax on land. But nothing else qualified.

Pause here and turn to Thomas’ account, which elides almost all the above. According to the justice, the direct tax clause was part of a “delicate” constitutional balance carefully hammered out at the Constitutional Convention to protect states from an overbearing federal government. Dismissing the clause’s roots in slavery, Thomas claimed that it embodied “federalism principles” designed to give “state governments a fiscal safe haven against expanding federal authority.” The limitation, by his telling, was meant to temper “the destructive force of the federal taxing power,” preventing “unjust taxes” that intrude on state sovereignty. He totally whitewashes the real basis of the clause—a fierce dispute between North and South over the Constitution’s accommodations for slavery.

Somehow, it gets even worse. Turning back to actual history, the Supreme Court understood the direct tax clause in its accurate historical context until 1895, when it abruptly struck down the federal income tax in a notorious case called Pollock . As professors Joseph Fishkin and William Forbath illustrate in their book The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution , the court of this period was dead set upon enshrining the legal supremacy of wealthy individuals and corporations. To that end, it redefined the phrase direct tax to encompass income for the first time. And because it was functionally impossible to apportion a tax among the states, the decision essentially outlawed any federal income tax.

There was not much law in Pollock : Rather, the five justices in the majority based their decision on overt hostility toward a fairer tax system. Justice Stephen Field wrote that the income tax constituted “class legislation” that discriminated against rich people, indistinguishable from a special tax on Protestants or Jews. Field framed the tax as a violation of the equality principles enshrined in the post–Civil War amendments. This claim was especially perverse because, as Justice John Marshall Harlan pointed out in dissent, the direct tax clause was rooted in slavery, and the postwar amendments were designed to rid the Constitution of the institution’s stain.

Predictably, Thomas embraces Pollock as the correct reading of the original Constitution. But Americans of the era disagreed. Progressive reformers mobilized to ratify the 16 th Amendment, one of their most enduring victories, in 1913. The amendment marked a “ massive political repudiation ” of the court’s oligarchical constitutionalism, overruling Pollock and handing Congress the sweeping power to tax income “from whatever source derived.” To Thomas, however, the 16 th Amendment was barely a footnote, a “narrow” change that “left everything else in place, including the federalism principles bound up” in the direct tax clause. (These are “principles” that Thomas just made up.) In Thomas’ account, this groundswell of nationwide support for the income tax—culminating in a grueling and successful crusade to amend the Constitution—was a mere technical tweak with extremely limited effect.

Which leads to the justice’s final, most antidemocratic attempted move in his Moore dissent: transforming the 16 th Amendment from a populist expansion of Congress’ taxing power into a novel restriction on that power. Recall that the amendment allows taxation of income, “from whatever source derived.” There is a wealth of evidence that lawmakers included this phrase to ensure that courts would not artificially narrow the definition of income —a word that was, at the time , widely understood in broad terms , encompassing both realized and unrealized gains . Yet Thomas spurned the historical record in favor of some characteristic sophistry: The word derived , he wrote (without any evidence or support), is a “near-synonym” for realized . It therefore “points to the concept of realization” as an extratextual limitation on Congress’ taxing power.

Responding to Thomas’ opinion, the legal historian Fishkin derided this word game as “an absolute classic of the genre” in which Thomas excels: “to read language that is quite obviously on its face intended to be as broad as possible as instead narrowing language.” The purpose of that phrase, he told me, “was not the word derived . It was the word whatever . It meant—because this was a point of contention at the time—that even income from land could be taxed. It didn’t matter what source the income was derived from. That’s the straightforward and obvious meaning.” Fishkin added, “The word derived happens to be the one he’s playing games with, but really, the text doesn’t matter here. There’s always a word somewhere you can use. The point is that he wants to put in a realization requirement.” And Thomas, ostensibly a committed textualist and originalist, brazenly manipulated both text and history to do it.

There is a profound irony here. The Supreme Court’s 1895 decision in Pollock was obviously wrong , invalidating more than three decades of the income tax. The American people ratified the 16 th Amendment to overrule Pollock . Yet the court initially refused to accept the amendment: It defied the will of the people in 1920’s Eisner v. Macomber , elevating Pollock ’s repudiating interpretation of the vestigial direct tax clause over the 16 th Amendment to limit income taxes once again. Macomber was a hallmark of the court’s Lochner era , when it regularly rewrote the Constitution to favor moneyed interests. It abandoned that approach several years into the New Deal, in the face of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s court-packing threat. With Thomas’ Moore dissent, history is repeating itself. The justice wants to turbocharge the direct tax clause (like the Supreme Court did in 1895) and mutilate the 16 th Amendment (like the Supreme Court did in 1920) to reduce the tax burdens on the ultrawealthy. Why? Legal realists can debate the impact of his billionaire friends on Thomas’ jurisprudence.

But there’s another, more explicit bias at work: He simply does not grant constitutional amendments the same respect that he gives to the original Constitution. His jurisprudence is inspired by “natural law,” a theory that interprets the Constitution as, essentially, a divine revelation to the founders that codifies rights bestowed by a higher authority . Under this view, the product of the Constitutional Convention was nearly perfect, minus its accommodation for slavery—yet, as his Moore dissent illustrates, the justice is willing to downplay or write off this glaring defect when necessary.

Thomas will embrace the 14 th Amendment’s equal protection clause to outlaw affirmative action , but he otherwise gives remarkably short shrift to the Reconstruction amendments. These amendments fundamentally altered the balance of power between states and the federal government, giving Congress vastly more authority to enforce a panoply of civil rights. But Thomas routinely interprets them as marginalia at best— shooting down , for instance, Congress’ prerogative to stamp out race discrimination in voting. In these opinions, the justice insists on enforcing aspects of the original Constitution that, he claims, allow states to suppress civil rights and civil liberties without federal interference. The Reconstruction amendments, in his preferred narrative, fall away as an irrelevant relic rather than the radical transformation of the Constitution that they were meant to be.

In Moore , the 16 th Amendment gets the Thomas treatment. His (misleading) account of the amendment’s enactment largely erases the progressive reformers who pushed it over the finish line—as if, to his mind, they have no legitimate role to play in the story of our founding charter. They are written off as interlopers who foolishly tinkered with our God-given Constitution, inserting errors that must be corrected by black-robed rulers who just know better. It’s a frighteningly arrogant approach to judging, one that effectively closes off amendments as a way to fix the court’s mistakes. The Constitution begins with the declaration “We the People” and invites future generations to help build a “more perfect union.” But to Thomas, the wealthy white men who wrote those words got almost everything right the first time, and the people must never be trusted to build upon their flawed work.

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Biden Officials Pushed to Remove Age Limits for Trans Surgery, Documents Show

Newly released emails from an influential group issuing transgender medical guidelines indicate that U.S. health officials lobbied to remove age minimums for surgery in minors because of concerns over political fallout.

By Azeen Ghorayshi

Health officials in the Biden administration pressed an international group of medical experts to remove age limits for adolescent surgeries from guidelines for care of transgender minors, according to newly unsealed court documents.

Age minimums, officials feared, could fuel growing political opposition to such treatments.

Email excerpts from members of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health recount how staff for Adm. Rachel Levine, assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services and herself a transgender woman, urged them to drop the proposed limits from the group’s guidelines and apparently succeeded.

If and when teenagers should be allowed to undergo transgender treatments and surgeries has become a raging debate within the political world. Opponents say teenagers are too young to make such decisions, but supporters including an array of medical experts posit that young people with gender dysphoria face depression and worsening distress if their issues go unaddressed.

In the United States, setting age limits was controversial from the start.

The draft guidelines, released in late 2021, recommended lowering the age minimums to 14 for hormonal treatments, 15 for mastectomies, 16 for breast augmentation or facial surgeries, and 17 for genital surgeries or hysterectomies.

The proposed age limits were eliminated in the final guidelines outlining standards of care , spurring concerns within the international group and with outside experts as to why the age proposals had vanished.

The email excerpts released this week shed light on possible reasons for those guideline changes, and highlight Admiral Levine’s role as a top point person on transgender issues in the Biden administration. The excerpts are legal filings in a federal lawsuit challenging Alabama’s ban on gender-affirming care.

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