If you are reading this text, you definitely need to write one more essay assignment. You have already written myriads of essays of different types and now you are faced with the new one – analytical essay.
Come on and check it out how to write an analytical essay.
What is an analytical essay?
The first thing we need to clarify is what analytical essay is at all. This kind of essay asks you to provide (attention!) some analysis of a certain feature. There are a lot of kinds of analytical essays, which we would describe a little later.
What does writing an analysis require? You need to see a certain topic and observe its idea backing it up with your own thoughts. Sounds simple, isn`t it? But the problem is in choosing the tight field of research.If you are asked to analyze a historical event the field of analysis of this event should be specified. Hardly are you able of providing an analysis of the whole World War I.
But you surely can analyze the background of Battle of Ypres.However, the main allure of this kind of essay is in the freedom you are given writing an analysis. The task does not limit you and the only thing you need to do is a tie to a topic. Then you can write whatever you want minding analytical nature of the task.
Types of analytical essay
As it was told earlier we need to specify some kinds of analytical essays. It is not a strict division on different kinds, but this classification would help you to understand the main directions of how to write an analysis essay.
- Analyzing literature.
Mostly you are given the task to provide analytics of a piece of literature.
As it was mentioned, analytical essay does not need an observation of the whole novel or something like that. In a literary analysis you need to concentrate on a single aspect that has a certain influence on this piece of literature. It may be a situation or phenomenon described in the literary text. The peculiarity of this analysis is in appealing to some abstract categories that could not be reduced to logics such as love, betrayal, social responsibility and so on.
- Analyzing a character.
This type of analysis looks like a previous one but is not the same. Also, the character is not tied to literature – it may exist in cinema, music or even sculpture. Here you need to observe a character through the lens of his or her (or its) personal traits and characteristics.
You can provide this observation of the character throughout all his effect on a plot (cinema, literature) or in a single situation (music, painting, sculpture).
- Analyzing a cause.
This is closer to analysis some historical event. However, the thing you need to observe can be happening now.
The main point is to explain why it happened or is happening in this way. It differs from a cause and effect essay in the terms of freedom of your thought. You are not required to provide some supporting arguments from authoritative sources but only to rely on your own logics.
- Analyzing the proofs.
This kind of analysis wants you to prove something that is well-known and long-established. You need to equip yourself with logics, dry facts and lots of self-confidence to show that your position of this long-established issue is right.
Analytical essay outline
After you know what it is, you need to know how to write an analysis paper. And the first thing how to start writing an analysis is to create an outline.
The task does not require to create an outline but this seemingly time and efforts wasting action would help you to compose a great paper.Writing an analytical essay outline is half of whole work. It applies to all the essays however. And like creating an outline for any kind of essay creating one for the analysis paper has the same nature.
The sense of an outline is in structuring the text before you write this text. When you write your text from scratch it is easy to digress from the main points and to go beyond needed volume. Having an outline you have a visual landmark that directs you into a right way.An outline for the analytical essay depends on the topic.
But there you still denote what and in which order you write information in introduction, body paragraphs and conclusion. Connect your notes to the topic and you`ll get your outline.
Analytical essay structure
Structure of this kind of essay is similar to the common essay. Let`s remind legendary essay-writing trio: introduction, body paragraphs and conclusion.
- Introduction. This part of an analysis paper asks you to write the exordial information of the text in order to acquaint reader with what this essay is about. Use very general details excluding some specific ones. You do not need to reveal everything in your introduction – leave it for the body paragraphs.
The other important things of introduction are the hooks. Remember that this part contains the first words the reader sees and you obviously need to use it with advantage. To attract your reader you need to include here some writing hooks (tricks that catch the fancy of a reader): statistics, an authoritative quote, unexpected information or an anecdote. And the last but not least thing you need to include in the introduction is a thesis statement.
Thesis statement is a basis of the essay. This mostly is one single sentence that expresses the main idea of your text. Throughout all the text you need to stick to this statement and to defend and prove it.
- Body Paragraphs.This part usually consists of several paragraphs. How much do you need to use? One paragraph expresses one thought. So when you concentrate on definitely one side of analysis you devote it a separate paragraph. Depending on the complexity of your analysis it may take up to 3-6 paragraphs e.3-6 main thoughts.
In this part, you need to observe all your analytical thoughts concerning the topic. Throughout all the body paragraphs you need to remember about your thesis statement and stick to it. Mind the logical coherence – do not contradict yourself.
- Conclusion. This part is the less demanding one. Here you need to restate your thesis and show how you have proved your position concerning the topic. The simple summing up also would be beneficial.
But pay enough attention to the conclusion part. If you make it bad, all the efforts you have spent on previous parts would be canceled.
Epilogue
An analytical paper is not the hardest task to complete. We have observed the sense of this essay, the essence of the task, different types of analytical essay and its structure.
Now you are familiar with all useful tips of how to write an analytical essay. Now you know how to write an analysis essay and I wish to get the highest mark for your paper!
