How to Excel in Writing Analysis Essays: an Effective Tutorial

An analysis essay is not like a summary or description. This type of academic work is more complicated and challenging, and clearly shows the students’ critical thinking and abilities to analyze and draw conclusions. Therefore, analysis essays are frequent tasks in high school. To write a strong and impressive analysis essay, you might make use of the following instructions:

  1. Prewriting stage.
    • Make a claim.

      Make a specific, persistent claim, showing how you interpret the topic and the piece of literature in question. This is your point of view, and you are to analyze and prove it in the essay. The summary of your claim is called a thesis statement, and this is the core part of an introduction.

    • Prepare your evidence.

      Thoroughly look through the work under investigation (at least two times). Write down the evidence to support your claim. Find out the background information about the author, genre, and historical context of this piece of literature. Analyze everything you discovered; and write down your ideas, appropriate quotations, and facts.

    • Make an outline.

      Usually, analysis essays consist of an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Decide which evidence will be used in every paragraph.

  2. Writing stage.
    • Write the introduction.

      The necessary background information about the work should be given at the beginning of the introduction. Try to logically lead the reader towards your claim, or to the thesis statement you are going to analyze and prove. Make your thesis statement clear and specific. You might also use some engaging information which would grab the reader’s attention. It is helpful that some direction sentences be included in the introduction as well. These sentences will hint at the ways you’ll prove your point of view.

    • Write the body paragraphs.

      Each body paragraph should develop the points mentioned in the direction sentences of the introduction (one point per paragraph); and consist of the topic sentence, analysis, and evidence material. All the points should prove your thesis statement. Use quotes to support your argument. Check if the proper quotation style is used in your essay (APA, MLA, or Chicago style). Facts from other sources might also be used to prove your main idea.

    • Write the conclusion.

      Restate your thesis in a different way. Sum up the arguments you gathered in the body paragraph, and emphasize that the claim you made has been proven.

  3. Polishing stage.

    Have at least two drafts of your paper. Take your time, and after a day or two, come back to it with fresh eyes.

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