How To Write An Analytical Essay: What Is An Analytical Essay? For writing any academic assignment, it is essential to understand the concepts of essays. Analysis means breaking down of a whole into its sub-parts so that the readers can understand every part. In the simplest of terms, if any essay presents an argument, it is termed as an analytical essay.
It is a specific type of essay which looks forward to dissecting a topic to enhance the meaning of the whole. This type of essay presents an argument or a claim that is justified with logic. Most of the time, such an essay is depicted with the help of several graphs, charts, tables that helps is visualization.
You can read more Essay Writing about articles, events, people, sports, technology many more.
The language that is used in this essay is crisp and intelligible. Analytical essays can be written for investigating a movie or a historical event or about scientific researches and findings. To present an excellent analytical essay, one must be capable enough to break down the topic, initiate a claim, and then provide the support of enough evidence to justify the claim.
These essays are more than mere synopses, and one has to go for depthless scrutiny. The entire purpose of an analytical essay is to make sure that the reader agrees with the shreds of evidence given.
Features Of An Analytical Essay
- There should not be any biasedness involved.
- The use of straightforward and accurate language is mandatory.
- The expression of the subject matter by phrases or questions or idioms are preferred.
- The information which is given should be brief but far-reaching.
- Appropriately mentioned statistics are of utmost importance.
Types Of Analytical Essay
Analytical essays can be broadly classified into the following types:
- Persuasive Analytical Essay: The purpose of this type of analytical essay is to persuade the reader to accept the views that have been presented. There are pieces of evidence given from a variety of sources that support the argument.
- Analytical Expository Essay: The explanation of an idea or a particular theme or a problem is provided. The topic can be any particular event or even a theory. This is a form of much more creative writing that speaks to the readers.
- Analytical History Essay: In this type, the focus is given to a specific historical event. The author has to provide his understanding of the event and supply relevant authentication.
- Analytical Comparison Essay: As the name suggests this type of analytical essay compares different topics. The topics can be either books or texts or even general ideas. After the comparison, the authors aim to give a well-informed finale.
Steps To Writing An Analytical Essay
To write a well informed analytical essay, five major steps need to be strictly adhered to. These five steps can be further split up to eight other steps.
The main five points are:
- Doing a literature review
- Brainstorming suitable ideas
- Outlining the ideas
- Preparation of a rough draft
- Smoothening the final draft
Literature Review: When you are collecting a lot of information about a particular topic, that is termed as a literature review. It is essentially a survey of the scholarly journals and articles which is done to begin any research.
Before choosing any topic or is important that the author is familiar with the previous works that have been done, which ensures that he might not end up repeating the same. The gaps that are existing in the current literature is identified with a proper survey, and one can address the problems not yet solved. A proper literature survey also helps an author to develop his theoretical framework and follow a proper methodology.
This step can be divided into the following two:
- Understanding the Objective: In this step, the author is required to reach an understanding of the pieces of literature that he has gone through. After the survey of the literature, a sketch of what can be done in the topic comes to mind. This is the objective formulation. This step helps the author to understand what and how he is doing and not to repeat the mistakes that have been done previously.
- Deciding on What To Write: The decision making depends on the type of audience. If the audience is knowledgeable, then the approach is different than when the audience is a general class. For deciding on the topic first choose a broader genre like whether the author would like to work with fiction, or with historical events, or would the work be based on scientific experiments and researches.
Brainstorming Suitable Ideas:
This step is an accumulation of the following three steps:
- Brainstorm: After the author has chosen the topic, preparation of a mind map on how he would want to follow the methodology is done. Create a flow chart on how to justify the central idea by breaking it down. After it has been broken down, try to establish a connection between them and understanding how those particular things are related to each other and also to the whole. Writing down all the ideas is essential, and even if the elements seem unimportant at this stage, they might pose immense importance later.
- Developing a Thesis Statement: This statement is a summary of the claim that will be put later on. This statement is similar to an abstract. The thesis statement must be narrow and manageable. The choice of an argument that will be defended throughout is done in this step.
- Supporting Pieces of Evidence: The literature survey provides the primary source of information that provides the first push to the research. But many times, secondary sources of information are required. In the case of an analytical essay such as secondary sources of information act as the pieces of evidence that support the claim. These shreds of evidence can be books, or articles, or journals. Proper evidence makes the argument more pursuable.
Outlining the Ideas:
The creation of a proper way outline is significant. In this step, the authors are required to make a format that he would like to follow. All the information that is gathered is finalized into a specific two or three main ones. An outline helps in giving a structure to the essay.
Preparation of a Rough Draft:
- Writing the Title and Introduction: choice of Title is an essential step as it helps in engaging the reader. Choosing a unique title grabs the attention of the reader. The introduction that is written provided an opportunity for the reader to get some background information about the topic. The introduction should be prompt and appealing, but there should not be any summarisation.
- Body Paragraphs: The body paragraphs should be divided into two to three sections, and each should have some analysis of the text. All the analyzing statements that are given should also include the required evidence. There should be a simple balance in the tone being unbiased and providing some personal opinion.
- Conclusion: The conclusion is given as a summary of the entire thesis. Drawing a bigger connection to the world, beyond what is written is essential.
Smoothening The Final Draft: In this step, the author is supposed to look for grammatical errors and further proofread the entire document. This step draws out all the errors that have taken place in the document. Even the spellings and spaces need to be checked thoroughly.
Analytical Essay Format
There are three essential parts:
- Introduction: It is the first paragraph that gives a brief description of the topic. The introduction serves as the opening statement about the document and is supposed to be short and accurate. Not many details are provided and but certain highlights about the thesis is given.
- Body: The details of the study is given in the body of the document. All the relevant and important information is provided here. It is important to divide the paragraph body into two to three sections based on a theme. These paragraphs are then bound together with some evidence or logic. The various charts, graphs, diagrams that are used for the study area given in this section. Many times some comparison between the study is also included.
- Conclusion: This is the endnote of the study. This paragraph wraps up the study, and the key points are highlighted. In this single paragraph, the entire summary of the thesis is to be given, and the pieces of evidence that have been provided in the body is to be paraphrased. Some final thoughts that justify the conclusion should be incorporated to make the study comprehensive.
FAQ’s on How To Write An Analytical Essay
Question 1.
What is an analytical essay example?
Answer:
While writing an essay about a book if the author is required to analyze the Title or the methods, then that is an analytical essay. Some other important topics are
- Gender role changes
- Use of drugs in sports
- Social inequalities
- Art education importance
- Pros and cons of having health insurance
Question 2.
What should be included in an analytical essay?
Answer:
Some key parts to be included are:
- Quotations
- Thesis statement
- Excerpts collected from other writings
- Proper referencing of authors
- Providing key shreds of evidence
Question 3.
What are the errors while writing analytical essays?
Answer:
The errors that should be avoided are:
- Misunderstand the topic essence
- Formulating incorrect arguments
- Essay overload
- Use of long phrases
- Inability to justify the claims with proper evidence
- Errors in punctuation, grammar or speech
Question 4.
How can I improve my skills in essay writing?
Answer:
Ways to improve the essay writings can include:
- Formulating am outline
- Understanding the argument properly
- Using proper grammar, punctuation, vocabulary.
- Knowledge of writing a proper crisp conclusion that adequately supports the findings.