A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing Excellent Analytical Essay

If written right, an analytical essay can help you scoop high marks and secure excellent grades in your paper. However, writing an analytical essay can be a real challenge if you do not understand the piece of work that you are about to analyze or don’t have enough resources to justify your claims. Therefore, you need to dig deeper to understand the matter’s purpose, identify its background, culture, impact, etc.

But it isn’t anything undoable, especially if you know the nitty-gritty and have the right tricks up your sleeves. That brings us to the pressing question here – how to write an analytical essay? And that is precisely what I have for you here – a comprehensive guide with a step-by-step explanation. Read on for tips, tricks, and more assignment tools

How to Write an Analytical Essay in 10 Easy Steps

The perfect analytical essay help must offer a clear and well-organized perspective of the main idea, supported by relevant evidence. If writing an analytical essay seems like a daunting task, use this step-by-step guide to ace the assignment.

• Understand the objective 

Unless you understand the film, novel or event you have to analyze, you will not be able to justify and present your arguments on the topic. So, before you start preparing your opinions, make sure you understand the goals you have to achieve. 

Here are the common objectives for certain topics:

• When analyzing a work of fiction, your focus should be on a specific character or group of characters. You can also focus on the central theme of the work as a whole. 
• For a historical event, write about the factors and forces that eventually led to the incident.
• If you are analyzing scientific research or findings, your essay writing help should follow the same scientific method used for the research.

1. Brainstorm

Once you have chosen the topic, brainstorm and look at the subject matter from multiple angles. Try mind-mapping with the central topic in the middle and the more minor and related ideas branching out from the center. 

• When analyzing a work of literature, look for metaphors, similes, imagery, or other figures of speech and try to decipher them.
• Determine whether there is a sequence of repetition or not. Understand how the author uses logic in the work of art.
• When analyzing research, study the methods used to determine whether the experiment had a good design.

1. Develop a thesis statement

Several students make the mistake of writing an obvious thesis statement when summarizing the claims of the essay. But you must make sure that your analytical thesis examines the subject matter and makes a particular claim. Here are certain things to remember:

• The thesis statement should be “arguable” – something that readers can contest.
• The thesis should be focused enough to cover the scope of your assignment.
• To avoid the formulaic statement, do not use the “three-prong” thesis. Instead, state your argument generally.

1. Find supporting evidence

Unless you offer enough evidence to support your arguments and claims, even the most well-written essay won’t make the cut. Now, depending on the topic, you need to decide what kind of sources you want to use -just primary sources or a blend of both primary and secondary sources.

• Use the direct piece of art along with journal articles about the work, blogs and other resources.
• Cite the sources you use to support your claims, and list them out so the readers can access the sources as well.
• Also, keep in mind that your evidence should shape your thesis statement and not vice versa. 

1. Make an outline

When you are writing an analytical essay for the first time (or even after that), creating an outline will make writing it easier. However, before you create the outline, check the word count allowed for the essay and the format to be followed.

• If nothing is mentioned, follow the standard “5 paragraph essay” format to create the outline.
• Use the mind-map approach to determine which ideas and evidence fit in which section.
• If this is your first time at it, create an informal outline that groups all your claims and evidence together that you can later refine.

1. Write the introduction 

The introduction of an analytical essay must give the readers enough background information to have an idea of the topic. Keep the introduction informative while not giving away everything. Make it engaging without being overzealous.

Here are some other things to keep in mind when writing the introductory paragraph:

• To avoid making the essay sound biases, avoid using the first person right at the start.
• State your thesis, generally as the last sentence in the first paragraph.
• Instead of using fluff sentences, give out important details, like the title of the work, the author, date of publication, etc.

1. Write your body paragraphs

Irrespective of how many paragraphs the essay’s body has, every section must start with a distinct topic sentence, followed by analyzing a part of the text and supporting evidence. Use the “CEE” formula to remember the sequence: Claim-Evidence-Explanation. 

• The topic sentence must tellthe reader what that particular paragraph is about.
• The analysis of the text includes your arguments related to the topic sentence.
• Next, you must provide enough evidence to support the argument related to the chosen section of the text you are analyzing in that body paragraph.

Note: Your arguments and claims should all reiterate your thesis.

1. Write the conclusion 

You need to remember that an analytical essay can be too much to take due to an overload of information. Therefore, the conclusion should not just end your essay on the right note.

• The conclusion must also serve as a reminder of how you supported all the arguments.
• You can also try to make a broader connection at the end of your essay.
• You can state how your claims could change someone’s perspective after reading your analysis of a work of art, event or scientific research.

While at it, make sure that you do not introduce a new argument in the conclusion essay writing help. Instead, discuss the implications in a broader context to go beyond the thesis statement.

• Proofread the essay

Despite writing an informative analytical essay fraught with evidence, you may score poorly if your writing has too many spelling or grammatical errors. Therefore, make sure to do a thorough spell and grammar check, looking for conventional mistakes and punctuation errors.

Here is what you can do to detect every minute mistake:

• • Read the essayaloud to find irrelevant sentences and eliminate them.
  • Check where the transitions falter and add or alter sentences accordingly.

• Use a grammar checking tool to save time and be sure.

• Format the essay

Your work with an analytical essay does not end with just putting all the ideas and information together. You must make sure that your essay is readable. Structure the essay with bullets and format it correctly.

• Use a 12-pt standard font like Times New Roman, Arial or Verdana. Maintain 1″ margins.
• Make sure that there is background information for all the characters  assignment help
• Break down wordy paragraphs and use bullet points to make the chunks readable.

Endnote:

You need to remember that analytical essays are for the benefit of the readers, helping them contextualize basic information about a particular topic. So unless you tick all the right boxes, your piece won’t do you any good.

So, use this guide the next time to write the perfect analytical essays and impress the readers. Break a leg!

Author Bio: Sheila Lawson has a PhD in Comparative Literature and is a guest lecturer in several colleges in the USA. She is also associated with the academic website MyAssignmenthelp.com, where she offers analytical, Contact her via the website if you do not know how to write an