
Analytical Essays: Moving from Description to an Evidence-Based Argument
Analysis explains how evidence supports an interpretation; it does more than describe the topic or repeat a source. The thesis, paragraph claims and conclusion should remain connected throughout the essay.
Formatting, voice and the use of first person depend on the discipline and task. Follow the assignment brief rather than treating one essay formula as universal.
Analysis framework | English source material | Conclusion | Related reading
Reading and Analysis Framework
| Dimension | Evidence and writing action | Interpretation limit |
|---|---|---|
| Thesis | State an interpretation that answers the assignment question. | A broad topic statement does not yet make an argument. |
| Paragraph | Introduce evidence and explain the inference drawn from it. | A quotation or fact does not explain its own significance. |
| Conclusion | Bring the supported claims together and answer the original question. | Restating the introduction word for word adds no synthesis. |
English Writing Guide
How to Write an Analytical Essay?
An analytical essay is a specialized form of assignment that is written in order to help the reader gain a better understanding of a particular object. Any object can be the subject of an analytical essay, including an event, a literary work, or even a person.
Regardless of what the subject matter will be for your analytical essays, the first step is to take the object apart in order to examine each of its components closely. Obviously, this doesn't mean that you physically take the subject apart. Rather, you break it down into smaller pieces. For example, if writing about a person, you might break that person's life into categories such as early childhood, childhood, teen years, young adult years, etc.
After you have broken the subject down into smaller parts, you will then examine it within its historical context. If you are writing about a painting, for example, you might consider how the style impacted the art world at the time it was created as well as the impact it has on art today.
Finally, youranalytical report should discuss the message the subject is trying to convey. If you are writing about a book, you might write about what the author was trying to say in the story.
As you analyze the object that you will be writing about, it is important that you write down all of the ideas that come to mind. Although you may not use everything that you write down in your analytical essay, simply writing down your thoughts will help you with tying them all together. This also makes it easier for you to refresh your thoughts and ideas after you have completed your analysis.
When you write down the thoughts that occur to you while analyzing an article, you should feel free to write down even those thoughts that might seem unusual. Often, these are the thoughts that make a solid base for a great article. In fact, it is often the reports with new and unusual ideas that have the greatest impact on readers and receive the most positive feedback.
Once you have completely analyzed the item, you need to develop a thesis. The thesis statement is the one sentence that expresses the main idea of the entire article. As such, everything else you write in your analytical essay will serve to support your thesis. The thesis should be included in the first paragraph of your essay, which is referred to as the introductory paragraph.
The body of your analytical report should tell the reader all of the facts or evidence that you have gathered in support of your thesis. Each of the paragraphs in the body of your report should include a topic sentence, which serves to support the thesis, as well as additional sentences that further support the topic sentence.
Finally, your analytical report should end with a conclusion paragraph. This paragraph restates your thesis statement, though it must be written in a way that is different from in the introductory paragraph. In addition, the conclusion serves to summarize what was stated in the body of your article.
Conclusion and Writing Takeaways
For each paragraph, ask what it claims, what evidence it uses and why that evidence supports the claim. Revise descriptive passages into a connected line of reasoning, then make the conclusion reflect the argument actually developed.
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