Thursday, December 23, 2021

How to write a good analytical essay

How to write a good analytical essay



Persuasive Essay Topics Philosophy Paper Topics Research Paper Topics. Choosing the right evidence can be crucial to proving your argument, but your analysis of that evidence is equally important, how to write a good analytical essay. The main goal of the body paragraphs is to prove the thesis statement. Check out our top-rated graduate blogs here: GRE Online Prep Blog GMAT Online Prep Blog TOEFL Online Prep Blog. If you are talking about scientific research, considering the scientific method is a necessity. If you have plenty of grammatical errors, all the great work you have done crafting your analytical essay will go in vain. Check out this list of 31 literary devices to learn more!





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General Education. Do you need to write an analytical essay for school? What sets this kind of essay apart from other types, and what must you include when you write your own analytical essay? In this guide, we break down the process of writing an analytical essay by explaining the key factors your essay needs to have, providing you with an outline to help you structure your essay, and analyzing a complete analytical essay example so you can see what a finished essay looks like. Before you begin writing an analytical essay, you must know what this type of essay is and what it includes. Analytical essays analyze something, often but not always a piece of writing or a film.


Instead of summarizing, an analytical essay typically takes a narrower focus and looks at areas such as major themes in the work, how the author constructed and supported their argument, how the essay used literary devices to enhance its messages, etc. Rather, your goal is to have enough analysis and examples that the strength of your argument is clear to readers. Besides typical essay components like an introduction and conclusion, a good analytical essay will include:. Below is an outline you can follow when structuring your essay, and in the next section we go into more detail on how to write an analytical essay. Your introduction will include:. Your analytical essay will typically have three or four body paragraphs, each covering a different point of analysis. Body paragraphs will include:.


Begin by rephrasing your thesis and summarizing the main points you made in the essay. Someone who reads just your conclusion should be able to come away with a basic idea of what your essay was about and how it was structured. A conclusion will include:. Follow these five tips to break down writing an analytical essay into manageable steps. All of these steps use the completed analytical essay in the next section as an example. Before you decide on an analytical essay topic, do a bit of research to make sure you have enough examples to support your analysis. You need to choose a topic that allows you to analyze the theme. You could write about how Steinbeck used literary devices throughout the whole book, but, in the essay below, I chose to just focus on the intercalary chapters since they gave me enough examples.


Having a narrower focus will nearly always result in a tighter and more how to write a good analytical essay essay and can make compiling examples less overwhelming. When you begin writing, remember that each sentence in your analytical essay should relate back to your thesis, how to write a good analytical essay. In the analytical essay example below, the thesis is the final sentence of the first paragraph the traditional spot for it. How Steinbeck used literary devices in the intercalary chapters to show how rough migrants could have it. Crystal clear. This is where you determine the bulk of your analysis--the information that makes your essay an analytical essay.


My preferred method is to list every idea that I can think of, then research each of those and use the three or four strongest ones for your essay. A good rule of thumb is to have one body paragraph per main point. This essay has four main points, each of which analyzes a different literary device Steinbeck uses to better illustrate how difficult life was for migrants during the Dust Bowl. The four how to write a good analytical essay devices and their impact on the book are:. Now that you have your main points, you need to back them up. Any evidence that would work for a regular research paper works here. In this example, I quoted multiple passages from The Grapes of Wrath in each paragraph to support my argument.


You should be able to back up every claim you make with evidence in order to have a strong essay. Create an introductory paragraph that ends with the thesis, make a body paragraph for each of your main points, including both analysis and evidence to back up your claims, and wrap it all up with a conclusion that recaps your thesis and main points and potentially explains the big picture importance of the topic. One way Steinbeck illustrates the connections all migrant people possessed and the struggles they faced is by refraining from using specific titles and names in his intercalary chapters. While The Grapes of Wrath focuses on the Joad family, the intercalary chapters show that all migrants share the same struggles and triumphs as the Joads.


No individual names are used in these chapters; instead the people are referred to as part of a group. By using generic terms, how to write a good analytical essay, Steinbeck shows how the migrants are all linked because they have gone through the same experiences. The grievances committed against one family were committed against thousands of other families; the abuse extends far beyond what the Joads experienced. The Grapes of Wrath frequently refers to the importance of coming together; how, when people connect with others their power and influence multiplies immensely. Throughout the novel, the goal of the migrants, the key to their triumph, has been to unite.


Hundreds of thousands of migrants fled to the promised land of California, but Steinbeck was aware that numbers alone were impersonal and lacked the passion he desired how to write a good analytical essay spread. Steinbeck created the intercalary chapters to show the massive numbers of people suffering, and he created the Joad family to evoke compassion from readers. Because readers come to sympathize with the Joads, they become more sensitive to the struggles of migrants in general. However, John Steinbeck frequently made clear that the Joads were not an isolated incident; they were not unique.


Their struggles and triumphs were part of something greater. Refraining from specific names in his intercalary chapters allows Steinbeck to how to write a good analytical essay the vastness of the atrocities committed against migrants. Steinbeck also creates significant parallels to the Bible in his intercalary chapters in order to enhance his writing and characters, how to write a good analytical essay. By using simple sentences and stylized writing, Steinbeck evokes Biblical passages. Throughout his novel, John Steinbeck makes connections to the Bible through his characters and storyline. Starving migrants become more than destitute vagrants; they are now the chosen people escaping to the promised land.


When a forgotten man dies alone and unnoticed, it becomes a tragedy. It is easy for people to feel disdain for shabby vagabonds, but connecting them to such a fundamental aspect of Christianity induces sympathy from readers who might have otherwise disregarded the migrants as so many other people did. The simple, uneducated dialogue Steinbeck employs also helps to create a more honest and meaningful representation of the migrants, and it makes the migrants more relatable to readers. Steinbeck chooses to accurately represent the language of the migrants in order to more clearly illustrate their lives and make them seem more like real paper than just characters in a book. There are multiple grammatical errors in that single sentence, but it vividly conveys the despair the migrants felt better than a technically perfect sentence would.


The Grapes of Wrath is intended to show the severe difficulties facing the migrants so Steinbeck employs a clear, pragmatic style of writing. The depiction of the migrants as imperfect through their language also makes them easier to relate to. Repeatedly in The Grapes of Wraththe wealthy make it obvious that they scorn the plight of the migrants. The wealthy, not bad luck or natural disasters, were the prominent cause of the suffering of migrant families such as the Joads. Thus, Steinbeck turns to the less prosperous for support in his novel. In The Grapes of WrathJohn Steinbeck uses metaphors, particularly about nature, in order to illustrate the mood and the overall plight of migrants, how to write a good analytical essay.


Throughout most of the book, the land is described as dusty, barren, and dead. Towards the end, however; floods come and the landscape begins to change. This description offers a stark contrast from the earlier how to write a good analytical essay which were filled with despair and destruction. However, at the end of the chapter the rain has caused new life to grow in California. The new grass becomes a metaphor representing hope. When the migrants are at a loss over how they will survive the winter, the grass offers reassurance. The story of the migrants in the intercalary chapters parallels that of the Joads. At the end of the novel, the family is breaking apart and has been forced to flee their home.


However, both the book and final intercalary chapter end on a hopeful note after so much suffering has occurred. Steinbeck affirms that persistence, even when problems appear insurmountable, leads to success, how to write a good analytical essay. Refraining from using specific names and terms allows Steinbeck to show that many thousands of migrants suffered through the same wrongs. When Steinbeck writes in the imperfect dialogue of the migrants, he creates a more accurate portrayal and how to write a good analytical essay the migrants easier to relate to for a less affluent audience. Metaphors, particularly relating to nature, strengthen the themes in The Grapes of Wrath by enhancing the mood Steinbeck wants readers to feel at different points in the book.


Overall, the intercalary chapters that Steinbeck includes improve his novel by making it more memorable and reinforcing the themes Steinbeck embraces throughout the novel. Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath to bring to light cruelties against migrants, and by using literary devices effectively, he continuously reminds readers of his purpose. This essay sticks pretty closely to the standard analytical essay outline. It starts with an introduction, how to write a good analytical essay, where I chose to use a quote to start off the essay. I then give a bit of background on The Grapes of Wrath and its themes before ending the intro paragraph with my thesis: that Steinbeck used literary devices in intercalary chapters to show how rough migrants had it.


What does this analytical essay example do well? For starters, it contains everything that a strong analytical essay should, and it makes that easy to find. Additionally, the essay does a good job of taking an in-depth look at the issue introduced in the thesis. Four ways Steinbeck how to write a good analytical essay literary devices are discussed, and for each of the examples are given and analysis is provided so readers can understand why Steinbeck included those devices and how they helped shaped how readers viewed migrants and their plight.


Where could this essay be improved? I believe the weakest body paragraph is the third one, how to write a good analytical essay, the one that discusses how Steinbeck used plain, grammatically incorrect language to both accurately depict the migrants and make them more relatable to readers. The paragraph tries to touch on both of those reasons and ends up being somewhat unfocused as a result. It would have been better for it to focus on just one of those reasons likely how it made the migrants more relatable in order to be clearer and more effective. This essay also could explain the excerpts that are included more and how they relate to the points being made.


This is perhaps especially true in the second body paragraph, the one that discusses similarities to Biblical passages. Additional analysis of the quotes would have strengthened it. What is an analytical essay? A critical analytical essay analyzes a topic, often a text or film. The analysis paper uses evidence to support the argument, such as excerpts from the piece how to write a good analytical essay writing. All analytical papers include a thesis, analysis of the topic, how to write a good analytical essay, and evidence to support that analysis. Reading analytical essay examples can also give you a better sense of how to structure your essay and what to include in it.


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While answering questions that lead to analysis, if you come across something that contradicts the argument, allow your critical thinking to refine the argument. Example: If one examined some more evidence about animal activism and it became clear that violence is sometimes the most effective measure, the argument could be modified. Without such aggressive actions, animal rights might be seen in a better light. The following are some patterns often found in passages of weak or empty analysis. Offers a new fact or piece of evidence in place of analysis. Though it is possible to offer two pieces of evidence together and analyze them in relation to each other, simply offering another piece of evidence as a stand in for analysis weakens the argument.


Telling the reader what happens next or another new fact is not analysis. According to PETA, hunting is no longer needed for sustenance as it once was and it now constitutes violent aggression. Uses an overly biased tone or restates claim rather than analyzing. Example: According to PETA, The Jane Goodall Institute estimates that 5, chimpanzees are killed by poachers annually. This ridiculous number proves that violence against animals justifies violent activist behavior. Dismisses the relevance of the evidence.


Bringing up a strong point and then shifting away from it rather than analyzing it can make evidence seem irrelevant. Example: Paul Watson was expelled from the leadership of Greenpeace. Nevertheless, his vision of activism should be commended. Strains logic or creates a generalization to arrive at the desired argument. Making evidence suit your needs rather than engaging in honest critical thinking can create fallacies in the argument and lower your credibility. It might also make the argument confusing. Example: Some companies are taking part in the use of alternatives to animal testing. Offers advice or a solution without first providing analysis. Telling a reader what should be done can be fine, but first explain how the evidence allows you to arrive at that conclusion.


Example: Greenpeace states that they attempt to save whales by putting themselves between the whaling ship and the whale, and they have been successful at gaining media support, but anyone who is a true activist needs to go further and put whalers at risk. For the following pairings of evidence and analysis, identify what evasive moves are being made and come up with a precise question that would lead to better analysis. Imagine your working thesis is as follows: Message communications came to life in order to bring people closer together, to make it easier to stay connected and in some instances they have. More often however, these forms of communication seem to be pushing people apart because they are less personal.


Messaging is clearly pushing people apart. In fact in the United States today, there are an estimated ,, wireless subscribers. Evidence shows that a person is more likely to first establish communication with someone you are interested in via text message or a form of online messaging via Facebook, Myspace, email, or instant messenger. People find these means of communication less stressful. This is because they are less personal. This way of communicating is very new, with text message popularity skyrocketing within only the last five years, the invention of instant messaging gaining popular use through AOL beginning in , and websites such as Myspace and Facebook invading our computers within only the last 5 years.


Regardless of this change in communication technology, these forms of communication do not bring people together. On birthdays, if you are on Facebook, your wall becomes flooded with happy birthday wishes, which is nice. However, if one of your close friends or perhaps a sibling simply wishes you a happy birthday on Facebook, you probably will feel a little cheated. It is important to know where you stand in your relationships, and if the person is actually important to you, you should take the time to call them in this kind of situation.


These nonverbal cues include body language, facial expression, eye movement and contact, posture, gestures, use of touch such as hug or handshake , vocal intonation, rate of speech, and the information we gather from appearance Applebaum, Phone calls can eliminate some of these problems. This shows that friendship has lost all meaning. argues with tone and uses a generalization 2. introduces new evidence and uses generalizations 3. dismisses evidence 4. offers advice or a solution and dismisses evidence 5. argues with tone and offers advice 6. uses a generalization. Submit Site Search Search. previous next. About Us People News and Events MWrite Projects. U-M LSA Departments and Units Majors and Minors LSA Gateway.


Writing Guides Minor in Writing First-Year Writing Requirement Writing Prizes. International Students Peer Writing Consultant Program Upper-Level Writing Requirement. Dissertation ECoach Fellows Seminar Write-Togethers. DSP Instructor Resources Outreach, Consultations and Workshops Teaching Resources. M-Write Seminar for Engaged Learning Sweetland Library. Alumni Gallery. A conclusion will include:. Follow these five tips to break down writing an analytical essay into manageable steps. All of these steps use the completed analytical essay in the next section as an example. Before you decide on an analytical essay topic, do a bit of research to make sure you have enough examples to support your analysis.


You need to choose a topic that allows you to analyze the theme. You could write about how Steinbeck used literary devices throughout the whole book, but, in the essay below, I chose to just focus on the intercalary chapters since they gave me enough examples. Having a narrower focus will nearly always result in a tighter and more convincing essay and can make compiling examples less overwhelming. When you begin writing, remember that each sentence in your analytical essay should relate back to your thesis. In the analytical essay example below, the thesis is the final sentence of the first paragraph the traditional spot for it.


How Steinbeck used literary devices in the intercalary chapters to show how rough migrants could have it. Crystal clear. This is where you determine the bulk of your analysis--the information that makes your essay an analytical essay. My preferred method is to list every idea that I can think of, then research each of those and use the three or four strongest ones for your essay. A good rule of thumb is to have one body paragraph per main point. This essay has four main points, each of which analyzes a different literary device Steinbeck uses to better illustrate how difficult life was for migrants during the Dust Bowl.


The four literary devices and their impact on the book are:. Now that you have your main points, you need to back them up. Any evidence that would work for a regular research paper works here. In this example, I quoted multiple passages from The Grapes of Wrath in each paragraph to support my argument. You should be able to back up every claim you make with evidence in order to have a strong essay. Create an introductory paragraph that ends with the thesis, make a body paragraph for each of your main points, including both analysis and evidence to back up your claims, and wrap it all up with a conclusion that recaps your thesis and main points and potentially explains the big picture importance of the topic.


One way Steinbeck illustrates the connections all migrant people possessed and the struggles they faced is by refraining from using specific titles and names in his intercalary chapters. While The Grapes of Wrath focuses on the Joad family, the intercalary chapters show that all migrants share the same struggles and triumphs as the Joads. No individual names are used in these chapters; instead the people are referred to as part of a group. By using generic terms, Steinbeck shows how the migrants are all linked because they have gone through the same experiences. The grievances committed against one family were committed against thousands of other families; the abuse extends far beyond what the Joads experienced. The Grapes of Wrath frequently refers to the importance of coming together; how, when people connect with others their power and influence multiplies immensely.


Throughout the novel, the goal of the migrants, the key to their triumph, has been to unite. Hundreds of thousands of migrants fled to the promised land of California, but Steinbeck was aware that numbers alone were impersonal and lacked the passion he desired to spread. Steinbeck created the intercalary chapters to show the massive numbers of people suffering, and he created the Joad family to evoke compassion from readers. Because readers come to sympathize with the Joads, they become more sensitive to the struggles of migrants in general.


However, John Steinbeck frequently made clear that the Joads were not an isolated incident; they were not unique. Their struggles and triumphs were part of something greater. Refraining from specific names in his intercalary chapters allows Steinbeck to show the vastness of the atrocities committed against migrants. Steinbeck also creates significant parallels to the Bible in his intercalary chapters in order to enhance his writing and characters. By using simple sentences and stylized writing, Steinbeck evokes Biblical passages. Throughout his novel, John Steinbeck makes connections to the Bible through his characters and storyline.


Starving migrants become more than destitute vagrants; they are now the chosen people escaping to the promised land. When a forgotten man dies alone and unnoticed, it becomes a tragedy. It is easy for people to feel disdain for shabby vagabonds, but connecting them to such a fundamental aspect of Christianity induces sympathy from readers who might have otherwise disregarded the migrants as so many other people did. The simple, uneducated dialogue Steinbeck employs also helps to create a more honest and meaningful representation of the migrants, and it makes the migrants more relatable to readers.


Steinbeck chooses to accurately represent the language of the migrants in order to more clearly illustrate their lives and make them seem more like real paper than just characters in a book. There are multiple grammatical errors in that single sentence, but it vividly conveys the despair the migrants felt better than a technically perfect sentence would. The Grapes of Wrath is intended to show the severe difficulties facing the migrants so Steinbeck employs a clear, pragmatic style of writing. The depiction of the migrants as imperfect through their language also makes them easier to relate to. Repeatedly in The Grapes of Wrath , the wealthy make it obvious that they scorn the plight of the migrants. The wealthy, not bad luck or natural disasters, were the prominent cause of the suffering of migrant families such as the Joads.


Thus, Steinbeck turns to the less prosperous for support in his novel. In The Grapes of Wrath , John Steinbeck uses metaphors, particularly about nature, in order to illustrate the mood and the overall plight of migrants. Throughout most of the book, the land is described as dusty, barren, and dead. Towards the end, however; floods come and the landscape begins to change. This description offers a stark contrast from the earlier passages which were filled with despair and destruction. However, at the end of the chapter the rain has caused new life to grow in California. The new grass becomes a metaphor representing hope.


When the migrants are at a loss over how they will survive the winter, the grass offers reassurance. The story of the migrants in the intercalary chapters parallels that of the Joads. At the end of the novel, the family is breaking apart and has been forced to flee their home. However, both the book and final intercalary chapter end on a hopeful note after so much suffering has occurred. Steinbeck affirms that persistence, even when problems appear insurmountable, leads to success. Refraining from using specific names and terms allows Steinbeck to show that many thousands of migrants suffered through the same wrongs. When Steinbeck writes in the imperfect dialogue of the migrants, he creates a more accurate portrayal and makes the migrants easier to relate to for a less affluent audience.


Metaphors, particularly relating to nature, strengthen the themes in The Grapes of Wrath by enhancing the mood Steinbeck wants readers to feel at different points in the book. Overall, the intercalary chapters that Steinbeck includes improve his novel by making it more memorable and reinforcing the themes Steinbeck embraces throughout the novel. Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath to bring to light cruelties against migrants, and by using literary devices effectively, he continuously reminds readers of his purpose. This essay sticks pretty closely to the standard analytical essay outline.


It starts with an introduction, where I chose to use a quote to start off the essay. I then give a bit of background on The Grapes of Wrath and its themes before ending the intro paragraph with my thesis: that Steinbeck used literary devices in intercalary chapters to show how rough migrants had it. What does this analytical essay example do well? For starters, it contains everything that a strong analytical essay should, and it makes that easy to find. Additionally, the essay does a good job of taking an in-depth look at the issue introduced in the thesis. Four ways Steinbeck used literary devices are discussed, and for each of the examples are given and analysis is provided so readers can understand why Steinbeck included those devices and how they helped shaped how readers viewed migrants and their plight.


Where could this essay be improved? I believe the weakest body paragraph is the third one, the one that discusses how Steinbeck used plain, grammatically incorrect language to both accurately depict the migrants and make them more relatable to readers. The paragraph tries to touch on both of those reasons and ends up being somewhat unfocused as a result. It would have been better for it to focus on just one of those reasons likely how it made the migrants more relatable in order to be clearer and more effective. This essay also could explain the excerpts that are included more and how they relate to the points being made. This is perhaps especially true in the second body paragraph, the one that discusses similarities to Biblical passages.


Additional analysis of the quotes would have strengthened it.

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