Directions on How to Write an Analysis Essay

Throughout your academic career you will be writing essays of chiefly two types—argumentative essays, in which you argue for a point that you believe in – such as “We must do something about global warming now or suffer the consequences.” And you also write analytic essays, where you analyze the work of someone else, evaluating how effective this author is at accomplishing his or her goals.

Also, sometimes you have to write a simple analysis of, say, the person you most admire in life, or an analysis of a movie that has always fascinated you.

Great Topics for Analytic Essays

  1. How to Become a __________________ Instructor
  2. How to Teach Someone to _________________.
  3. How to Ski and Ski Well: Five Basic Steps
  4. Physical Therapy: Surviving the Horrors after A Car Accident

The Parts of An Analytic Essay

The Introduction

First, introduce your analysis with a few sentences about your project. What you want to do is find an interesting way into the paper. Get your reader’s attention in a few sentences that are going to whisk your reader into the essay.

The Thesis Statement

The thesis statement is the very specific statement you make at the end of your project. For the analytic essays these will be one of three types of theses:

  1. “In this essay, I’m going to explain how to make a really good educational YouTube Video.

    This essay would analyze a process and explain it to your reader.

  2. In this essay, I’m going to explain how to become a ski instructor.
  3. In this essay, I’m going to analyze feminist philosophies in Joyce Carol Oate’s short story
  4. ____________________.

The Body of Evidence

You have to then make your thesis come alive by explaining, in each paragraph, a different element of how to do this or how the author uses, say, feminist philosophies in your work, using evidence from the text. So, in an analytic essay, evidence comes from another text you are analyzing or from your own mind in explanation of the process you are explaining.

The Conclusion: What I learned from my Analysis

In the conclusion, you want to move to a final assertion of why, overall this topic is important and say what you have learned, most of all, from your analysis.

You want to make your last sentence echo in the mind of your reader.

#