Steps of writing an analytical essay
In the literature classroom your teacher will ask you to write analysis related to different literary categories like poems, novels, short stories and plays. Before you start writing, you should know what an analysis is and how to start it?
To analyze something is break it into smaller parts and examine how this individual parts work appear and combines with each other and how interact with each other. When we consider about poems, novels, plays and short stories we can split them into smaller parts as setting, tone, characters, imagery , similes, metaphors and much more.
You might misguided by the experience you had in the school in summarizing. Summarizing or summary is not what your teacher expects in literature classroom. The outcome expects from a literary analysis is the way it works, the way it behaves and the impact made by the particular literary work.
According to the experts of literature you should follow 7 golden steps to make your analyze a good one.
1. Question yourself.
2. Collect evidences.
3. Construct a thesis statement.
4. Develop and organize arguments.
5. Write the introduction.
6. Write the body paragraphs.
7. Write the conclusion.
1. Question yourself
In the classroom your teacher provides you a good knowledge about the context of the literary work and techniques. After you have given a question to answer you should question yourself about your understanding of the context and techniques of the poem. You should be able to differentiate what you know and what you still don not know about the poem. Then with the help of your teacher you can simply identify the whole poem.
Find what make you attract…
These are the elements or facts which are going to make your essay meaningful you should have a clear understanding about the points that fascinate you.
Find what make you confused….
There can be some points of your literary work that make you confused. Sometimes that can be a word that you never understood the suitability to the poem, it can be a character whose behavior cannot be identified or it can be a story which makes your mind confused. To write a successful analysis you should be doubtless, so it is really important to have a good recognition about the entire literary work.
2. Collect evidences.
Now your head is full of the facts relevant to your literary work which you are dealing with. As the next step you need to collect the relevant evidences that nourish your argument in the question. All the elements of literature plot, characters, conflicts, narrator and themes of work. Also you should pay your attention towards the style of work.
· Structure and organization - Structure and organization tells how the parts of the work are organized.
· Point of view - In first person point of view, narrator involves himself / in third person point of view narrator may closely follow a specific character.
· Diction - Word choice which can be a dry clinical language or flowery phrase
· Syntax - word order and sentence construction
· Tone - The mood or feeling of the text
3. Construct a thesis statement.
Thesis is a heart of an analysis. After collecting evidences relevant to the literary work you can write your thesis statement with the help of examples and relevant arguments. A good thesis statement should have following characteristics.
· Arguable - thesis should not be a fact.
· Provable - thesis should be provable with the examples from the literary work.
· Specific - thesis should be written to the point.
4. Organize arguments.
Now you have selected a thesis and supporting facts to build up the flow of your analysis. Then you need to organize the facts that that should be written in the paragraph. Usually we use the term “outlining” to introduce the same process. Select the facts which are relevant to the question you received and suggest what evidences you are going to write down.
5. Write the introduction.
Now you are ready to write the introduction of your analysis. From the introduction you should show the shape of the essay to come. When you write the introduction always answer the question “so what?” It is necessary to provide details about the context of the poem. Be careful enough to not to go off topic and not to write unnecessary facts. It is better not to use words like ‘important, interesting in your analysis. Mention about the topic of the poem, the background and author. Most importantly, you should mention your thesis statement as the first sentence of your paragraph.
6. Writing the body paragraphs.
Now you can start writing the rest of the passage s of your analysis. Usually the number of paragraphs can be 5.Of course 5 is not a constant number, you can adjust the number of paragraphs according to your preference. In the beginning of each paragraph you should include a topic sentence. The topic sentence should be strong and his rest of the sentences of the paragraph should be expressions that explain the topic sentence. Throughout each passage you should develop and explain the topic sentence. You can use suitable transitions like there, however and further to make your passage a reader friendly one.
7. Write the conclusion.
You have to give a good finish to the analysis by concluding the facts. When you write the concluding paragraph, be careful to not to repeat the facts. Concluding paragraph does not revise the facts mentioned in the whole essay. Here you have to talk bout he thesis statement mentioned in the first paragraph Depict clearly, how your suggested thesis became a truth with the help of facts mentioned in the body paragraphs.
Follow these golden steps when you write your literary analysis and the result will be incredibly valuable.