Do's and Don't of a Writing an Analytical Essay - A Complete Guide

There is something to be said about the charm of writing analysis. Yes, you have to comb through all the primary and secondary sources but the result is quite gratifying because of the sheer depth of ideas that you need to delve into while preparing for and writing your college essay.

What an analytical essay does is offer you an opportunity to learn something in such a thorough fashion that it is most likely to stay with you long after the essay has been done away with.

The Ultimate List…

And that leads us to the ultimate lists of things that you should do while you are writing your analytical essay plus the things that you should steer clear of.

What You Can’t Get Away Without…

1. The first action that you will be grateful for after you are done is being well-read enough regarding the topic at hand. You may or may not be analyzing a literary text. Regardless of the kind of content that you have been assigned to analyze, your primary source is something that you need to read thoroughly.
2. Don’t just read but be an active reader who asks questions, takes notes, and tries to understand every aspect of the subject matter as deeply as you can.
3. Form an opinion about the content. This will serve as a foundation for your writing. This will hopefully happen on its own while you try to comprehend and creatively think about what you are reading. Accept what thoughts come naturally to you and ask yourself the basic question about what is that one idea or a cluster of ideas that have made a mark on you.
4. The idea must be different from the main thesis of the book itself. It needs to be a by-product of your thoughts and reflections. Make it as unique and creative as possible. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box
5. Keep your secondary sources close and get every ounce of guidance from them regarding your thesis and the supporting arguments that you can build around it. When it comes to the thesis of your essay, there are two ways that you can get to that while writing your analytical piece. One is by reading through the primary text and the other is to sift through the secondary sources if you are out of ideas. What that will do is to provide you with varying perspectives and expose you to diverse opinions. That alone can often be stimulating enough to make your brain conjure up one of the most creative thesis statements that you have ever come up with.
6. Provide a synthesis of the thesis statement and its relationship with your arguments regarding the text itself. Your comments and ideas must match with your thesis and complement it even if they are in contradiction to the central idea of your primary source.
7. The analysis must be systematic and organized. Outline your essay before you start putting words on paper (or typing away) so that you don’t end up with haphazard ideas that do not make any sense when put together. Also, you shouldn’t have an abundance of concepts that render the text incomprehensible.
8. Always compose a proper concluding paragraph. Summarize your arguments in the light of the thesis. Do inject some words that give the readers an impression that the interpretation and final decisions regarding forming opinions stay with them.

What You Can’t Get Away With…

Do not merely skim through the primary and secondary texts.

One thing that you need to avoid is the formulation of a biased thesis that does not go along with the text. If an essay writer has formed his opinion about the subject matter before writing the essay, scrutinize and critically analyze the opinion by putting it through various logical and factual tests.

Analytical essays are not summaries or paraphrases. You have to summon a lot of potential for originality and think up new ideas that are connected in novel ways. Fundamentally, you have to present a revamped version of the work as seen through your eyes and sifted through your brain.

An analytical essay aims to offer evidence-based perspectives regarding the topic. Refrain from using a rigid, uncompromising, and convincing tone. Just sound like a scientist presenting a personal analysis of a phenomenon and your work here will be done.

Do not forget to connect the ideas and formulate a cohesive analysis in your head or on paper as a rough sketch before you start the final phase of writing.

Don’t let good ideas go to waste because you can’t find secondary sources to act as evidence. You will find something. Just be patient and read a lot and the connections that you are making will become explicable (if they are not altogether illogical).

If you have understood that you have been making the wrong links, reverse your steps by researching the topic again in the light of secondary resources. Or you could read the primary one again to develop a fresh thesis or analytical arguments.

If I were you, I would quit procrastinating now and see if I can handle the essay on my own or cry out for someone to write my essay free online because there is no such notion as too much time. If you need help, you only have to do as much as access an online essay writing service with raving reviews so that you make sure that you can’t go wrong even if you try…!