How to Write an Analysis Paper

When your teacher asks you to perform a certain kind of academic writing assignment, the first and the most important thing to be done is to understand what kind of essay you are going to write. For instance, your mentor may assign you to write a rhetorical analysis paper. Sometimes, you might be asked to perform a self-analysis paper.

So how to write an analysis paper and what kind of essays do they belong to?

Critical Analysis Paper

Writing an analysis paper often means to analyze, but not summarize. You don’t have to retell the story or report the events that have recently happened to you or somebody else. Your main task is to show how these things may influence your life or whether they are good or bad. To cut a long story short, you have to criticize and evaluate.

If you study an analysis paper example, you will see that this type of academic paper consists of three main parts: introduction, body and conclusion. Critical analysis paper example is often a subjective writing performed to express the writer’s opinion about a book, a painting, an essay and etc.

Students who don’t know how to write a critical analysis paper should get ready to break down the whole into pieces and then study the part. All in all, this academic paper assignment consists of two main parts: critical reading and critical writing. The main purpose of these two parts is to identify author’s thesis and all main ideas, to make an outline of the work and write a description of it.

Literary Analysis Paper

If you were assigned to analyze a poem or a book, you should also complete a kind of a critical analysis paper. To be precise, you need to find and study a good literary analysis paper example. Overall, this academic paper is often performed to discuss the main idea of a literary work.

Knowing how to write a literary analysis paper often means organizing your work in several stages. It’s always highly recommended to start with a close reading. While reading the text, try to make marginal notes, underlining and put down your thoughts into a reader’s diary. Sometimes it’s necessary to reread the text to find certain literary elements.

Remember that the main aim of writing such kind of essay is to find a deliberated thesis and then support it with adequate arguments.

Today, we’ve tried to give a brief answer what an analysis paper is. Hope that our hints and clues will help you understand and write excellent essays in the future.

The objective of an analysis paper can be easily derived from its name: in an analytical paper, you are expected to present detailed analysis on a matter. The matter can be different: you can be tasked with analyzing a piece of writing, a film, or even simply an idea or concept. The subject of your analysis can be different, but the requirements and rules for writing an analysis paper are largely the same. Here is how to write your own analytical paper.

Analysis Paper Example

Many students insist on producing 100% original works and never use papers written by other students, but the truth is that an analytical paper example can be very helpful for your work. Whether you’ve done this type of writing before or have never created an analysis paper, seeing a sample work can give you the complete idea about what your own paper should look like.

There are so many things that can go wrong in writing an analytical paper that the example of an essay can be the only way to avoid any mistakes and present a paper that will get you the highest grade. A sample paper will give you information about every aspect of the writing, from choosing the correct format to writing a thorough outline. Plus, you can find samples for any academic level, including BA and MA, which can be particularly useful for an especially important assignment.

Analysis Paper Outline

The outline of an analysis paper, ideally, should be the first step in your writing. Before you write a single letter of your thesis, you need to know what you’ll be writing about, and an outline is the best way to do it.

Moreover, it will help you make notes and references that you can later use in the main part of the work. If you’re not sure you know how to do this job, you can always find a template for an analysis essay and use it. Your analytical paper needs to include the four following parts:

1. Introduction;
2. Thesis;
3. Body;
4. Conclusion.

Now let’s cover each of those four mandatory parts in detail.

1. Introduction. The introduction serves as the opening to your paper and it should grab their attention and give them an idea about what they will find in your work. However, the introduction does not need to be detailed. In a couple of sentences you should explain the topic of your work, which methods you used for examining the topic, and the conclusion;
2. Thesis. This may be the shortest part of your analysis paper, but it may also be the most essential one. The thesis lays the groundwork for your writing and should be addressed at every point of the work that follows. The thesis needs to be clear and definite with no ambiguity;
3. Body. The body of an analysis paper is the largest part of your essay. This part should consist of you presenting points and evidence to support them. Here you can use different methods for making your point visible, but it’s important to be consistent. The secret for writing a great body of an analysis paper is to use the outline to list the most vital points of the narrative, so that you can always refer to your notes and know which part of the body paragraphs is coming next;
4. Conclusion. The conclusion of your paper doesn’t need to be long. Plus, you shouldn’t present any new ideas or points in the conclusion. Use the conclusion to merely sum up everything that has been said in the previous parts of the analysis paper and once again state how you managed to get your point across.

Understanding the specifics of the analysis paper format is easy when you’ve dealt with this kind of writing before, but if it’s all completely new to you, you can always refer to an analysis paper sample on our website that contains the example of excellent writing!