Help Writing Analytical Essays

The thesis statement can be defined as the central argument or main idea of the essay and serves as the essay's foundation.

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The purpose for writing a critique is to evaluate somebody's work (a book, an essay, a movie, a painting...) in order to increase the reader's understanding of it.

A critical analysis is subjective writing because it expresses the writer's opinion or evaluation of a text. Writing a critical paper requires two steps: critical reading and critical writing.

A clear, concise thesis statement in an analytical essay would be as follows: “Matthew Arnold believes that the onset of the Industrial Revolution has proven hazardous to the human spirit.

He believes that progress has left humans spiritually empty due to the ever-growing dismissive attitude toward religion.” This claim about Arnold's poem is reactionary on the part of the writer.

The interpretation will explain the meaning of the work, therefore requiring your correct understanding of it.

The evaluation will discuss your opinions of the work and present valid justification for them.For example, one may choose to describe the image of human suffering that is portrayed throughout the poem through the rise and fall of meter throughout the poem: “Begin, and cease, and then again begin, / With tremulous cadence slow, and bring / The eternal note of sadness in” (Arnold, 1867).Here, the rise and fall of meter mimics the ebb and flow of the tide, which parallels the theme of the poem, the endless flow of human suffering.The writer will now set to prove his/her claim using evidence from the text.Within the body of the essay, one may focus on an aspect of the poem that serves to supports the essay's theme.That is, the reader will start to become familiar with the writer's interpretation of the text.Lastly, the thesis statement or argument the writer is setting out to prove should serve as the last sentence of the introductory paragraph.The writer would now move on to discuss the inherent assumptions present in the text.“Arnold assumes that his audience, being products of the Industrial Revolution, have adopted the viewpoint of the majority, which is a rejection of religion and the adoption of Darwinism.He assumes that this spiritual change has left his audience hopeless and miserable.” Here, the quotation relates to the essay's theme and the explanation of the quotation serves to support the writer's claim or fatten the sound of his/her argument, as it were.The writer has explored the text's intended audience and certain assumptions about that audience made by the author.