Analytical Essay Examples

Find out How Analytical Essay Examples Can Help You in Studies

No one will argue that the ability to think and draw conclusions is the most important quality that separates man from the animal. It may seem that this is the usual ability of homo sapiens, but in practice, analytical and critical thinking skills are made, not born.

Any time you write essays or read books you need to use a variety of thinking activities. Practically every day we use analytical thinking and logic, but rarely we can give a clear answer on what analytical thinking is. On the internet you can find many definitions and how-to guides about how to write analytical essays and improve your analytical thinking skills. But you can find out that after reading tons of information you still cannot understand how to write your essay, and here our analytical writing examples will serve you well.

The ability to think analytically gives a person a variety of opportunities. When you need to process a large amount of information, analytical thinking will help you effectively break it down into simple parts. In essence, when you need to make a decision or find a solution to a certain problem, analytical skills help you see the picture through various lenses and pick the most suitable variant. Analytical thinking is about systematic and comprehensive thinking about the issue or problem in various aspects. People with analytical thinking developed tend to analyze and logically think about any event, situation, or subject. A person with good analytical skills has the ability to take the following actions:

• divide information into blocks (individual components);
• make a general analysis of all information, and then study each block separately;
• restore the missing parts by logical conjectures and inferences if there is not enough information to see the full picture;
• see several options for solving the task;
• assess the pros and cons of each possible outcome;
• choose an appropriate option.

Analysis is an undeniably important part of academic writing, as it allows the researcher to reflect, summarize, and synthesize the received information. Without these vital skills, you won’t be able to analyze an article in one periodical, you will be incapable of doing a research paper, and your future thesis for a bachelor degree will be in question. The work of any researcher, scientist, and any curious person needs to go beyond the general meaning of things. Dig deep and become smarter and more intelligent. All types of papers (even the descriptive type) require from a student analytical thinking, and regular practice in essay writing will help you improve this quality.

How Does the Analytical Essay Differ From Other Essays?

Essays at college and university are not limited with descriptive writing and involve a more thought-out approach. Analytical writing relates to a broad range of subjects – from arts and humanities to social and physical sciences. Have you ever received comments from your tutor such as “too descriptive” or “more analysis is needed here”? Analytical and critical skills are widely used in academic essays and have differences in purpose. The distinctive characteristic of analytical writing is describing information and dividing it into certain types, groups, categories, or interconnections that the writer may create specifically for this text. If you don’t know how a finished analytical essay looks, check out an analytical writing sample on our site.

Analytical thinking can be supplemented (not always) with critical thinking. Critical thinking helps the analyst to objectively look at ideas and decisions, see weaknesses, and check assumptions and facts. With excessively developed critical thinking, there is a focus on people’s shortcomings, judgments, and decisions, which hinders to objectively evaluate, apply, and receive positive results.

Analytical essays are a kind of writing that examine, analyze, or interpret a certain object (event, work of art, book, etc.). The main task of the writer is to objectively present an investigation about the topic and provide a comprehensive outlook on the issue. As you can see in the analytical essay example, they may include papers of which most analytical essays are written about books, poems, and other works of art.

Analytical essays may be written on various topics – any topic can be analyzed in this method. You can think analytically about everything of which you are interested, but make sure that your topic is narrowed enough to meet the needed word count. Check out the list of analytical essay topics for college we offer our readers.

The following list demonstrates the main types of analytical essays:

1. Rhetorical analytical essay. Rhetorical analysis of the text makes it possible to consider various aspects of its construction, to reveal the author’s tools and techniques, to evaluate language tools chosen by the author, and means of speech expressiveness.
2. Analytical essay about literature. This is the most common type of analytical writing. Usually literary analysis includes: study of the context, definition of the genre of the work, analysis of the structure, plot and composition of the work, the definition of the conflict, etc.
3. Analytical essay about character. In literature classes you may be asked to write an analytical essay about a certain character from the story or novel. This essay may require you to analyze the changes of character throughout the story: appearance, relationships with other characters, character traits, feelings, experiences, thoughts, etc.
4. Analytical essay about poetry. Usually students are asked to find out the main theme and discuss what tools the author has used to reveal the main idea and theme of the poem. You should know that due to certain artistic techniques, the words in a poem have a deeper meaning than in ordinary speech.
5. Analytical essay about process. This kind of essay follows more descriptive writing, but still requires from the writer analytical skills. You will need to explain how something changed from one state to another through various stages.
6. Analytical essay about causes. This essay can appear as though it is answering the childish question: “Why?” Keep all the patience and all the best knowledge to answer the particular question. It can involve a paragraph that describes a process and then you need to answer why it all occurs.

The list of analytical essay types can be practically endless, so we have discussed only the most common types that are usually assigned to students.

Analytical Essay Template

If you want to succeed in essay writing by spending only the minimum amount of time, you need to create a good plan and completely understand how to write an analytical paper. An analytical essay as a rule has a classical academic structure: introduction, body, and conclusion. This template can help you create your essay right after when you will pick a topic. Follow this template, which includes basic elements of an essay, to help keep the focus on writing. Keep in mind that this outline is not the only approach; consider the complexity of your topic and extend the quality of the body paragraphs.

• Introduction.

Start this paragraph with a hook to wake up the reader’s interest and proceed to a brief description of the topic that you will be analyzing in subsequent paragraphs. Introduce the author and the book title if you are writing an analytical essay about the book. Make a little summary about the subject and create a thesis statement that will present the core idea of the whole essay.

• Main paragraphs.

The quantity of the paragraphs depends on the topic and word count required. Usually an analytical essay consists of a minimum of three paragraphs in the body, where each paragraph supports one single type or category. If you are writing an analytical essay on a book, you need to support your analysis with direct quotations and place them in relevant paragraphs. Don’t forget about transitional sentences between paragraphs and linking words between different ideas.

• Conclusion.

Summarize the meaning of the text that you have written in several phrases. Does it correspond to the thesis that you have stated in the introductory part? Tie all ideas back into the original thesis. Leave the reader with a sense of completeness.

In theory, writing an analytical essay may seem obvious, but it is more difficult in practice. If you have found out that you can’t understand how the finished essay will look, don’t skip the chance to read some samples of finished works. Probably this will give you a fresh outlook on essay writing and give you some ideas for your own work.

Tips to Consider While Writing an Analytical Essay

• Take enough time. It is important to wisely budget your time, so make sure that you have enough time to consider the assignment instructions, plan the research, and compose the essay.
• Read the assignment attentively. One of your great tasks is to critically think about the issue and be ready to discuss the topic according to specific instructions.
• Think about the issue from various points of view before starting to write your response. Take notes while reading information about the issue and highlight the moments that will be interesting to discuss in the essay.
• Support your claims with facts. Find out some supporting evidence in order to sway the reader. It is important to read information, but also analyze it to find credible supporting facts. For a book analysis students mostly use quotes directly from original books or critical reviews. For a history essay, you will need to find some scientific facts from previous historical researches.
• Leave time for check-up. When you will finish you essay, the best decision will be to put it aside for a day or at least for a couple of hours. The occasional spelling or grammatical error maybe won’t spoil your grade, but severe errors can dramatically lower the score.
• Don’t use information from unreliable sources. Selecting facts for analysis, and don’t limit yourself with a couple of sites on a similar topic. You need reliable data from primary sources.
• Use the right tense. Usually analytical essays are written in present tense.
• To show that you are objective about the topic, don’t use “I” and “you” statements.
• Remember that the analytical part should be interesting. Don’t overdo the text with complex terms – speak to your readers in a language they understand.
• Don’t fall into simple retelling. It happens when you are trying to retell the text instead of analyzing it. Use writing techniques, concentrate on the text context and your own response.
• Avoid cliches. One approach used works great for a persuasive essay, but won’t work for an analytical essay. Also, keep in mind that repeating the same phrases or transitional words may seem inappropriate.

How to Develop Analytical Thinking

This question is topical for both students and adults. While studying, analytical competence is necessary for better understanding, effective memorization, and reproduction of information; when proceeding to work, people often face the employer’s demand for analytical thinking skills. It is not a secret that employees who have developed these skills tend to take more deliberate decisions, make plans and forecasts, and analyze past experience – which ultimately affects the company’s efficiency.

There are a lot of things that you haven’t yet discovered. Every human is always on the path of exploration and it’s about human nature to find new information and explore new meanings. The human mind is capable of understanding even the most complex idea – the only thing we need is to train our brains to be able to do this at any age. One of the greatest tools to develop the brain is essay writing. We can discover new ways of expressing our thoughts and develop our analytical and critical skills.

“Turn on” the logic when dealing with people. Before you say anything, try to build in your mind the possible options for the development of events after one or another of your phrases. After such an analysis, select the optimal statement. This technique is very useful in resolving conflict situations.

Plan your life. Designate the main points for the current day, week, month, year. Then analyze the results. Make the analysis in the form of tables, diagrams, or graphs. Mark the dates and key events. You will not only develop analytical thinking, but also competently organize your activities.

Solve mathematical and logical puzzles. Learn the principles of programming and algorithms. Read analytical articles from the field of politics, economics, psychology, and others. Learn to highlight the main thoughts in the text.

As you can see, a lack of analytical thinking skills is not a verdict. You can do some practice every day and develop your ability to think analytically. When you are at college, it’s the best time to start practicing right away. If you are suffering now from another analytical essay, don’t fall into despair! Look at it this way – you can expand you knowledge and abilities, and our samples will definitely help you.

Let Our Samples Be Your Guiding Star

The essential part of the educational process is learning from examples. Looking for several good examples will significantly increase your writing skills. A child from the moment of birth learns from examples; in subsequent years we use examples to explain something and understand it better. Even young artists copy the world’s masterpieces in order to form their own style. The same applies to mastering writing skills and various techniques. It is impossible to become a skillful writer without practice, reading only the tutorials and guides. That’s why students have to read enough good examples and implement this knowledge during the writing practice. In order to sharpen your writing skills you need to find a reliable source of samples – like payforwriting.

When you will be looking through various web pages over the internet, you will find out that many samples are of low quality. It happens when essays are written by students that only start digging into academic writing. Maybe you won’t see the difference between text written by a student and an essay written by a professional writer, which is why we are here to tell you some information for your consideration.

All analytical essay samples on our site were prepared by expert writers. But that doesn’t mean that you should view them as a model – while they contain many components of an A+ essay, they are not the ideal pieces of writing. You need to keep in mind that every assignment has particular requirements that cannot be considered in every sample that you can find over the internet. If you don’t understand you assignment we recommend you to contact your tutor or learning center to clarify all inaccuracies.

If you are stuck with the beginning of your essay, you will need an analytical essay introduction example to find some inspiration. On our site you can find great examples of introductions not only for an analytical essay, but also for other types of writing. Consider how the author has begun the essay and what tools he or she has used. Read the introduction very attentively and underline the hook (or attention grabber). Does it sound good? Has the author used a citation, anecdote, or interesting fact? Don’t underestimate the value of the introduction for your analytical essay. The opening paragraph should persuade the reader that your essay is worth reading and to engage with the following reading. So, read several samples and you definitely will find something that you can reuse for your own writing.

On this site you can find essays of various types: from descriptive to persuasive. Browse all the categories and find out more examples to follow. Unlike other sites, at payforwriting you can find samples written only by professional writers that have deep knowledge in academic writing. Each sample meets high academic standards and contains originality. At the same time we should admit that a tutor’s recommendations and assignments should be preferred over our samples. As you know, every educational institution has its own requirements to style, format, and organization of academic writing, which is why our essay examples shouldn’t be unconditionally followed. The only thing we can recommend is to use our samples for the right purpose.

Don’t copy the text from the samples. We know that when you have no time to write an original analytical essay, you can be tempted to copy the text to your own paper. But please, consider the fact that the texts that you copy from this site can be considered as plagiarism. Every sample was written from scratch by our guru writer on the basis of reliable sources and filled with unique ideas, so feel free to take those ideas as a foundation for your future essay.

Deepen your acquaintance with our samples with a few clicks. Take a look at the list of essay categories and pick another one to look through other samples completed by our writers. Find more ideas and inspiration with our samples right now!