Guide to Writing an Effective Analytical Essay: Understanding Thesis Statements, Schemes and Mind Maps of Creative writing

Download Guide to Writing an Effective Analytical Essay: Understanding Thesis Statements and more Schemes and Mind Maps Creative writing in PDF only on Docsity! Guide to Writ ing an Analyt ical Essay What is an analytical essay? An analytical essay means you will need to present some type of argument, or claim, about what you are analyzing. An analytical essay is not a summary. Analytical essays usually concentrate on how the piece was written – for example how certain themes present themselves in a story. Thesis Statement To analyze something is to ask what that something means. An analytical essay answers how something does what it does or why it is as it is. Therefore, a thesis statement in an analysis paper should be answering a HOW or WHY question. A strong thesis makes a claim about the subject that needs proving. It provides the writer (and the reader) with a clearly focused lens through which to view the subject. A weak thesis either makes no claim or is an assertion that does not need proving. It is a fuzzy lens that will not help the writer (or the reader) be guided to a better understanding of the subject. Most weak thesis statements suffer because they are overly broad (or not specific enough) Broad Noun + Weak Verb + Vague Adjective The economic situation is bad Specific Noun + Active Verb + Assertive Prediction The tax polices of threaten to reduce the by sacrificing education and the current administration tax burden on the middle class health care programs.