How To Write A Critical Essay?

Critique is a way of evaluating one's work through verbal means or by writing analysis. We often come across topics and discussions we might disagree with, or there are somewhere we want to add-in suggestions. Critique isn't about going against something or someone; it is an art of analyzing one's work in order to increase its understanding.

Let's take a deep look at how to write a critical essay.

Critical Analysis Essay

A critical analysis essay, also known as critical writing, is a literary means of analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating the approach of an author. It is used to understand an author's philosophies and related assumptions. Generally, a critical analysis seeks support for an author's argument and methodologies used by an author without judging the authors' personality.

The aim of this analysis is to provide awareness to the audience about weaknesses, strengths, and areas of improvement for a piece of literature. It focuses on the personal assessment of logic, along with the credibility of the literature.

Critical analysis writings are based on the critiques of one author onto another's. It helps in increasing the understanding of the written word. It is subjective writing because it includes the evaluation of the writer's opinion or text.  

In other words, critical analysis is a critically evaluated argument, event, topic, any work within its medium, social, and political issues and beyond. It is based on your personal opinions and reactions. In simple words, it builds our understanding.

From a student's perspective, a critical analysis essay is a type of academic paper that reflects the student's ability to analyze literature or work of cinematography. It is used by the instructors to assess the analytical skills of students.

Good critical writing involves all the aspects of the subject, either it is good or bad. It provides the reader with sufficient knowledge to establish his/her opinion on the topic or subject. It helps you improve your language as well.

How to start a critical analysis?

Starting a critical analysis essay is one of the most challenging tasks. When initiating such a writing task, one might have these questions in mind; how to start a critical analysis essay with the right tone? What will be the right start, which will benefit the overall impression of the essay? And what does critical writing include?

When learning to write a critical analysis essay, these are the first three things that you need to know;

• Identification of Authors thesis/main idea

Every work of art or literature always has a main idea, a theme that forms the basis of it. It isn't necessary that the thesis be clear or mentioned separately, so sometimes you need to search for it. You need to read the piece of writing, for which you are writing the critical analysis, thoroughly.  

• Outline the main idea

There's only one main thesis of a piece of literature, but multiple main ideas are always present. These ideas help in supporting the main thesis of the essay. It can be hard for you to find the main idea, so what you need to do is to search for the supporting ideas which will eventually lead you to the main thesis.

• Evaluate authors take

After identifying the main thesis, along with the supporting ideas, now is the time to evaluate authors' points. You need to clarify that if the author has made his/her point clear in the essay. You will have to provide a critique here stating that if the writer was successful in proving the thesis statement.

It will be your duty to evaluate the effect of supportive arguments on the paper's success. You also need to check if the author's writing is objective and tells about his/her position from thesis and ideas.

Critical analysis essay writing process

Writing a critical analysis essay overall is a challenging job. It requires you to master several skills. Generally, this process is divided into two basic tasks, which include; critical reading and critical writing.

But a critical essay outline in-depth is composed of various parts that form the whole essay. It starts with an introductory paragraph, followed by a summary and afterward comes an analytical part and then ends with the conclusion.

Critical reading

Critical reading is performed before the start of the writing process. It is used to identify the author's thesis with the main ideas and the purpose of writing the literature. You need to analyze the base of the passage by pinpointing all the main ideas.

You can also take help from a dictionary or any other reference book for the material that might seem to be unfamiliar to you. Summarize your work and make an outline of it, or you can also write a description of it.

While critically reading the passage, maintain your focus on determining the purpose, which could be to inform, persuade, or entertain the audience. After identifying and determining, now is the time to look into the means by the help of which the writer has fulfilled his/her purpose.

When digging deep, you need to be sure that if the purpose was to inform, was the material presented clearly, accurately, and with an order? You need to look for evidence, contrary evidence, and logical reasoning if the purpose was to persuade.  

In the end, you need to determine how the emotions were affected, like did it make you cry, laugh, or did it make you angry if the authors' purpose was to entertain. The following factors should be taken into consideration: organization of material, intended audience, writers' assumptions, and language, and imagery of the author.

Critical Writing

Following are the components of the writing process:

Critical essay introduction

The critical essay outline begins with the critical essay introduction. The introductory passage focuses on shedding light on the topic and main idea of the essay. You need to mention the details about the literature you are analyzing, including publishing information and the reception of the work.

After that, you need to identify the main ideas and the thesis of the literature to support your introduction. At the end of the critical essay introduction section, you need to state your main idea about the subject matter in discussion.

You need to make sure that your thesis statement is not in line with the authors and don't forget to specify the success of the author in getting his message across.

Summary

When writing critical analysis writing, you need to know that not everyone out there is familiar with the work you are analyzing. So, for this reason, you need to provide a summary of various details regarding the piece of literature which is being analyzed.

Characters, events, ideas, and other details depicted in the literature should be highlighted. You need to give a clear understanding of the literature to the readers. This will save your readers from the trouble of unclear understanding of the remaining parts of your essay.

Make sure that the summary doesn't contain any argument or show any biased opinion towards the subject you are about to discuss. Try mentioning how the writer has organized the text in the literature. Explain the language and imagery that the writer has used in the text.

Analytical Part

This is the main part of a critical analysis essay. This is where the real skills are used, and this is what differentiates this essay from others. This part takes multiple paragraphs, and each paragraph used for a different idea, which further supports your thesis.

You don't need to be neutral here, if you have an opinion, a strong one, explain it. It doesn't matter your opinion is positive or negative, don't hesitate, just put your ideas and thoughts on the paper.  

When you start your analysis, you need to keep these three aspects of writing in your mind:

• The authors' credibility
• The emotional effects of the writing
• The prevalence of logic in the authors work

Every idea of your analysis should be supported by a piece of reliable evidence. The evidence can come from the literary work or from any other outside source. You can use reference books, films, or any other analysis of the same literary work.

Conclusion of the essay

The end might seem to be the easiest task, but it is the most critical part as you have to wind-up your argument with your analysis. The conclusion is all about summing up your ideas and opinions in compact order.

You need to remember that no new information should be introduced at the conclusion. Offer a brief summary of the ideas and thesis which form the basis of your essay. In the end, you need to state your opinion about the literature which you have analyzed.

Justify if the author was successful in convincing the readers with his thesis or not. Mention if the literary work will benefit the readers or not and whether the audience should read it or not.

Critical Essay Outline

An essay outline is used to organize your text, and ultimately your essay. Having an outline will help you in writing the essay fast and be consistent with your writing. Most of the time, instructors may provide a sample of critical essay outline which you can easily follow. If not provided, one can take help from critical analysis essay examples available online.  

Critical essay outline example

Background Information

The reader is given some context about the literature. It helps the reader to understand the nature of the work.

• Information
• Title
• Authors name
• Information for publication
• Topic statement and purpose
• Thesis Statement

After providing the reader with some context, give your opinion on the work in the form of a thesis statement.

• Summary

You need to show the understanding of the source in this section. Provide information regarding the subject being analyzed, which may include ideas, events, or characters.

• Critical Analysis

This is the part where you need to perform interpretation and the evaluation of the literary work. You need to discuss the basis on which the source is organized. Talk about the style and rhetoric of the subject being discussed.

Evaluate the effectiveness of the source of the message. Justify if the topic is biased or not, state how the topic was treated. And in the end, discuss how the subject/literature appeared to its target audience.

• Conclusion

This is the last part of your critical analysis essay. Here you need not provide any new information. You just need to sum up all your points and a beautiful closure. One can also check various critical essay examples for a detailed review.

Tips for literary critiques

Different techniques are applied in the literary work by the authors to make it appealing and attractive. Following are the main techniques used;

• Traditional/Old critique
  Critique, which is for educated people and is based on a collective agreement of various subjects.
• New Critique
  Critique based only on the text. Various tools of language and grammar, including metaphor, ambiguity, irony, and paradox, are evaluated.
• Marxist Critique
  This type of critique has had a substantial effect on the understanding of literature. It is based on class conflicts and comes to a conclusion regarding political and social nature.
• Objective Analysis
  This is an analysis purely based on facts without any involvement of emotions and feelings.
• New Historicism
  It is the study of literature that is based on historical facts.
• Metaphorical Critique
  To develop a deeper understanding of the work and its writer, close attention to metaphors is given.
• Psychological Critique
  This is a type of critique in which authors' unconsciousness is evaluated, which can be further used to identify a pathway to his/her mind. It is also known as Freudian Critique.
• Sociological Criticism
  This criticism evaluates the social functions and also the part where the work/subject fits in society.
• Moral/Ethical Criticism
  The text is evaluated on the base of morals included in it.

Writing tips for critical analysis essay

After learning what is critical analysis essay, how to write a critical essay, and going through various critical analysis essay examples of outline, format, and techniques, now is the time to look into final writing tips.

• When writing a critical analysis essay, try to make it convincing so that the people can change their opinion on the subject, if it is different from yours. Work on your language and wording; try to add a persuasive touch.
• Always use a formal language while writing a critical analysis essay. In the critical essay examples, one might see how the wording and language are carefully used to express the ideas. Formal language is the only acceptable language in the education setting.
• Being a critical essay writer, you should have good analytical skills with a strong opinion. Try to convince the readers that you are right on facts.
• Your opinion needs to be supported by facts and figures. Supportive ideas and arguments are necessary to solidify your opinion, either it is positive or negative. It isn't enough to say that it is right or wrong, you need to prove that as well.
• Provide a piece of solid evidence for your arguments. Use credible sources in your work to give readers the right impression.

Time-saving tips

• Don't be afraid of an issue
  When talking about an issue, don't be afraid and give vague explanations. Your tone should be positive and confident. Try to be specific, as being timid explanations will annoy readers.
• Check the draft later
  After writing your first draft, come back to it later, after a day or two. A fresh mind is always clear and is efficient for proofreading.
• Explain thoroughly
  Never assume that the reader knows everything because he/she doesn't. You need to explain everything thoroughly to the readers. Describe technical terms and abbreviations properly.
• The second opinion helps
  Always get your essay checked from a friend or a family member as a second pair of eyes is useful to pinpoint some mistakes which you might have missed.
• Develop your writing style
  Develop your expression. Never use someone else's expression or style of writing. Using someone's style might make it hard for you to complete your task. Once you have developed yours, it will be much more rewarding and will help you in the longer run.
• Time management
  One needs to manage his/her time properly. All the tasks should be aligned. Make a plan which includes all your tasks like reading, writing, and proofreading.

Conclusion

We at Essaydays recommend you to follow these guidelines to get the most out of your critical analysis essay. Hard work is necessary, but smart work makes it effective, so always try to follow tips and tricks to make your essay persuasive and influential.