Critical Analysis Essay: Before we jump right into understanding what a critical analysis essay is, how to write a critical analysis essay and which are the topics on which critical analysis essay can be written, one needs to understand thoroughly what analysis means and what critical analysis is all about. In this particular article on critical analysis essay, we shall be giving an overview for students who are supposed to know everything in order to write a critical analysis essay because a good critical analysis essay should be equipped with all kinds of information and this article aims to equip the students with the same.
The word critical analysis basically means 3Ws which are, what, why and when. The most important thing that a writer needs to remember while analysing a topic, or an event or for that matter any big phenomenon, is to ask questions so that he or she can deep into the writer’s mindset and the objective behind the written content. Critical analysis can be done on any piece of literature, artwork, movies, novels, paintings, infrastructure, scientific or management journals. Analysis can be done on anything and everything and the most recent critical analysis essay that is pressurising everyone’s mind is the United States presidential election.
You can also find more Essay Writing articles on events, persons, sports, technology and many more.
Psephology is the term that is used for statistical study and critical analysis of trends and voting patterns in an election which is a subset of critical analysis. Right from running the economy of the country to political and social stability, critical analysis is highly required and evidently used by strategists and policymakers to come up with a solid solution to the impending problems. In the business world, critical analysis is done based on data analytics and this tool in the last few years has changed many business models and has created revolutions in the technology industry.
Hence, to understand the magnitude and gravity of the importance of critical analysis in every walk of life, let us start understanding it step by step, shall we?
In this particular article on how to write a critical analysis, we shall be showing you a brief and fundamental format of writing a critical analysis.
What is the Pattern for Writing a Critical Analysis Essay?
Firstly one should be aware of the fact that there is no one particular format or a pattern to write a critical analysis essay. Critical analysis essay varies from writer to writer, topic to topic and from target audience to target audience. If you are writing a simple topic or a broader topic like cricket or politics or science, then one can assume that your target audience is well aware of the particular topic in hand and hence you can tweak and twist your patterns according to your whims. On the other hand, if you are writing a niche topic, say on a management journal or sales tactics or a particular topic in quantum physics, then your target audience will also be niche and hence you will have to follow a strict and well-accepted pattern or format to write a critical analysis essay so that your target audience understands it thoroughly even if they are not aware of the topic at hand.
How to Choose a Topic for Critical Analysis Essay
For an expert writer, choosing a topic to write about should never be a herculean task, but more often than not, most writers will always have second thoughts. And these thoughts are more profound and more complicated for an amateur writer. If you are a college or a school student and your teacher has already given you a topic to write, trust us, you are the luckiest one because you know the topic that you should write and do research on and more importantly, you know your target audience (which is more often than not your teacher and your classmates).
But if you are a professional writer, the onus lies on your shoulders to choose the right topic that is in line with the thought process of your audience.
For such professionals, we recommend following the below-mentioned thumb rules in choosing a topic for your critical analysis essay,
- Choose your target audience before choosing the topic.
- Pick your topic of interest and you can achieve the 1st point.
- Never confuse yourself in order to convince your audience on a topic that you yourself are not sure of.
- Do thorough research on the topic and after which do a self-analysis on whether or not you are cut out to write on such topics.
- Pick your forte and start deep-diving into the same ( which means start finding out niche facts and figures to support your arguments in the essay).
- Most importantly, it is your thought process that matters, no matter how alien or native the topic is.
How to Write a Critical Analysis Essay
The basic format that one should follow irrespective of variation in topics and target audience is
- Introduction
- Body
- Conclusion
While the basic outline of the format consists of the above three, there is no hard and fast rule that it needs to be followed in all the cases. In most of the cases that involve niche essays and journals, there might be a lot of additions to the above three, such as title, authors and affiliation, abstract, methods, results, discussions, inference and conclusion. Critical analysis essay for management journals and scientific journals vary widely. But critical analysis essays on simpler topics with a generalised audience can follow a simple format that includes introduction, body and conclusion.
The word limit also varies from writer to writer, topic to topic and target reader to the target reader. The best written critical analysis essay is the one where the writer has a thorough understanding of the reader’s thought process in addition to the knowledge on the topic at hand.
Introduction
Introduction part in the critical analysis essay, as in any other essays, should be as crisp and brief as possible and the introduction part should be confined to 2 parts which are introducing the topic to the audience as well as giving an outline for the audience on what to expect in the body and conclusion of the critical analysis essay that you are writing. The introduction part is usually kept between 100 to 150-word limit but if the writer feels that the topic is very niche and alienated to his or her target audience, then the introduction part can be elaborated to as long as 350 to 400 word. In certain cases, the introduction part becomes the most important part of your critical analysis essay, including the body because the topic that your are analysing can be very rare and unknown to your reader.
For example, if we are discussing/writing a critical analysis essay on the quantum computers, or say string theory versus loop theory in science, then not everyone might be aware of the topic and hence in such particular cases, the introduction becomes a very important part of the critical essay. But if you are analysing very general and broad based topics such as cricket, football, movies or fantasy novels that are very popular, then one might even be aware that in that case the introduction part of the critical analysis can be kept as short as possible.
Body
The crux of any essay is the body of the essay. It is in the body of the critical analysis essay that the writer presents his or her arguments cogently with logic and facts based support.
The body of the essay itself can be divided into two parts, the first part with pure facts and good content driving the essay and the other part which analyses the above-stated facts. Which means that we ask the 5 most important questions, why, what, when, where, and how thereby analysing the essay thoroughly from all point of views. The most important thing to keep in mind while writing the body of the essay is the knowledge base of your target audience. If you believe that your target audience is well aware of the nuances and nitty-gritty of the article that you are analysing, then you can easily skip over the fundamentals of the facts and deep dive into analysis directily. But if you believe that your target audience is new to the the article that you are analysing and they are dependent on you to supply and equip them with such an information then the crux of your body should be concentrated on the fundamentals rather than niche facts.
For example, if you are writing an article on quantum mechanics or quantum computers or anything related to niche business practices such as sales cycle of artificial intelligence industry, then you need to make sure that the required facts are a part of the body of the essay because these are niche and relatively rare topics to most of our mass audience and hence it is your essay that will equip the reader with the required information.
Conclusion of an Critical Analysis Essay
One of the most undervalued part of an essay is usually the conclusion part of the essay but we recommend that in every critical analysis essay, one should have a solid conclusion so that it justifies introduction and body part of the critical analysis essay.
The last impression you leave on your reader has the greatest impact on your article. One should never write new information or new fact in the conclusion part of your critical analysis essay, other than the one that is returned in the body or introduction part. Basically, the conclusion should be an overall round up of the essay in less than 2 paragraphs. In certain cases, the conclusion is so strong that the reader will understand the essay just by reading this part after skipping the introduction and body of the essay.
Crisp and brief writing skills is what is required to write a good concluding statement. It is the conclusion part of your essay that will leave the final impression on the reader about the quality of your critical analysis essay. Usually, for management and scientific journals and blogs, the conclusion part of the essay analysis will be no more than 1 paragraph. But if you are writing/ analysing a very general topic, the conclusion can be extended to a maximum of 2 paragraphs.