Analytical Writing
📖 Learn
Analytical writing moves beyond summary and personal response to examine how texts, arguments, data, or phenomena work. In college, you will constantly be asked to analyze rather than simply describe or react. This skill is foundational to success across all disciplines.
Definition: Analytical Writing
Analytical writing examines a subject by breaking it into components, identifying patterns and relationships, evaluating evidence or techniques, and drawing conclusions based on systematic examination rather than personal opinion or surface-level description.
Analysis vs. Other Types of Writing
| Writing Type | Purpose | Key Question |
|---|---|---|
| Summary | Condense main points | What does the text say? |
| Response | Express personal reaction | How do I feel about it? |
| Analysis | Examine how something works | How and why does it work? |
| Argument | Persuade reader to agree | What should we believe/do? |
The Analytical Framework
Strong analysis follows a clear pattern that can be applied across disciplines:
- Observation: Identify specific, significant details in your subject
- Pattern Recognition: Notice how details relate to each other
- Interpretation: Explain what these patterns mean or suggest
- Evaluation: Assess the significance, effectiveness, or implications
- Synthesis: Connect your analysis to larger themes or contexts
Types of Analysis by Discipline
- Literary Analysis: Examine how literary devices, structure, and language create meaning
- Rhetorical Analysis: Evaluate how arguments persuade through appeals, evidence, and style
- Data Analysis: Interpret patterns in quantitative information and their implications
- Visual Analysis: Examine how images, design, or art communicate meaning
- Causal Analysis: Investigate cause-and-effect relationships between phenomena
Crafting an Analytical Thesis
An analytical thesis makes a specific claim about how or why something works. It should be:
- Interpretive: Offers your particular reading, not obvious observation
- Specific: Points to particular elements you will examine
- Debatable: Reasonable people could disagree with your interpretation
- Supportable: Can be demonstrated through evidence from the subject
Weak vs. Strong Analytical Thesis
Weak (descriptive): "In 'The Great Gatsby,' Fitzgerald uses symbolism."
Strong (analytical): "The green light in 'The Great Gatsby' initially represents Gatsby's idealized dream but ultimately reveals how the American Dream corrupts through its equation of love with material success."
Structure of Analytical Paragraphs
Each body paragraph should follow the MEAL plan:
- M - Main Idea: Topic sentence stating the paragraph's analytical point
- E - Evidence: Specific quotations, data, or examples from your subject
- A - Analysis: Explanation of how the evidence supports your point
- L - Link: Connection to thesis and transition to next point
💡 Examples
Study these examples of analytical writing across different contexts.
Example 1: Literary Analysis Paragraph
Subject: Analyzing imagery in Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken"
Main Idea: Frost's visual imagery deliberately undermines the speaker's claim that his choice "made all the difference."
Evidence: The speaker describes both paths as "just as fair" and notes that "the passing there / Had worn them really about the same." Moreover, both roads "equally lay / In leaves no step had trodden black."
Analysis: These descriptions emphasize the paths' similarity rather than difference. The repeated insistence on equality ("just as fair," "really about the same," "equally") contradicts the speaker's later claim about one road being "less traveled." This tension suggests the poem is not celebrating individualism but rather examining how we construct narratives about our choices after the fact.
Link: This pattern of contradiction continues throughout the poem, revealing Frost's ironic commentary on self-justification.
Example 2: Rhetorical Analysis Paragraph
Subject: Analyzing persuasive techniques in a climate change speech
Main Idea: The speaker establishes urgency through strategic use of temporal language and statistical evidence.
Evidence: Within the first two minutes, the speaker uses "now" seven times and "today" four times, paired with phrases like "we cannot wait" and "every day we delay." She cites specific statistics: "Since I began speaking, 150 acres of rainforest have been destroyed."
Analysis: This temporal saturation creates psychological pressure on the audience. The repeated "now" constructs the present moment as a critical decision point rather than one moment in a long timeline. The real-time statistic transforms the speech itself into evidence of ongoing destruction, making the audience complicit if they fail to act. This technique shifts the burden of proof from the speaker (who might need to prove climate change is happening) to the audience (who must justify inaction).
Link: This urgency framing prepares the audience to accept the speaker's later policy proposals as necessary immediate responses.
Example 3: Data Analysis Paragraph
Subject: Analyzing employment trends data
Main Idea: The correlation between education level and unemployment rate obscures significant variation within educational categories.
Evidence: While the national data shows college graduates have a 2.1% unemployment rate compared to 5.4% for high school graduates, disaggregating by field of study reveals ranges from 1.3% (engineering) to 4.8% (arts and humanities) among bachelor's degree holders.
Analysis: This variation suggests that the blanket advice to "get a college degree" oversimplifies the relationship between education and employment. A humanities graduate faces unemployment rates closer to a high school graduate than to an engineering graduate. The aggregate statistic, while technically accurate, may mislead students making educational decisions by implying uniform benefits across all degree types.
Link: This finding has implications for both individual decision-making and education policy, suggesting the need for more nuanced guidance.
Example 4: Causal Analysis Paragraph
Subject: Analyzing factors in declining voter turnout
Main Idea: Declining voter turnout results not from apathy but from structural barriers that disproportionately affect working-class voters.
Evidence: Turnout among voters earning over $100,000 has remained stable at approximately 80% since 1972, while turnout among those earning under $30,000 has declined from 62% to 48%. States that have implemented same-day registration have seen turnout increases of 5-10%, primarily among lower-income voters.
Analysis: If declining turnout resulted from political disengagement, we would expect uniform decline across income levels. The income-stratified pattern instead suggests that voting has become functionally harder for working-class citizens. The effectiveness of same-day registration confirms this interpretation: removing a procedural barrier increases participation among those for whom the barrier was most prohibitive.
Link: Understanding turnout decline as a structural rather than attitudinal problem shifts the appropriate response from voter education to electoral reform.
Example 5: Visual Analysis Paragraph
Subject: Analyzing a World War II propaganda poster
Main Idea: The "Rosie the Riveter" poster constructs femininity as compatible with industrial labor through strategic visual choices.
Evidence: Rosie wears makeup and has carefully styled hair beneath her bandana. Her rolled sleeve reveals muscle, but her skin remains smooth and unblemished. The "We Can Do It!" slogan uses first-person plural, and her direct gaze meets the viewer's eyes.
Analysis: These elements resolve the tension between wartime necessity and traditional gender expectations. By depicting a feminine woman doing masculine work, the poster suggests women need not sacrifice their identity to contribute to the war effort. The direct gaze and first-person pronoun create solidarity between viewer and subject, transforming factory work from an imposition into a choice. The unblemished skin subtly promises that this transgression of gender norms is temporary and reversible.
Link: This visual rhetoric helps explain how millions of women entered industrial labor during the war while the underlying gender ideology remained largely intact.
✏️ Practice
Test your understanding of analytical writing principles with these questions.
1. Which of the following thesis statements is MOST analytical?
A) "Social media has changed how people communicate."
B) "I believe social media is harmful to teenagers."
C) "Social media platforms' algorithmic prioritization of engagement over accuracy creates echo chambers that amplify misinformation."
D) "This paper will discuss the effects of social media on society."
2. In the MEAL paragraph structure, "Analysis" refers to:
A) Summarizing what the evidence says
B) Providing more examples to support the point
C) Explaining how the evidence supports the main idea
D) Transitioning to the next paragraph
3. What distinguishes analysis from summary?
A) Analysis is longer than summary
B) Analysis examines how and why; summary describes what
C) Analysis includes personal opinions; summary does not
D) Analysis covers more sources than summary
4. "The author uses many literary devices throughout the novel." This sentence fails as an analytical claim because:
A) It does not identify which literary devices
B) It does not explain the purpose or effect of those devices
C) It makes an obvious statement that requires no evidence
D) All of the above
5. Which question would BEST guide analytical writing about a historical event?
A) When did the French Revolution occur?
B) Who were the major figures in the French Revolution?
C) How did economic inequality contribute to revolutionary fervor?
D) Was the French Revolution good or bad?
6. In analytical writing, evidence should be:
A) Quoted extensively to show you read the source
B) Selected specifically to support your interpretive claim
C) Limited to statistics and numerical data
D) Summarized rather than quoted directly
7. A rhetorical analysis primarily examines:
A) Whether an argument's claims are factually accurate
B) How an argument uses techniques to persuade its audience
C) The personal background of the argument's author
D) Your personal agreement or disagreement with the argument
8. Which revision transforms a descriptive statement into an analytical one?
A) "The graph shows sales increasing" becomes "The graph shows sales increasing significantly"
B) "The graph shows sales increasing" becomes "The sales increase shown in the graph correlates with the company's shift to online marketing, suggesting digital advertising drives revenue growth"
C) "The graph shows sales increasing" becomes "As we can see, the graph clearly shows sales increasing"
D) "The graph shows sales increasing" becomes "The graph, which uses blue bars, shows sales increasing"
9. Strong analytical writing typically:
A) Avoids making interpretive claims that could be contested
B) Makes specific claims supported by evidence and reasoning
C) Presents only the author's personal opinions
D) Summarizes multiple sources without interpretation
10. The "Link" component of a MEAL paragraph should:
A) Introduce a completely new topic
B) Simply repeat the topic sentence
C) Connect the paragraph's point to the thesis and/or next paragraph
D) Provide additional evidence
View Answer Key
1. C - This thesis makes a specific, debatable claim about how something works (the mechanism by which platforms create problems).
2. C - Analysis is the interpretive work that connects evidence to your argument; it explains the "so what."
3. B - Analysis investigates mechanisms and meanings; summary reports content without interpretation.
4. D - All of these issues make the statement too vague to be analytically useful.
5. C - This question asks about causal mechanisms, inviting analysis rather than recitation of facts.
6. B - Evidence should be chosen strategically to support specific analytical points, not included for its own sake.
7. B - Rhetorical analysis examines persuasive techniques, not factual accuracy or personal agreement.
8. B - This revision adds interpretation (correlation and causation), transforming description into analysis.
9. B - Analysis requires specific, supported interpretive claims; vagueness or unsupported opinion are weaknesses.
10. C - The link creates coherence by connecting individual paragraphs to the larger argument.
✅ Check Your Understanding
Reflect on these deeper questions about analytical writing.
1. Why is it important for an analytical thesis to be "debatable"?
View Response
If a thesis states something obvious or universally agreed upon, there is no need to write an essay proving it. Analysis requires interpretation, and genuine interpretation means offering a particular reading that others might contest. A debatable thesis demonstrates that you are contributing an original perspective rather than restating accepted facts. It also gives your essay purpose: you must convince readers that your interpretation is valid.
2. What is the relationship between evidence and analysis in analytical writing?
View Response
Evidence and analysis are interdependent. Evidence without analysis is just a collection of examples; analysis without evidence is unsupported opinion. The key is that analysis explains what the evidence means and why it matters. You should generally have more analysis than evidence because the interpretive work is what distinguishes your essay from a summary. A common mistake is to provide evidence and assume it "speaks for itself" when the reader actually needs your interpretation.
3. How does analytical writing differ across disciplines?
View Response
While the core process of analysis (observation, pattern recognition, interpretation) remains consistent, disciplines emphasize different types of evidence and interpretive frameworks. Literary analysis examines language and form; scientific analysis emphasizes data and methodology; historical analysis weighs primary sources against context. Understanding these disciplinary conventions is crucial for successful college writing. Pay attention to the types of evidence and interpretive moves valued in each of your courses.
4. How can you tell if you are analyzing rather than summarizing?
View Response
Ask yourself: Am I explaining what happens/is said, or am I explaining how it works and why it matters? Summary stays at the "what" level; analysis moves to "how" and "why." Check your sentences: Do they report facts about your subject, or do they make interpretive claims about meaning, effect, or significance? If you removed your voice, would the paragraph still make sense as a description written by anyone? If yes, you are probably summarizing. Analysis reveals your particular interpretation.
🚀 Next Steps
- Review any concepts that felt challenging
- Move on to the next lesson when ready
- Return to practice problems periodically for review