How To Write An Outstanding Textual Analysis Essay

A textual analysis essay is a fairly complex type of essay. The main reason that it is more complex than other essays is that you have to go a lot deeper when writing it. You can’t just describe some details or state whether you agree or disagree. You will have to analyze how effective the writer was in presenting their argument. It is an analysis of a piece of work and instead of looking at the actual content of the piece like most essays, this essay looks more at how the author developed and expressed the content. It looks at the methods used to portray the information rather than the information itself.

This is just another way to analyze a piece of work. Instead of looking at the details that make up the work, this essay works towards explaining how the author portrayed the details. It will also explain how and why these conclusions were made. Here is how you would write an outstanding textual analysis essay.

  1. Read the piece

    2. The first thing you would need to do is read the piece of literature that you will be examining. It does seem silly that this has to be mentioned but you never know. It is hard to analyze a piece of work if you haven’t read it but some students may still try and save time by skipping the reading part.

  2. Break the text apart

    3. Break it down into smaller pieces and reread each section. As you are reading through the smaller pieces, start to take some notes. Examine one piece completely before moving on to the next one.

  3. Look for meaning

    4. Start to look for patterns and a deeper meaning. Think about why the author chose to use that word or break that up into a separate section. Look at how the author uses different phrases. Study how the author communicates the ideas and concepts.

  4. Create an outline

    5. Planning how you will present your information is important. It will help you create a good flow and keep all of your information in a logical order. You can choose to do it in a chronological order or choose to go in an ascending or descending order of importance.

These are some great steps to help you write your textual analysis essay. The only thing that is left is to build on your outline so that you can create your rough draft.