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Literary Analysis Essay Writing

Literary Analysis Essay Outline

Literary Analysis Essay Outline - A Step By Step Guide

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How to Write a Literary Analysis Essay - A Step-by-Step Guide

Interesting Literary Analysis Essay Topics & Ideas

Have you ever felt stuck, looking at a blank page, wondering what a literary analysis essay is? You are not sure how to analyze a complicated book or story? 

Writing a literary analysis essay can be tough, even for people who really love books. The hard part is not only understanding the deeper meaning of the story but also organizing your thoughts and arguments in a clear way.

But don't worry!

In this easy-to-follow guide, we will talk about a key tool: The Literary Analysis Essay Outline. 

We'll provide you with the knowledge and tricks you need to structure your analysis the right way. In the end, you'll have the essential skills to understand and structure your literature analysis better.   So, let’s dive in!

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• 1. How to Write a Literary Analysis Essay Outline?
• 2. Literary Analysis Essay Format 
• 3. Literary Analysis Essay Outline Example
• 4. Literary Analysis Essay Topics 

How to Write a Literary Analysis Essay Outline?

An outline is a structure that you decide to give to your writing to make the audience understand your viewpoint clearly. When a writer gathers information on a topic, it needs to be organized to make sense.

When writing a literary analysis essay, its outline is as important as any part of it. For the text’s clarity and readability, an outline is drafted in the essay’s planning phase.

According to the basic essay outline, the following are the elements included in drafting an outline for the essay:

• Introduction
• Thesis statement
• Body paragraphs

A detailed description of the literary analysis outline is provided in the following section.

Literary Analysis Essay Introduction

An introduction section is the first part of the essay. The introductory paragraph or paragraphs provide an insight into the topic and prepares the readers about the literary work.

A literary analysis essay introduction is based on three major elements:

Hook Statement: A hook statement is the opening sentence of the introduction. This statement is used to grab people’s attention. A catchy hook will make the introductory paragraph interesting for the readers, encouraging them to read the entire essay.

For example, in a literary analysis essay, “ Island Of Fear,” the writer used the following hook statement:

“As humans, we all fear something, and we deal with those fears in ways that match our personalities.”

Background Information: Providing background information about the chosen literature work in the introduction is essential. Present information related to the author, title, and theme discussed in the original text.

Moreover, include other elements to discuss, such as characters, setting, and the plot. For example:

“ In Lord of the Flies, William Golding shows the fears of Jack, Ralph, and Piggy and chooses specific ways for each to deal with his fears.”

Thesis Statement: A thesis statement is the writer’s main claim over the chosen piece of literature. 

A thesis statement allows your reader to expect the purpose of your writing. The main objective of writing a thesis statement is to provide your subject and opinion on the essay.

For example, the thesis statement in the “Island of Fear” is:

“...Therefore, each of the three boys reacts to fear in his own unique way.”

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Literary Analysis Essay Body Paragraphs

In body paragraphs, you dig deep into the text, show your insights, and build your argument.

 In this section, we'll break down how to structure and write these paragraphs effectively:

Topic sentence: A topic sentence is an opening sentence of the paragraph. The points that will support the main thesis statement are individually presented in each section.

For example:

“The first boy, Jack, believes that a beast truly does exist…”

Evidence: To support the claim made in the topic sentence, evidence is provided. The evidence is taken from the selected piece of work to make the reasoning strong and logical.

“...He is afraid and admits it; however, he deals with his fear of aggressive violence. He chooses to hunt for the beast, arms himself with a spear, and practice killing it: “We’re strong—we hunt! If there’s a beast, we’ll hunt it down! We’ll close in and beat and beat and beat—!”(91).”

Analysis: A literary essay is a kind of essay that requires a writer to provide his analysis as well.

The purpose of providing the writer’s analysis is to tell the readers about the meaning of the evidence.

“...He also uses the fear of the beast to control and manipulate the other children. Because they fear the beast, they are more likely to listen to Jack and follow his orders...”

Transition words: Transition or connecting words are used to link ideas and points together to maintain a logical flow.  Transition words  that are often used in a literary analysis essay are:

• Furthermore
• Later in the story
• In contrast, etc.

“...Furthermore, Jack fears Ralph’s power over the group and Piggy’s rational thought. This is because he knows that both directly conflict with his thirst for absolute power...”

Concluding sentence: The last sentence of the body that gives a final statement on the topic sentence is the concluding sentence. It sums up the entire discussion held in that specific paragraph.

Here is a literary analysis paragraph example for you: 

Literary Essay Example Pdf

Literary Analysis Essay Conclusion

The last section of the essay is the conclusion part where the writer ties all loose ends of the essay together. To write appropriate and correct concluding paragraphs, add the following information:

• State how your topic is related to the theme of the chosen work
• State how successfully the author delivered the message
• According to your perspective, provide a statement on the topic
• If required, present predictions
• Connect your conclusion to your introduction by restating the thesis statement.
• In the end, provide an opinion about the significance of the work.

For example,

“ In conclusion, William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies exposes the reader to three characters with different personalities and fears: Jack, Ralph, and Piggy. Each of the boys tries to conquer his fear in a different way. Fear is a natural emotion encountered by everyone, but each person deals with it in a way that best fits his/her individual personality.”

Literary Analysis Essay Outline (PDF)

Literary Analysis Essay Format 

A literary analysis essay delves into the examination and interpretation of a literary work, exploring themes, characters, and literary devices. 

Below is a guide outlining the format for a structured and effective literary analysis essay.

Formatting Guidelines 

• Use a legible font (e.g., Times New Roman or Arial) and set the font size to 12 points.
• Double-space your essay, including the title, headings, and quotations.
• Set one-inch margins on all sides of the page.
• Indent paragraphs by 1/2 inch or use the tab key.
• Page numbers, if required, should be in the header or footer and follow the specified formatting style.

Literary Analysis Essay Outline Example

To fully understand a concept in a writing world, literary analysis outline examples are important. This is to learn how a perfectly structured writing piece is drafted and how ideas are shaped to convey a message. 

The following are the best literary analysis essay examples to help you draft a perfect essay. 

Literary Analysis Essay Rubric (PDF)

High School Literary Analysis Essay Outline

Literary Analysis Essay Outline College (PDF)

Literary Analysis Essay Example Romeo & Juliet (PDF)

AP Literary Analysis Essay Outline

Literary Analysis Essay Outline Middle School

Literary Analysis Essay Topics 

Are you seeking inspiration for your next literary analysis essay? Here is a list of literary analysis essay topics for you:

• The Theme of Alienation in "The Catcher in the Rye"
• The Motif of Darkness in Shakespeare's Tragedies
• The Psychological Complexity of Hamlet's Character
• Analyzing the Narrator's Unreliable Perspective in "The Tell-Tale Heart"
• The Role of Nature in William Wordsworth's Romantic Poetry
• The Representation of Social Class in "To Kill a Mockingbird"
• The Use of Irony in Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"
• The Impact of Holden's Red Hunting Hat in the Novel
• The Power of Setting in Gabriel García Márquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude"
• The Symbolism of the Conch Shell in William Golding's "Lord of the Flies"

Need more topics? Read our literary analysis essay topics blog!

All in all, writing a literary analysis essay can be tricky if it is your first attempt. Apart from analyzing the work, other elements like a topic and an accurate interpretation must draft this type of essay.

If you are in doubt to draft a perfect essay, get professional assistance from our essay service .

We are a professional essay writing company that provides guidance and helps students to achieve their academic goals. Our qualified writers assist students by providing assistance at an affordable price. 

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Keep reading

The Ultimate Guide to Analytical Essay Writing: How to Craft an A-Grade Paper?

25 January, 2021

17 minutes read

Author:  Kate Smith

An analytical essay is often considered the most challenging piece of writing. However, those who have dealt with it at least once are a step closer to calling themselves masters of essay writing. This type of paper requires plenty of analytical skills to carry out an in-depth analysis of the assigned topic. Yet, the main goal of an analytical essay is not only to demonstrate your ability to learn the basics of the theme.

You also need to think critically, analyze facts, express your standpoint, and clearly show a deep understanding of key concepts. In short, your main task as an author is to prove the validity of your views by coming up with strong arguments that do not beg any questions.

The given guide provides a full analytical essay definition, as well as specifies its features and structural aspects. The following information will help you properly start your paper, choose a relevant topic, and come up with compelling conclusions. 

What is an Analytical Essay?

An analytical essay is a piece of writing aimed to provide a thorough analysis of a definite phenomenon using persuasive arguments and supporting assertions. Analysis in the analytical essay writing process stands for a method of research that allows one to study specific features of an object. Analytical papers also have to do with analysis of a specific problem; that is consideration of the problem itself and identification of its key patterns. The subject matter of analysis can be a well-known or little-studied scientific phenomenon, artistic work, historical event, social problem, etc.

The content of an analytical essay will totally depend on the object that has been chosen for analysis. Thus, when shedding light on any kind of scientific work, an analytical essay can be devoted to the analysis of research credibility, its relevance, or the adequacy of conclusions. When considering a work of art, an essay writer can focus on the analysis of the author’s artistic techniques or issues raised in the book. For this reason, it is essential to accurately determine the topic and subject matter of your future analytical essay.

Steps to Take Before Writing

The preparational stage of analytical essay writing cannot be omitted. It lays the basis for the A-grade paper and should be carefully completed. If you don’t know how to start an analytical essay, read a few handy tips that will ensure a solid foundation for your paper.  

Define a subject matter

You first need to clearly understand the issue you will base your essay on. Since analytical essays imply an in-depth analysis of a specific problem, you need to define its core. Try to split the analysis into several components and provide arguments taken either from a book, a research, a scientific work, or a movie (depending on the subject matter of your analysis), and support your views comprehensively.

Decide on the content of your analytical essay

If you are a student who was given an analytical essay topic, read the task several times before you are 100% sure that you clearly understand the requirements as to the analytical essay format. In case you were lucky to choose the topic of the analytical paper by yourself, make sure the theme you will be dealing with is familiar or at least seems interesting to you. 

Remember that different subject matters require a different approach to their analysis. If you examine some literature work, you can prove your opinion based on the deeds of a certain or several characters. But if you have been assigned the task to elaborate on some historic events, analyze their main causes, driving forces that have affected their course, and their global consequences.  

Take care of the proper start

Don’t forget to start your analytical essay with a thesis statement. It is a sentence or a couple of sentences that aim to summarize the key statements of your paper. A thesis statement should provide readers with a preliminary idea of what your essay is all about.  

Find extra reasoning

Make sure your thesis is supported by compelling arguments. To find enough evidence, you should carry out a thorough analysis of the assigned topic. List the crucial points of your research and ponder over the ways they can be used to prove your final opinion. 

Elaborate the outline

A sound outline elaborated at the preparation stage will help you ensure a proper analytical essay structure and make the overall writing process easier. As a rule, an analytical essay consists of an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Your outline plan should include the key arguments you want to discuss in each paragraph. 

Analytical Essay Thesis

A thesis statement represents the central idea of your paper and must serve as strong proof of your standpoint. While elaborating your thesis statement, it is crucial to include it at the end of the first paragraph and thus set a direction for the overall paper. 

Analytical Essay Outline

An outline is not a required element of analytical essays writing and should not be included in the text, but it can greatly facilitate the whole process of paper writing.

The analytical essay structure looks as follows:

Introduction

In the introduction of an analytical essay, you will need to identify your paper’s subject matter. Mention the purpose of your work and specify its scope of research. Don’t forget to include a thesis to let readers know what your work is about.

Body Section

As has already been mentioned, the body section covers three or more main paragraphs, each being supported with arguments and details. Besides, you need to provide a small conclusion to each statement to make your essay sound professional and persuasive. 

At this stage, you need to summarize the points elucidated in your paper and make sure there is a smooth and logical transition from the body section to the concluding part of the text. If you don’t know how to conclude an analytical essay, try to restate the thesis statement without copying it word for word.  

Analytical Essay Examples

Writing an analytical essay may seem to be a thorny way. If you are still not sure how to properly craft one, try to find some examples that will help you go in the right direction. Below, there are some great examples of analytical essays. Take a look at their structure and try to write something similar based on your views and ideas:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JeR4i4RIZIj448W3KVFyHP-eS3QPN7gW/view

https://stlcc.edu/docs/student-support/academic-support/college-writing-center/rhetorical-analysis-sample-essay.pdf

https://www.germanna.eduhttp://handmadewriting.com/wp-content/uploads/tutoring/handouts/Literary-Analysis-Sample-Paper.pdf

30 Analytical Essay Topics

If you were allowed to choose the theme for your paper by yourself, check on the following analytical essay topics. Each of them can bring you the highest score:

General topics

• The influence of social networks on the life of teens
• Are salaries of football players too high?
• Wearing uniforms in schools should be banned
• A person in society: the problems of loneliness and privacy
• Sociology of corporate relationships
• Does the observation of space need more investments?
• Should the voting age in the UK be decreased?
• Reasons why capital punishment should be brought back in the UK
• A world with no rules: a new human era or a road to the global collapse?
• Life without technologies: will modern people survive?
• Should scientists test drugs on animals to fight cancer?
• The problem of keeping the balance between career and family life
• The importance of listening to your body 
• Problems caused by the lack of communication
• Food addiction and the problems it causes
• Problems of vaccination in the XXI century
• Does evil really rule the world?
• How does body size affect life quality?
• Pros and cons of video games 
• The role of a family model in the life and career of a person

Analytical Essay Topics on Literature

• “Robinson Crusoe”: fantasy vs reality
• Observation of the artistic uniqueness in the comedy by W. Shakespeare “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” 
• Observe the social problems in the novel by John Steinbeck “The Grapes of Wrath”
• Convulsions and death of the “little man” in the networks of impersonal, alienated forces in the novel “The Metamorphosis”
• Observation of the problems of a man on a plagued land in the novel “The Plague”
• Revolt of the protagonist in the novel by J. Salinger “The Catcher in the Rye”
• Observation of friendship and love in the fate of humanity in the XX century
• The triumph of immorality in the novel by F. Sagan “Hello Sadness”
• Observation of the personality of an American student in the novel by J. Salinger “The Catcher in the Rye”
• Eternal tragedies of humanity in the tragedy by W. Shakespeare “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark”

How to Write a Well-Structured Analytical Essay With a Solid Argument

Writing an analytical essay with a clear structure might be challenging unless you are thoroughly prepared. We decided to help you out and create a detailed guide listing the main things to consider when creating an analytical essay outline. You need to explain your main idea in a concise way to bring your point across. As analytical writing has high requirements, it pays off to find an analytical essay example and analyze how this text was written. It will allow you to understand the analytical essay format better and learn how to provide substantive analysis on various topics. Read on to learn how to write a top-level analytical paper and submit it on time.

Main Tips for Writing an Analytical Essay

An analytical essay should provide a comprehensive analysis of a chosen topic. What makes an analysis essay different from other assignments is that it includes a personal opinion of an author. This is why analytical writing should be persuasive.

Below, we have rounded up the key tips you need to follow when producing an analytical essay outline and the main body of your text. Read on to learn more about the analytical essay format and create a text that will fully meet the requirements.

Select an Analytical Essay Topic

Before creating an analytical essay outline, make sure to pick a topic that you are interested in. It should be provocative enough to engage your readers. A widely-debated topic will help you write an analytical essay that grabs the attention of a wide audience.

Consider your goals and conduct thorough research to see if you have enough sources to support the main thesis of your analysis essay.

Come Up With a Strong Analytical Thesis Statement

When writing an analytical essay, start by formulating a thesis statement that includes the topic and the main goal of your text. It will help you create an analytical essay outline and show your readers what you will discuss in your analysis essay.

Add it to the last paragraph of your analytical essay introduction. Due to this, your analytical essay outline will look better structured. Look at any analytical essay example to see how you can introduce your subject. In most cases, one sentence will suffice to state your analysis essay’s goal. However, a complex analytical essay outline might require you to use two sentences for a thesis statement.

Write an Analytical Essay Body with a Clear Structure

Your analytical essay outline should include 3-4 paragraphs. However, a literary analysis essay usually consists of 5 paragraphs. When it comes to analytical writing, it is important to cover a different point in each section of the main body of an analysis paper.

After writing an analytical essay, check whether each paragraph contains an introduction and the main point. Besides, it should contain evidence. An expertly written analytical essay outline will help you reach out to your target audience more effectively.

Conduct Research Before Writing an Analytical Essay Outline

While this step is preparatory, it is a must for those who want to write a well-grounded analytical paper.

• First, select the best ideas for your essay
• Then, emphasize the problems with works written by other researchers
• Finally, write your analytical essay outline to demonstrate what approach you want to take

Examine the context and find examples to illustrate the scope of the issue. You may draw parallels to emphasize your point and make your topic more relatable.

Analyze the Implications of the Evidence

After listing your pieces of evidence and demonstrating how it is related to your thesis, show why it is important. You need to explore it deeply and use it to support your argument. It will make your analytical essay outline well-grounded facts.

Write an Analytical Essay Conclusion

Whether you write a literary analysis essay or other types of assignments, there is no need to add any new data at the end of your analysis paper. Instead, summarize the arguments you mentioned in your analytical essay outline. The conclusion of your analysis essay should be short and clear. Here, you need to demonstrate that you have achieved your goals.

Analytical Essay Writing Tips

If you want to get the highest grade for your analytical essay, you need to know a little bit more than just the basics of paper writing. Read these handy tips to write a perfect essay you will be proud of:

• Double-check your paper for spelling and grammar mistakes. In case your essay contains too many errors, neither an in-depth analysis nor the elaborate writing style will make it look any better. Situations when essays of great value in terms of research and a message they convey are poorly assessed because of the abundance of mistakes are not rare. Make sure you have enough time to proofread your paper before submission. Also, you may consider asking somebody to take a fresh look at your essay and check it for you.
• Reading your analytical essay out loud helps you discover all types of errors or weak phrases. This method might seem a bit uncomfortable, but it has proved to be very effective for many students. Note that silent reading of your paper isn’t even half as helpful as reading it aloud. 
• Another great idea to check on the rhythm and flow of your paper is to ask someone to read it for you. While listening to the text, you could perceive it from another perspective and discover even more inconsistencies and mistakes.  
• Double-check the facts you use in your analytical essay. The names of people, books, research, publications, as well as dates of historical events are too important to be misspelled. Things like these show your professionalism and the way you treat your readers.

Write an Analytical Essay with HandmadeWriting

Writing an analytical essay requires time, strong writing skills, great attention to detail, and a huge interest in the assigned topic. However, life can be unpredictable sometimes, and students might find themselves at risk of failing their creative assignments. Stress, family issues, poor health, and even unwillingness to work on a certain topic may become significant obstacles on their way to the A-grade work.

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12.14: Sample Student Literary Analysis Essays

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• Page ID 40514

• Heather Ringo & Athena Kashyap
• City College of San Francisco via ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative

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The following examples are essays where student writers focused on close-reading a literary work.

While reading these examples, ask yourself the following questions:

• What is the essay's thesis statement, and how do you know it is the thesis statement?
• What is the main idea or topic sentence of each body paragraph, and how does it relate back to the thesis statement?
• Where and how does each essay use evidence (quotes or paraphrase from the literature)?
• What are some of the literary devices or structures the essays analyze or discuss?
• How does each author structure their conclusion, and how does their conclusion differ from their introduction?

Example 1: Poetry

Victoria Morillo

Instructor Heather Ringo

3 August 2022

How Nguyen’s Structure Solidifies the Impact of Sexual Violence in “The Study”

Stripped of innocence, your body taken from you. No matter how much you try to block out the instance in which these two things occurred, memories surface and come back to haunt you. How does a person, a young boy , cope with an event that forever changes his life? Hieu Minh Nguyen deconstructs this very way in which an act of sexual violence affects a survivor. In his poem, “The Study,” the poem's speaker recounts the year in which his molestation took place, describing how his memory filters in and out. Throughout the poem, Nguyen writes in free verse, permitting a structural liberation to become the foundation for his message to shine through. While he moves the readers with this poignant narrative, Nguyen effectively conveys the resulting internal struggles of feeling alone and unseen.

The speaker recalls his experience with such painful memory through the use of specific punctuation choices. Just by looking at the poem, we see that the first period doesn’t appear until line 14. It finally comes after the speaker reveals to his readers the possible, central purpose for writing this poem: the speaker's molestation. In the first half, the poem makes use of commas, em dashes, and colons, which lends itself to the idea of the speaker stringing along all of these details to make sense of this time in his life. If reading the poem following the conventions of punctuation, a sense of urgency is present here, as well. This is exemplified by the lack of periods to finalize a thought; and instead, Nguyen uses other punctuation marks to connect them. Serving as another connector of thoughts, the two em dashes give emphasis to the role memory plays when the speaker discusses how “no one [had] a face” during that time (Nguyen 9-11). He speaks in this urgent manner until the 14th line, and when he finally gets it off his chest, the pace of the poem changes, as does the more frequent use of the period. This stream-of-consciousness-like section when juxtaposed with the latter half of the poem, causes readers to slow down and pay attention to the details. It also splits the poem in two: a section that talks of the fogginess of memory then transitions into one that remembers it all.

In tandem with the fluctuating nature of memory, the utilization of line breaks and word choice help reflect the damage the molestation has had. Within the first couple of lines of the poem, the poem demands the readers’ attention when the line breaks from “floating” to “dead” as the speaker describes his memory of Little Billy (Nguyen 1-4). This line break averts the readers’ expectation of the direction of the narrative and immediately shifts the tone of the poem. The break also speaks to the effect his trauma has ingrained in him and how “[f]or the longest time,” his only memory of that year revolves around an image of a boy’s death. In a way, the speaker sees himself in Little Billy; or perhaps, he’s representative of the tragic death of his boyhood, how the speaker felt so “dead” after enduring such a traumatic experience, even referring to himself as a “ghost” that he tries to evict from his conscience (Nguyen 24). The feeling that a part of him has died is solidified at the very end of the poem when the speaker describes himself as a nine-year-old boy who’s been “fossilized,” forever changed by this act (Nguyen 29). By choosing words associated with permanence and death, the speaker tries to recreate the atmosphere (for which he felt trapped in) in order for readers to understand the loneliness that came as a result of his trauma. With the assistance of line breaks, more attention is drawn to the speaker's words, intensifying their importance, and demanding to be felt by the readers.

Most importantly, the speaker expresses eloquently, and so heartbreakingly, about the effect sexual violence has on a person. Perhaps what seems to be the most frustrating are the people who fail to believe survivors of these types of crimes. This is evident when he describes “how angry” the tenants were when they filled the pool with cement (Nguyen 4). They seem to represent how people in the speaker's life were dismissive of his assault and who viewed his tragedy as a nuisance of some sorts. This sentiment is bookended when he says, “They say, give us details , so I give them my body. / They say, give us proof , so I give them my body,” (Nguyen 25-26). The repetition of these two lines reinforces the feeling many feel in these scenarios, as they’re often left to deal with trying to make people believe them, or to even see them.

It’s important to recognize how the structure of this poem gives the speaker space to express the pain he’s had to carry for so long. As a characteristic of free verse, the poem doesn’t follow any structured rhyme scheme or meter; which in turn, allows him to not have any constraints in telling his story the way he wants to. The speaker has the freedom to display his experience in a way that evades predictability and engenders authenticity of a story very personal to him. As readers, we abandon anticipating the next rhyme, and instead focus our attention to the other ways, like his punctuation or word choice, in which he effectively tells his story. The speaker recognizes that some part of him no longer belongs to himself, but by writing “The Study,” he shows other survivors that they’re not alone and encourages hope that eventually, they will be freed from the shackles of sexual violence.

Works Cited

Nguyen, Hieu Minh. “The Study” Poets.Org. Academy of American Poets, Coffee House Press, 2018, https://poets.org/poem/study-0 .

Example 2: Fiction

Todd Goodwin

Professor Stan Matyshak

Advanced Expository Writing

Sept. 17, 20—

Poe’s “Usher”: A Mirror of the Fall of the House of Humanity

Right from the outset of the grim story, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Edgar Allan Poe enmeshes us in a dark, gloomy, hopeless world, alienating his characters and the reader from any sort of physical or psychological norm where such values as hope and happiness could possibly exist. He fatalistically tells the story of how a man (the narrator) comes from the outside world of hope, religion, and everyday society and tries to bring some kind of redeeming happiness to his boyhood friend, Roderick Usher, who not only has physically and psychologically wasted away but is entrapped in a dilapidated house of ever-looming terror with an emaciated and deranged twin sister. Roderick Usher embodies the wasting away of what once was vibrant and alive, and his house of “insufferable gloom” (273), which contains his morbid sister, seems to mirror or reflect this fear of death and annihilation that he most horribly endures. A close reading of the story reveals that Poe uses mirror images, or reflections, to contribute to the fatalistic theme of “Usher”: each reflection serves to intensify an already prevalent tone of hopelessness, darkness, and fatalism.

It could be argued that the house of Roderick Usher is a “house of mirrors,” whose unpleasant and grim reflections create a dark and hopeless setting. For example, the narrator first approaches “the melancholy house of Usher on a dark and soundless day,” and finds a building which causes him a “sense of insufferable gloom,” which “pervades his spirit and causes an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart, an undiscerned dreariness of thought” (273). The narrator then optimistically states: “I reflected that a mere different arrangement of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression” (274). But the narrator then sees the reflection of the house in the tarn and experiences a “shudder even more thrilling than before” (274). Thus the reader begins to realize that the narrator cannot change or stop the impending doom that will befall the house of Usher, and maybe humanity. The story cleverly plays with the word reflection : the narrator sees a physical reflection that leads him to a mental reflection about Usher’s surroundings.

The narrator’s disillusionment by such grim reflection continues in the story. For example, he describes Roderick Usher’s face as distinct with signs of old strength but lost vigor: the remains of what used to be. He describes the house as a once happy and vibrant place, which, like Roderick, lost its vitality. Also, the narrator describes Usher’s hair as growing wild on his rather obtrusive head, which directly mirrors the eerie moss and straw covering the outside of the house. The narrator continually longs to see these bleak reflections as a dream, for he states: “Shaking off from my spirit what must have been a dream, I scanned more narrowly the real aspect of the building” (276). He does not want to face the reality that Usher and his home are doomed to fall, regardless of what he does.

Although there are almost countless examples of these mirror images, two others stand out as important. First, Roderick and his sister, Madeline, are twins. The narrator aptly states just as he and Roderick are entombing Madeline that there is “a striking similitude between brother and sister” (288). Indeed, they are mirror images of each other. Madeline is fading away psychologically and physically, and Roderick is not too far behind! The reflection of “doom” that these two share helps intensify and symbolize the hopelessness of the entire situation; thus, they further develop the fatalistic theme. Second, in the climactic scene where Madeline has been mistakenly entombed alive, there is a pairing of images and sounds as the narrator tries to calm Roderick by reading him a romance story. Events in the story simultaneously unfold with events of the sister escaping her tomb. In the story, the hero breaks out of the coffin. Then, in the story, the dragon’s shriek as he is slain parallels Madeline’s shriek. Finally, the story tells of the clangor of a shield, matched by the sister’s clanging along a metal passageway. As the suspense reaches its climax, Roderick shrieks his last words to his “friend,” the narrator: “Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the door” (296).

Roderick, who slowly falls into insanity, ironically calls the narrator the “Madman.” We are left to reflect on what Poe means by this ironic twist. Poe’s bleak and dark imagery, and his use of mirror reflections, seem only to intensify the hopelessness of “Usher.” We can plausibly conclude that, indeed, the narrator is the “Madman,” for he comes from everyday society, which is a place where hope and faith exist. Poe would probably argue that such a place is opposite to the world of Usher because a world where death is inevitable could not possibly hold such positive values. Therefore, just as Roderick mirrors his sister, the reflection in the tarn mirrors the dilapidation of the house, and the story mirrors the final actions before the death of Usher. “The Fall of the House of Usher” reflects Poe’s view that humanity is hopelessly doomed.

Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Fall of the House of Usher.” 1839. Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library . 1995. Web. 1 July 2012. < http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/PoeFall.html >.

Example 3: Poetry

Amy Chisnell

Professor Laura Neary

Writing and Literature

April 17, 20—

Don’t Listen to the Egg!: A Close Reading of Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky”

“You seem very clever at explaining words, Sir,” said Alice. “Would you kindly tell me the meaning of the poem called ‘Jabberwocky’?”

“Let’s hear it,” said Humpty Dumpty. “I can explain all the poems that ever were invented—and a good many that haven’t been invented just yet.” (Carroll 164)

In Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass , Humpty Dumpty confidently translates (to a not so confident Alice) the complicated language of the poem “Jabberwocky.” The words of the poem, though nonsense, aptly tell the story of the slaying of the Jabberwock. Upon finding “Jabberwocky” on a table in the looking-glass room, Alice is confused by the strange words. She is quite certain that “ somebody killed something ,” but she does not understand much more than that. When later she encounters Humpty Dumpty, she seizes the opportunity at having the knowledgeable egg interpret—or translate—the poem. Since Humpty Dumpty professes to be able to “make a word work” for him, he is quick to agree. Thus he acts like a New Critic who interprets the poem by performing a close reading of it. Through Humpty’s interpretation of the first stanza, however, we see the poem’s deeper comment concerning the practice of interpreting poetry and literature in general—that strict analytical translation destroys the beauty of a poem. In fact, Humpty Dumpty commits the “heresy of paraphrase,” for he fails to understand that meaning cannot be separated from the form or structure of the literary work.

Of the 71 words found in “Jabberwocky,” 43 have no known meaning. They are simply nonsense. Yet through this nonsensical language, the poem manages not only to tell a story but also gives the reader a sense of setting and characterization. One feels, rather than concretely knows, that the setting is dark, wooded, and frightening. The characters, such as the Jubjub bird, the Bandersnatch, and the doomed Jabberwock, also appear in the reader’s head, even though they will not be found in the local zoo. Even though most of the words are not real, the reader is able to understand what goes on because he or she is given free license to imagine what the words denote and connote. Simply, the poem’s nonsense words are the meaning.

Therefore, when Humpty interprets “Jabberwocky” for Alice, he is not doing her any favors, for he actually misreads the poem. Although the poem in its original is constructed from nonsense words, by the time Humpty is done interpreting it, it truly does not make any sense. The first stanza of the original poem is as follows:

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogroves,

An the mome raths outgrabe. (Carroll 164)

If we replace, however, the nonsense words of “Jabberwocky” with Humpty’s translated words, the effect would be something like this:

’Twas four o’clock in the afternoon, and the lithe and slimy badger-lizard-corkscrew creatures

Did go round and round and make holes in the grass-plot round the sun-dial:

All flimsy and miserable were the shabby-looking birds

with mop feathers,

And the lost green pigs bellowed-sneezed-whistled.

By translating the poem in such a way, Humpty removes the charm or essence—and the beauty, grace, and rhythm—from the poem. The poetry is sacrificed for meaning. Humpty Dumpty commits the heresy of paraphrase. As Cleanth Brooks argues, “The structure of a poem resembles that of a ballet or musical composition. It is a pattern of resolutions and balances and harmonizations” (203). When the poem is left as nonsense, the reader can easily imagine what a “slithy tove” might be, but when Humpty tells us what it is, he takes that imaginative license away from the reader. The beauty (if that is the proper word) of “Jabberwocky” is in not knowing what the words mean, and yet understanding. By translating the poem, Humpty takes that privilege from the reader. In addition, Humpty fails to recognize that meaning cannot be separated from the structure itself: the nonsense poem reflects this literally—it means “nothing” and achieves this meaning by using “nonsense” words.

Furthermore, the nonsense words Carroll chooses to use in “Jabberwocky” have a magical effect upon the reader; the shadowy sound of the words create the atmosphere, which may be described as a trance-like mood. When Alice first reads the poem, she says it seems to fill her head “with ideas.” The strange-sounding words in the original poem do give one ideas. Why is this? Even though the reader has never heard these words before, he or she is instantly aware of the murky, mysterious mood they set. In other words, diction operates not on the denotative level (the dictionary meaning) but on the connotative level (the emotion(s) they evoke). Thus “Jabberwocky” creates a shadowy mood, and the nonsense words are instrumental in creating this mood. Carroll could not have simply used any nonsense words.

For example, let us change the “dark,” “ominous” words of the first stanza to “lighter,” more “comic” words:

’Twas mearly, and the churly pells

Did bimble and ringle in the tink;

All timpy were the brimbledimps,

And the bip plips outlink.

Shifting the sounds of the words from dark to light merely takes a shift in thought. To create a specific mood using nonsense words, one must create new words from old words that convey the desired mood. In “Jabberwocky,” Carroll mixes “slimy,” a grim idea, “lithe,” a pliable image, to get a new adjective: “slithy” (a portmanteau word). In this translation, brighter words were used to get a lighter effect. “Mearly” is a combination of “morning” and “early,” and “ringle” is a blend of “ring” and "dingle.” The point is that “Jabberwocky’s” nonsense words are created specifically to convey this shadowy or mysterious mood and are integral to the “meaning.”

Consequently, Humpty’s rendering of the poem leaves the reader with a completely different feeling than does the original poem, which provided us with a sense of ethereal mystery, of a dark and foreign land with exotic creatures and fantastic settings. The mysteriousness is destroyed by Humpty’s literal paraphrase of the creatures and the setting; by doing so, he has taken the beauty away from the poem in his attempt to understand it. He has committed the heresy of paraphrase: “If we allow ourselves to be misled by it [this heresy], we distort the relation of the poem to its ‘truth’… we split the poem between its ‘form’ and its ‘content’” (Brooks 201). Humpty Dumpty’s ultimate demise might be seen to symbolize the heretical split between form and content: as a literary creation, Humpty Dumpty is an egg, a well-wrought urn of nonsense. His fall from the wall cracks him and separates the contents from the container, and not even all the King’s men can put the scrambled egg back together again!

Through the odd characters of a little girl and a foolish egg, “Jabberwocky” suggests a bit of sage advice about reading poetry, advice that the New Critics built their theories on. The importance lies not solely within strict analytical translation or interpretation, but in the overall effect of the imagery and word choice that evokes a meaning inseparable from those literary devices. As Archibald MacLeish so aptly writes: “A poem should not mean / But be.” Sometimes it takes a little nonsense to show us the sense in something.

Brooks, Cleanth. The Well-Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry . 1942. San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1956. Print.

Carroll, Lewis. Through the Looking-Glass. Alice in Wonderland . 2nd ed. Ed. Donald J. Gray. New York: Norton, 1992. Print.

MacLeish, Archibald. “Ars Poetica.” The Oxford Book of American Poetry . Ed. David Lehman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006. 385–86. Print.

Attribution

• Sample Essay 1 received permission from Victoria Morillo to publish, licensed Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International ( CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 )
• Sample Essays 2 and 3 adapted from Cordell, Ryan and John Pennington. "2.5: Student Sample Papers" from Creating Literary Analysis. 2012. Licensed Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported ( CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 )

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Literary analysis: sample essay.

We turn once more to Joanna Wolfe’s and Laura Wilder’s  Digging into Literature: Strategies for Reading, Writing, and Analysis  (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2016) in order to show you their example of a strong student essay that has a strong central claim elucidated by multiple surface/depth arguments supported by patterns of evidence.

Paragraph 1

Sylvia Plath’s short poem “Morning Song” explores the conflicted emotions of a new mother. On the one hand, the mother recognizes that she is expected to treasure and celebrate her infant, but on the other hand, she feels strangely removed from the child. The poem uses a combination of scientific and natural imagery to illustrate the mother’s feelings of alienation. By the end of the poem, however, we see a shift in this imagery as the mother begins to see the infant in more human terms.

Paragraph 2

There are several references to scientific imagery in “Morning Song” that suggest that mother is viewing the baby in clinical, scientific terms rather than as a new life. The poem refers to magnification (4) and reflection (8), both of which are scientific methods. The word “distills” (8) refers to a scientific, chemical process for removing impurities from a substance. The baby’s cry is described as taking “its place among the elements” (3), which seems to refer to the periodic table of elements, the primordial matter of the universe. The watch in the first line is similarly a scientific tool and the gold the watch is made of is, of course, an element, like the baby’s cry. Even the balloons in the last line have a scientific connotation since balloons are often used for measurements and experiments in science. These images all serve to show how the speaker feels distanced from the baby, who is like a scientific experiment she is conducting rather than a human being.

Paragraph 3

Natural imagery also seems to further dehumanize the baby, reducing it to nothing more than its mouth. The baby’s breathing is compared to a moth in line 10, suggesting that the speaker feels the infant is fragile and is as likely to die as a moth dancing around candlelight. A few lines later, the baby’s mouth is compared to another animal—a cat—who greedily opens its mouth for milk. Not only does the speaker seem to feel that the baby is like an animal, but she herself is turned into an animal, as she arises “cow-heavy” (13) to feed the infant. These images show how the speaker sees both the baby and herself as dumb animals who exist only to feed and be fed. Even the morning itself seems to be reduced to another mouth to feed as she describes how the dawn “swallows its dull stars” (16). These lines suggest that just as the sun swallows up the stars, so the baby will swallow up this mother.

Paragraph 4

However, in the last few lines the poem takes a hopeful turn as the speaker begins to view the baby as a human being. The baby’s mouth, which has previously been greedy and animal-like, now becomes a source of music, producing a “handful of notes” (17) and “clear vowels” (18). Music is a distinctly human sound. No animals and certainly not the cats, cows, or moths mentioned earlier in the poem, make music. This change in how the speaker perceives the baby’s sounds—from animalistic cry to human song—suggest that she is beginning to relate the baby as an individual. Even the word “handful” in the phrase “handful of notes” (17) seems hopeful in this context since this is the first time the mother has referred to the baby as having a distinctly human body part. When the baby’s notes finally “rise like balloons” (18), the speaker seems to have arrived at a place where she can celebrate the infant. For the first time, the infant is giving something to the speaker rather than threatening to take something away. The mother seems to have finally accepted the child as an independent human being whose company she can celebrate.

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Film Writing: Sample Analysis

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Introductory Note

The analysis below discusses the opening moments of the science fiction movie  Ex Machina  in order to make an argument about the film's underlying purpose. The text of the analysis is formatted normally. Editor's commentary, which will occasionally interrupt the piece to discuss the author's rhetorical strategies, is written in brackets in an italic font with a bold "Ed.:" identifier. See the examples below:

The text of the analysis looks like this.

[ Ed.:  The editor's commentary looks like this. ]

Frustrated Communication in Ex Machina ’s Opening Sequence

Alex Garland’s 2015 science fiction film Ex Machina follows a young programmer’s attempts to determine whether or not an android possesses a consciousness complicated enough to pass as human. The film is celebrated for its thought-provoking depiction of the anxiety over whether a nonhuman entity could mimic or exceed human abilities, but analyzing the early sections of the film, before artificial intelligence is even introduced, reveals a compelling examination of humans’ inability to articulate their thoughts and feelings. In its opening sequence, Ex Machina establishes that it’s not only about the difficulty of creating a machine that can effectively talk to humans, but about human beings who struggle to find ways to communicate with each other in an increasingly digital world.

[ Ed.:  The piece's opening introduces the film with a plot summary that doesn't give away too much and a brief summary of the critical conversation that has centered around the film. Then, however, it deviates from this conversation by suggesting that Ex Machina has things to say about humanity before non-human characters even appear. Off to a great start. ]

The film’s first establishing shots set the action in a busy modern office. A woman sits at a computer, absorbed in her screen. The camera looks at her through a glass wall, one of many in the shot. The reflections of passersby reflected in the glass and the workspace’s dim blue light make it difficult to determine how many rooms are depicted. The camera cuts to a few different young men typing on their phones, their bodies partially concealed both by people walking between them and the camera and by the stylized modern furniture that surrounds them. The fourth shot peeks over a computer monitor at a blonde man working with headphones in. A slight zoom toward his face suggests that this is an important character, and the cut to a point-of-view shot looking at his computer screen confirms this. We later learn that this is Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson), a young programmer whose perspective the film follows.

The rest of the sequence cuts between shots from Caleb’s P.O.V. and reaction shots of his face, as he receives and processes the news that he has won first prize in a staff competition. Shocked, Caleb dives for his cellphone and texts several people the news. Several people immediately respond with congratulatory messages, and after a moment the woman from the opening shot runs in to give him a hug. At this point, the other people in the room look up, smile, and start clapping, while Caleb smiles disbelievingly—perhaps even anxiously—and the camera subtly zooms in a bit closer. Throughout the entire sequence, there is no sound other than ambient electronic music that gets slightly louder and more textured as the sequence progresses. A jump cut to an aerial view of a glacial landscape ends the sequence and indicates that Caleb is very quickly transported into a very unfamiliar setting, implying that he will have difficulty adjusting to this sudden change in circumstances.

[ Ed.:  These paragraphs are mostly descriptive. They give readers the information they will need to understand the argument the piece is about to offer. While passages like this can risk becoming boring if they dwell on unimportant details, the author wisely limits herself to two paragraphs and maintains a driving pace through her prose style choices (like an almost exclusive reliance on active verbs). ]

Without any audible dialogue or traditional expository setup of the main characters, this opening sequence sets viewers up to make sense of Ex Machina ’s visual style and its exploration of the ways that technology can both enhance and limit human communication. The choice to make the dialogue inaudible suggests that in-person conversations have no significance. Human-to-human conversations are most productive in this sequence when they are mediated by technology. Caleb’s first response when he hears his good news is to text his friends rather than tell the people sitting around him, and he makes no move to take his headphones out when the in-person celebration finally breaks out. Everyone in the building is on their phones, looking at screens, or has headphones in, and the camera is looking at screens through Caleb’s viewpoint for at least half of the sequence.  

Rather than simply muting the specific conversations that Caleb has with his coworkers, the ambient soundtrack replaces all the noise that a crowded building in the middle of a workday would ordinarily have. This silence sets the uneasy tone that characterizes the rest of the film, which is as much a horror-thriller as a piece of science fiction. Viewers get the sense that all the sounds that humans make as they walk around and talk to each other are being intentionally filtered out by some presence, replaced with a quiet electronic beat that marks the pacing of the sequence, slowly building to a faster tempo. Perhaps the sound of people is irrelevant: only the visual data matters here. Silence is frequently used in the rest of the film as a source of tension, with viewers acutely aware that it could be broken at any moment. Part of the horror of the research bunker, which will soon become the film’s primary setting, is its silence, particularly during sequences of Caleb sneaking into restricted areas and being startled by a sudden noise.

The visual style of this opening sequence reinforces the eeriness of the muted humans and electronic soundtrack. Prominent use of shallow focus to depict a workspace that is constructed out of glass doors and walls makes it difficult to discern how large the space really is. The viewer is thus spatially disoriented in each new setting. This layering of glass and mirrors, doubling some images and obscuring others, is used later in the film when Caleb meets the artificial being Ava (Alicia Vikander), who is not allowed to leave her glass-walled living quarters in the research bunker. The similarity of these spaces visually reinforces the film’s late revelation that Caleb has been manipulated by Nathan Bates (Oscar Isaac), the troubled genius who creates Ava.

[ Ed.:  In these paragraphs, the author cites the information about the scene she's provided to make her argument. Because she's already teased the argument in the introduction and provided an account of her evidence, it doesn't strike us as unreasonable or far-fetched here. Instead, it appears that we've naturally arrived at the same incisive, fascinating points that she has. ]

A few other shots in the opening sequence more explicitly hint that Caleb is already under Nathan’s control before he ever arrives at the bunker. Shortly after the P.O.V shot of Caleb reading the email notification that he won the prize, we cut to a few other P.O.V. shots, this time from the perspective of cameras in Caleb’s phone and desktop computer. These cameras are not just looking at Caleb, but appear to be scanning him, as the screen flashes in different color lenses and small points appear around Caleb’s mouth, eyes, and nostrils, tracking the smallest expressions that cross his face. These small details indicate that Caleb is more a part of this digital space than he realizes, and also foreshadow the later revelation that Nathan is actively using data collected by computers and webcams to manipulate Caleb and others. The shots from the cameras’ perspectives also make use of a subtle fisheye lens, suggesting both the wide scope of Nathan’s surveillance capacities and the slightly distorted worldview that motivates this unethical activity.

[ Ed.: This paragraph uses additional details to reinforce the piece's main argument. While this move may not be as essential as the one in the preceding paragraphs, it does help create the impression that the author is noticing deliberate patterns in the film's cinematography, rather than picking out isolated coincidences to make her points. ]

Taken together, the details of Ex Machina ’s stylized opening sequence lay the groundwork for the film’s long exploration of the relationship between human communication and technology. The sequence, and the film, ultimately suggests that we need to develop and use new technologies thoughtfully, or else the thing that makes us most human—our ability to connect through language—might be destroyed by our innovations. All of the aural and visual cues in the opening sequence establish a world in which humans are utterly reliant on technology and yet totally unaware of the nefarious uses to which a brilliant but unethical person could put it.

Author's Note:  Thanks to my literature students whose in-class contributions sharpened my thinking on this scene .

[ Ed.: The piece concludes by tying the main themes of the opening sequence to those of the entire film. In doing this, the conclusion makes an argument for the essay's own relevance: we need to pay attention to the essay's points so that we can achieve a rich understanding of the movie. The piece's final sentence makes a chilling final impression by alluding to the danger that might loom if we do not understand the movie. This is the only the place in the piece where the author explicitly references how badly we might be hurt by ignorance, and it's all the more powerful for this solitary quality. A pithy, charming note follows, acknowledging that the author's work was informed by others' input (as most good writing is). Beautifully done. ]

Module 6: Research

Preliminary research strategies.

The first step towards writing a research paper is pretty obvious: find sources. Not everything that you find will be good, and those that are good are not always easily found.  Having an idea of what you’re looking for–what will most help you develop your essay and enforce your thesis–will help guide your process.

Example of a Research Process

A good research process should go through these steps:

• Decide on the topic.
• Narrow the topic in order to narrow search parameters.
• Create a question that your research will address.
• Generate sub-questions from your main question.
• Determine what kind of sources are best for your argument.
• Create a bibliography as you gather and reference sources.

Each of these is described in greater detail below.

Books, books, books …Do not start research haphazardly—come up with a plan first.

A research plan should begin after you can clearly identify the focus of your argument. First, inform yourself about the basics of your topic (Wikipedia and general online searches are great starting points). Be sure you’ve read all the assigned texts and carefully read the prompt as you gather preliminary information.  This stage is sometimes called pre-research .

A broad online search will yield thousands of sources, which no one could be expected to read through. To make it easier on yourself, the next step is to narrow your focus. Think about what kind of position or stance you can take on the topic. What about it strikes you as most interesting? Refer back to the prewriting stage of the writing process, which will come in handy here.

Preliminary Search Tips

• It is okay to start with Wikipedia as a reference, but do not use it as an official source. Look at the links and references at the bottom of the page for more ideas.
• Use “Ctrl+F” to find certain words within a webpage in order to jump to the sections of the article that interest you.
• Use quotation marks to narrow your search from just tanks in WWII to “Tanks in WWII” or “Tanks” in “WWII”.
• Find specific types of websites by adding “site:.gov” or “site:.edu” or “site:.org”. You can also search for specific file types like “filetype:.pdf”.
• Click on “Search Tools” under the search bar in Google and select “Any time” to see a list of options for time periods to help limit your search. You can find information just in the past month or year, or even for a custom range.

Use features already available through Google Search like Search Tools and Advanced Search to narrow and refine your results.

As you narrow your focus, create a list of questions that you’ll need to answer in order to write a good essay on the topic.  The research process will help you answer these questions.

Another part of your research plan should include the type of sources you want to gather. Keep track of these sources in a bibliography and jot down notes about the book, article, or document and how it will be useful to your essay. This will save you a lot of time later in the essay process–you’ll thank yourself!

• Revision and Adaptation. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• The Research Process graphic. Authored by : Kim Louie for Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
• Organizing Your Research Plan. Provided by : Boundless. Located at : https://www.boundless.com/writing/textbooks/boundless-writing-textbook/the-research-process-2/organizing-your-research-plan-262/organizing-your-research-plan-51-1304/ . Project : Boundless Writing. License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike

Preliminary Data Analysis: An Analysis Before the Analysis

• First Online: 22 June 2021

Cite this chapter

• Saiyidi Mat Roni 3 &
• Hadrian Geri Djajadikerta 3  

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We dedicate this one whole chapter for data prep. We walk you through the chronological steps to prepare your data before you run any major test to answer your research questions. In this chapter, we walk you through the processes needed to clean your dataset. We begin with identifying the monotonous responses. These are the ones that have no variations (more on this in the chapter). We also teach you how to deal with missing values and outliers, and of course, testing if the data is normally distributed. SPSS will run the tests you ask and give you outputs regardless of the state of the dataset. But, you need to be confidence to say that the outputs are correct. If the data is wrong, then the outputs are questionable. Afterall, if you put in diesel for your car that runs on a petrol, the engine most probably runs but you may not reach the destination (and a costly repair ensues).

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Yeh K-J (2009) Reconceptualizing technology use and information system success: developing and testing a theoretically integrated model. (Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate thesis), University of Texas, Arlington, Texas.

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Mat Roni, S., Djajadikerta, H.G. (2021). Preliminary Data Analysis: An Analysis Before the Analysis. In: Data Analysis with SPSS for Survey-based Research. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0193-4_3

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Intro to Data Science

Chapter 6 preliminary data analysis.

This section describes the first steps we usually take when starting working with a new dataset. The main message here is: understand your data .

6.1 Different variable types

We discussed the different kind of data in Section 3.2 . That discussion was focused on data and how we understand it . Now we continue this discussion looking at computers and how computers represent it . Obviously, computer representation reflects of our understanding, but the details differ. For working with data on computers, it is important to understand the “computer’s mind”.

6.1.1 Numeric variables

6.1.2 character (string) variables, 6.1.3 categorical variables.

Quite an important category are categorical variables, variables that represent values that are not numbers. In computer memory, these can be represented both as text, or as numbers.

If the numbers are represented as text, then all is well–R understands that text is not numbers, hence it is categorical. But when the categories are numbers, you may run into a trouble. The problem here is that R has no way of knowing if numbers are numbers (i.e. they can be added and averaged), or if they are categories (that cannot be added or averaged). For instance, in Titanic data (see Section B.7 ), the passenger class is coded as “1”, “2” or “3”. These are not numbers! These are categories. You cannot do mathematics like “first class + second class = third class”. This does not make any sense! However, they are stored in memory as numbers, and hence R, by default, treats these as any other numbers, and is happy to make all sorts of computations with these.

This causes problems when using certain functionality, e.g. plotting, where data handling depends on the data type. For instance, in case of categorical variables, we may want to color the different classes in clear distinct colors. The image here display the average fare on Titanic by passenger class. The classes are clearly distinct, depicted with very different colors.

However, when R thinks that pclass is a number, it may display the colors on the same continuous scale instead. You can also see that the color key has middle values, such as 2.5 and 1.5. This is usually not what we want.

In such cases, one should convert the numbers to categoricals using the factor() function. So instead of plotting average fare versus pclass , you should plot average fare versus factor(pclass) . See more in Section 10.2.5 .

6.1.4 Logical variables

6.2 preliminary data analysis.

While the preliminary analysis may feel a bit boring and too simplistic, it is an extremely important step. You should do it every time when you encounter a new dataset . There are good reasons to analyze it even if the dataset is well documented and originates from a very credible source. For instance, did you download the correct file? Did you open it correctly? Also, there are plenty of examples where high-quality documentation does not quite correspond to the actual dataset. At the end, we need to know what is in data , we are not much concerned about what is in the documentation.

This section primarily concerns about the aspects of data quality and variable coding, the preliminary statistical analysis is discussed in Section 7.2 .

Through this section we use Titanic data , see Section B.7 . We load it as

For beginners, it may be advantageous to use RStudio’s graphical data viewer (See Section 3.7 ) in order to get the very basic idea about the dataset. But here we discuss how to achieve the same functionality using commands. This is in part because the viewer only offers a limited functionality, but also because in that way we can learn the much more flexible command approach.

6.2.1 Is this a reasonable dataset?

The first step, before we begin any serious analysis, is to take a look to see what the dataset actually contains.

A good first step is to just look at what is there in data. The first few lines of a dataset can be printed as

Does the result look like data? Yes, it does. It is a data frame (see Section 3.6 ). More precisely, the command prints the only the first six lines of it, and it also does not show all the variables 12 We can see data, both numbers and text, in columns, and these things seem to make sense.

Next, we should know how many rows (how many observations) are there in the dataset. This is a critical information–if the number is too small, we probably cannot do any analysis, if it is too large, our computer may give up.

The corresponding function in R is nrow (number of rows). We show it in the tidyverse way

The tidyverse-way of doing things will be more intuitive and easier to read when working with more complex analysis. Hence we mostly use the tidyverse style below. It can be understood as “take the titanic data, compute the number of rows”.

But whatever way we chose to issue the command, we find that the dataset contains data about 1309 passengers. This is good news–we expect the number of passengers on a big ocean liner to be in thousands. Had it been just a handful, or in millions, then something must have been wrong.

Another important question is the number of variables (columns) we have in data. This can be achieved with a very similar function ncol() (number of columns):

So we have 14 columns (variables). Typical datasets contain between a handful till a few hundred variables, and usually we have at least some guidance of the dataset size. Here, if the number had been in thousands, it might have been suspicious. What kind of information could have been recorded about passengers so that it fills thousands of columns? After all, in 1912 all this must have been handwritten… But 14 columns is definitely feasible.

We may also want to know the names of the variables. This can be done with the function names() :

One can see that the variables include a few fairly obvious ones, such as “pclass”, “survived” and “age”. But there are also names that are not clear, such as “sibsp” and “parch”.

So far, everything looks good. But there is one more thing we should check. Namely, sometimes the dataset is only correctly filled near the beginning, while further down everything is either empty or otherwise wrong. So we may also want to check how the last few lines look like. This can be done with tail() , for instance, we can print the last two lines as

The two last lines also look convincing. These lines are printed in a similar manner as the first lines, leaving out some variables, and cutting short names. But what if the beginning and end of the dataset are good, and all the problems are somewhere in the middle? We may take a random sample of observations in the hope that this will spot the problems. The function sample_n() achieves this, for a random sample of 4 lines we can do

Here all looks good as well.

Note that the printout also includes variable types, these are the <dbl> and <chr> markers underneath the column names. The most important types are

• <dbl> : number (double precision number)
• <int> : number (integer)
• <chr> : text (character) or categorical value
• <date> : for dates

Exercise 6.1 Load the titanic dataset using a wrong separator, <tab> instead of comma as follows:

Display the first few lines and find the number of rows, columns and variable names.

See the solution

6.2.2 Are the relevant variables good?

Obviously, we do not need to check all variables in this way. If our analysis only focuses on age and survival, we can ignore all the other ones. It is also clear the we will not discover all the problems in this way, e.g. we will not spot negative age if it is rare enough.

A good starting point is often to just narrow the dataset down to just the variables we care about. But before we even get there we need to have an understanding about what it is we care about. So we should start with either a problem or a question that we try to address. For instance, when using the Titanic dataset we did above, we might consider the following questions:

Was survival related to passengers’ age, gender, class and home location?

Now we only need variables that are actually related to these characteristics.

In practice, though, it is also common to work in the other way–first you look what is in data, and based on what you find there you come up with interesting question. This seems somewhat a reverse process, but it is not quite true. In order to derive a question from data you need to know enough about potentially interesting questions. It is more like you have your personal “question bank”, and when you see a promising dataset, then you check if any of those questions can be addressed but the data.

Before we select relevant variables we need to get an idea what variables are there. First you should consult documentation (if such exists), but in any case there is no way around from just checking all the variables in data. This is because whatever is stated in the documentation may not quite correspond to the reality. We checked the variable names above, but let’s do it here again:

The variables that are relevant to answer the question above are survived , age , sex , pclass and home.dest . We can discuss others (e.g.  embarked ), or if passengers’ name tells us something relevant. But let’s focus on these five variables first.

Let us first scale the dataset down to just these five variables. This can be done with select function:

The anatomy of the command is:

• take titanic data ( titanic )
• select the listed variables ( select(survived, age, sex, pclass, home.dest) )
• and store these as a new dataset called survival ( survival <- ).

So now we have a new dataset called survival . A sample of it looks like

One can see that this dataset only contains these selected variables.

Note that here we created a new dataset survival . We could also have overwritten the original titanic data using command as

But this is often not a good idea–in case we want to go back to the original dataset and maybe include additional variables, we cannot do it easily. We have to go all the way up and re-load data. So we prefer to create a new dataset while also preserving the original one.

If we want to check a single variable only, then we can extract just that one with pull :

What we did here was to first sample 10 random lines from the dataset (otherwise it would print 1309 numbers). Thereafter we extract the variable “fare” from the sample. R automatically prints the numbers. Note that unlike select that returns a data frame, pull returns just the numbers (a vector of numbers), not a data frame. You can see this from how it prints it. For many functions, such as mean , min , or range , the plain numbers is what we need, data frame will not work.

But just looking for numbers is only a good strategy if the dataset is small. It is hard to find e.g. maximum or minimum values in even the Titanic datast (1309 observations), not to speak of datasets with millions of rows. Instead, we may use the built-in functions to do some basic analysis. For instance, let’s find the largest number of passenger class, “pclass”:

Here we extracted the variable “pclass” (just as a numeric vector, not data frame), and used the function “max” that returns the maximum value. So the larges class (lowest class) is 3rd class.

Exercise 6.2 Find the uppermost class (smallest class number). Use function min .

Exercise 6.3 What is the average survival rate? Use variable “survived” and function mean .

Exercise 6.4 Find the age of the oldest passenger (variable “age”). What do you find?

6.3 Missing values

A pervasive problem with almost all datasets are missing values. It means some information is missing, it is just not there. There is a variety of reasons why some information may be missing–either it was not collected (maybe it was just not available), maybe it is not applicable, maybe it was forgotten at data entry… But in all those cases we end up with a dataset that does not contain all the information we may think it contains.

Missing values may complicate the analysis in a number of ways. First, although data documentation may state that data contains certain information (variables), a closer look may reveal that most of the values are actually missing. This usually means we cannot easily use those variables for any meaningful analysis.

Second, there may be a hidden pattern (selectivity) in missingness. For instance, when we conduct an income survey, who are the people who are most likely not to reveal their income? Although anyone may refuse to reveal this bit of personal data, it is more often the case for those who experience irregular income (e.g. entrepreneurs and farmers). In certain months or years they may earn a lot, other time very little. The may simply be unable to answer the question about their yearly income. And when we want to compute some figures, for instance the average income, then we just do not know if the number we found is close to the actual one. We may miss a particularly low, or maybe a particularly high income earners.

Missing values may be coded in different ways. R has a special value, NA to denote missing (Not Available) 13 R also has a number of methods to find and handle NA -s. But not all missing values are coded as NA . For instance, it is common to just denote missing categorical data by empty strings. In sociology, it is common to code missing values as “9” or “99” or something similar, given such values are clearly out of range. Alternatively, missings can be coded as negative values. In those cases one has to consult the codebook, and remove the missing values using appropriate filters–missing values coded as ordinary numbers would otherwise clearly invalidate the analysis.

Because missing values make most result invalid, one has to be careful when doing calculations with data that contains missings. R enforces this with many functions return NA if the input contains a missing. Consider a tiny data frame

This data frame contains two variables: age and income . All values for age are valid, but income has a missing value. We can easily compute mean age:

However, if we attempt to do the same with income, we’ll get

R tells us that it cannot compute average income as not all the values are known. If, instead, we want to compute average of known incomes, we have to tell it explicitly as

na.rm=TRUE mean to remove NA-s before computing the mean. This is a “safety device” to ensure that the user is aware of missing values in data. Admittedly though, it is somewhat inconvenient way to work with data.

Obviously, this only works if missings are coded as “NA”. If they are coded as something else (e.g. missing income may be coded as “-1” or “999999”), then the safety guardrail does not work. It is extremely important to identify missing values, and adjust the analysis accordingly.

6.4 How good are the variables?

Before we even want to handle missing values somehow, we should have an idea how many missing values, or otherwise incorrect values do we have in data. If only a handful of values out of 1000 are missing, then this is probably not a big deal (but depends on what are we doing). If only handful of values out of 1000 are there and all other are missing–then the data is probably useless.

You get an idea of missingness when you just explore the dataset in the data viewer. But it is not always that easy–if the dataset contains thousands of lines, and missing values are clustered somewhere in the middle of it, then you may easily miss those. It is good to let R to tell the exact answer.

One handy way to do this is by using summary function. For instance, let’s check how good is the age variable in data:

The summary tells us various useful numbers, in particular the last one: the variable age contains 263 missing values. So we do not know age of 263 passengers, out of 1309 in total (about 20%). Is this a problem? Perhaps it is not a big problem here (but depends on what exactly we do). Some other variables, however, do not contain any missings. For instance,

The provided summary does not mention any missings–hence data here does not contain any unknown survival status.

If we do not want to get the full summary, we can do this by

The anatomy of the command is the following: we pull the variable age out of the data frame. is.na() tells for every value there if it is missing or not, and sum() adds up all the missing cases.

Exercise 6.5 Repeat the example here with survived . Do you get “0”?

But missingness in a sense of the variable being NA is not the only problem we encounter. Sometimes missing values are encoded in a different way, and sometimes they just contain implausible values, such as negative price or age of 200 years (see Section @ref(#r-preliminary-missings)). For numeric variables, we can always compute the minimum and maximum values and see if those are in a plausible range. For instance, the minimum and maximum values of age are:

Exercise 6.6 What does the na.rm=TRUE do in the commands above? See Section 6.3 above.

The minimum 0.167 years (2 months) and maximum 80 years, are definitely plausible for passengers. So apparently all the non-missing age values are good because these must be inbetween of the extrema we just calculated. If computing both minimum and maximum, then we can also use a handy function range() instead the displays both of these. Let’s compute the range of fare:

It displays two numbers, “0.0000” and “512.3292”. While the maximum, 512 pounds, is plausible, the minimum, 0, seems suspicious. Were there really passengers on board who did not pay any money for their trip? Unfortunately we cannot tell. Perhaps “0” means that they traveled for free as some sort of promotion trip? Or perhaps their ticket price data was not available for the data collectors? Or maybe they just forgot to enter it? It remains everyones guess.

But what if the variable is not numeric? For instance, sex or boat are not numeric, and we cannot compute the corresponding minimum and maximum value. What we can do instead is to make a table of all values there, and see if all possible values look reasonable. This can be done with the function table() . For sex we have

There are only two values, “male” and “female”, both of which look perfectly reasonable.

Exercise 6.7 Why may it not be advisable to use table for numeric variables? Try it with fare . What do you see?

Besides the basic analysis we did here, we should also look at the distribution of the values (see Section 10.2.1 ) before we actually use these for an actual analysis.

6.5 What is not in data

Data analysis is often conveniently focusing on what is in data, and forgetting about what is not in data. Indeed, it is hard to analyze something that is not there. But this is often a crucial part of information.

Damage on allied bombers (damage of all planes marked here by red dots on a single plane). There is a lot of damage in the fuselage and wings, but not much in the engines and cockpit.

What is missing in these data? A good way to start looking for what is missing is to ask how was data collected (how it was sampled). So how did we learn about damage to our bombers? Well, obviously be looking at the damage on the planes that returned from the mission . We collected the data by analyzing planes that returned, but we ignored the planes that did not return . (Obviously, there are good reasons for that.) But as a result, our data is not a representative sample of what we want to analyze. It may still be a sample of what may happens to the future planes that return from the mission. And if our task is to make the planes that return to look nice, then we should armor their fuselage and wings.

But if our task is to make more planes to return, then the conclusion is the opposite–planes that get damage in the engines or cockpit are not returning. So we should place armor there. Understanding of sampling completely reverses the conclusion.

6.6 Sampling, documentation

The previous example–what is not in data–is a more general case of sampling (See Section 3.4 ). It is easy to answer questions about a particular dataset. In the bomber example above, the answer involves the planes that returned. But most of the more relevant questions are not about any particular dataset but about a more general problem, such as about all planes or about other similar people . For instance, if you learn that an average data scientist in a particular dataset earns, say, $100,000 then it is somewhat interesting number in itself. But what does this number tell about all data scientists ? What does it tell about you if you will choose to become one? 14

In order to use data, a sample, for analyzing the more general problems (the population), we need to know how is the sample related to the population. We need to know how it is sampled . Note that we never can collect data about everything–even if we sample 100% of what we have (e.g. damage in all planes, including those that do not return), what we want is to improve the survivability of future missions. And we cannot collect data about the future. Instead, we have to assume that data we collected about the past tells us something about the future.

The sampling scheme that is easiest to work with is random sampling , i.e. where each case is equally likely to land in the sample, in our dataset. Well established statistical procedures exist to find the relationship between what we see in the sample, and how to total population will look like in that case. It is also fairly straightforward to work with cases where the sampling is not random, but the deviations are well documented and easy to understand. Such cases include, for instance, surveys where certain populations are oversampled. For instance, we survey 0.1% of total population, but because we are in particular interested in immigrants, we will sample 1% of immigrants. Now we have many more immigrants in the sample than we would otherwise have and hence we can get much better information about that group. But now we are working with a biased sample . Fortunately, it is very easy to correct for the bias (given we know who is immigrant).

But in many cases the sampling scheme is much less clear-cut. Consider, for instance, a poll of voters. Typically the pollsters call about 1000 voters and ask about their political preferences and voting intentions. This sample of 1000 is then used to tell something about all voter, i.e. we want to answer the question _who will win the elections?

What is the sampling scheme here? This is a subset of potential voters who the pollster can reach (they have the phone numbers), and who are willing to answer the question. How is this group related to all voters? We do not know well. We can guess that there are voters who do not have phones, or who have phones that pollster does not know. Or who refuse to answer. Or maybe they answer but do not reveal their actual intentions. Besides of that, people can change their minds, e.g. they only go to vote if it is not raining. All this is rather hard to take into account even if we mostly understand what are the problems. And hence we can see that different polls do not agree, and many pollsters may get their predictions utterly wrong.

But things get only more complicated when we start looking at “big data”. Some of big datasets are sampled using a well understood and simple scheme, e.g. science datasets like a census of all stars brighter than a certain magnitude. Data about humans, unfortunately, tends to be much much more messy. For instance, when predicting popular opinion based on twitter tweets we do not know well who are twitter users, how are those who tweet actually selected (most twitter users hardly ever tweet), and whether they actually express their true opinion. We just do not know. Hence conclusions based on twitter data always have the caveat that they are about “twitter users”, not about the general population.

In the best case the sampling is at least documented. For instance, when collecting twitter data, the documentation may explain how are the users and tweets sampled, even if we do not know how are they related to the general population. But there are plenty of datasets that lack any documentation whatsoever. You may get reasonable results, or maybe weird results, but as long as you do not know anything about the sampling, you should not use the results based on such datasets to make claims about the actual world.

This is what the “6 more variables: fare , cabin , embarked , boat , body , home.dest ” below tells you ↩

This is somewhat similar, but not the same as NaN (Not a Number). NaN denotes not missingness, but a result of illegal mathematical operation, such as 0/0 . ↩

This is essentially the same as difference between descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. See Section 7.1 . ↩

How to Write a Film Analysis Essay: Examples, Outline, & Tips

A film analysis essay might be the most exciting assignment you have ever had! After all, who doesn’t love watching movies? You have your favorite movies, maybe something you watched years ago, perhaps a classic, or a documentary. Or your professor might assign a film for you to make a critical review. Regardless, you are totally up for watching a movie for a film analysis essay.

However, once you have watched the movie, facing the act of writing might knock the wind out of your sails because you might be wondering how to write a film analysis essay. In summary, writing movie analysis is not as difficult as it might seem, and Custom-writing.org experts will prove this. This guide will help you choose a topic for your movie analysis, make an outline, and write the text.️ Film analysis examples are added as a bonus! Just keep reading our advice on how to get started.

❓ What Is a Film Analysis Essay?

• 🚦 Film Analysis Types

📽️ Movie Analysis Format

✍️ how to write a film analysis, 🎦 film analysis template, 🎬 film analysis essay topics.

• 📄 Essay Examples

🔗 References

To put it simply, film analysis implies watching a movie and then considering its characteristics : genre, structure, contextual context, etc. Film analysis is usually considered to be a form of rhetorical analysis . The key to success here is to formulate a clear and logical argument, supporting it with examples.

🚦 Film Analysis Essay Types

Since a film analysis essay resembles literature analysis, it makes sense that there are several ways to do it. Its types are not limited to the ones described here. Moreover, you are free to combine the approaches in your essay as well. Since your writing reflects your own opinion, there is no universal way to do it.

• Semiotic analysis . If you’re using this approach, you are expected to interpret the film’s symbolism. You should look for any signs that may have a hidden meaning. Often, they reveal some character’s features. To make the task more manageable, you can try to find the objects or concepts that appear on the screen multiple times. What is the context they appear in? It might lead you to the hidden meaning of the symbols.
• Narrative structure analysis . This type is quite similar to a typical literature guide. It includes looking into the film’s themes, plot, and motives. The analysis aims to identify three main elements: setup, confrontation, and resolution. You should find out whether the film follows this structure and what effect it creates. It will make the narrative structure analysis essay if you write about the theme and characters’ motivations as well.
• Contextual analysis . Here, you would need to expand your perspective. Instead of focusing on inner elements, the contextual analysis looks at the time and place of the film’s creation. Therefore, you should work on studying the cultural context a lot. It can also be a good idea to mention the main socio-political issues of the time. You can even relate the film’s success to the director or producer and their career.
• Mise-en-scene analysis . This type of analysis works with the most distinctive feature of the movies, audiovisual elements. However, don’t forget that your task is not only to identify them but also to explain their importance. There are so many interconnected pieces of this puzzle: the light to create the mood, the props to show off characters’ personalities, messages hidden in the song lyrics.

To write an effective film analysis essay, it is important to follow specific format requirements that include the following:

• Standard essay structure. Just as with any essay, your analysis should consist of an introduction with a strong thesis statement, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. The main body usually includes a summary and an analysis of the movie’s elements.
• Present tense for events in the film. Use the present tense when describing everything that happens in the movie. This way, you can make smooth transitions between describing action and dialogue. It will also improve the overall narrative flow.
• Proper formatting of the film’s title. Don’t enclose the movie’s title in quotation marks; instead, italicize it. In addition, use the title case : that is, capitalize all major words.
• Proper use of the characters’ names. When you mention a film character for the first time, name the actor portraying them. After that, it is enough to write only the character’s name.
• In-text citations. Use in-text citations when describing certain scenes or shots from the movie. Format them according to your chosen citation style. If you use direct quotes, include the time-stamp range instead of page numbers. Here’s how it looks in the MLA format: (Smith 0:11:24–0:12:35).

Even though film analysis is similar to the literary one, you might still feel confused with where to begin. No need to worry; there are only a few additional steps you need to consider during the writing process.

Need more information? It can be found in the video below.

Starting Your Film Analysis Essay

There are several things you need to do before you start writing your film analysis paper. First and foremost, you have to watch the movie. Even if you have seen it a hundred times, you need to watch it again to make a good film analysis essay.

Note that you might be given an essay topic or have to think of it by yourself. If you are free to choose a topic for your film analysis essay, reading some critical reviews before you watch the film might be a good idea. By doing this in advance, you will already know what to look for when watching the movie.

In the process of watching, keep the following tips in mind:

• Consider your impression of the movie
• Enumerate memorable details
• Try to interpret the movie message in your way
• Search for the proof of your ideas (quotes from the film)
• Make comments on the plot, settings, and characters
• Draw parallels between the movie you are reviewing and some other movies

Making a Film Analysis Essay Outline

Once you have watched and possibly re-watched your assigned or chosen movie from an analytical point of view, you will need to create a movie analysis essay outline . The task is pretty straightforward: the outline can look just as if you were working on a literary analysis or an article analysis.

• Introduction : This includes the basics of the movie, including the title, director, and the date of release. You should also present the central theme or ideas in the movie and your thesis statement .
• Summary : This is where you take the time to present an overview of the primary concepts in the movie, including the five Ws (who, what, when, where, and why)—don’t forget how!—as well as anything you wish to discuss that relates to the point of view, style, and structure.
• Analysis : This is the body of the essay and includes your critical analysis of the movie, why you did or did not like it, and any supporting material from the film to support your views. It would help if you also discussed whether the director and writer of the movie achieved the goal they set out to achieve.
• Conclusion: This is where you can state your thesis again and provide a summary of the primary concepts in a new and more convincing manner, making a case for your analysis. You can also include a call-to-action that will invite the reader to watch the movie or avoid it entirely.

You can find a great critical analysis template at Thompson Rivers University website. In case you need more guidance on how to write an analytical paper, check out our article .

Writing & Editing Your Film Analysis Essay

We have already mentioned that there are differences between literary analysis and film analysis. They become especially important when one starts writing their film analysis essay.

First of all, the evidence you include to support the arguments is not the same. Instead of quoting the text, you might need to describe the audiovisual elements.

However, the practice of describing the events is similar in both types. You should always introduce a particular sequence in the present tense. If you want to use a piece of a dialogue between more than two film characters, you can use block quotes. However, since there are different ways to do it, confirm with your supervisor.

For your convenience, you might as well use the format of the script, for which you don’t have to use quotation marks:

ELSA: But she won’t remember I have powers?

KING: It’s for the best.

Finally, to show off your proficiency in the subject, look at the big picture. Instead of just presenting the main elements in your analysis, point out their significance. Describe the effect they make on the overall impression form the film. Moreover, you can dig deeper and suggest the reasons why such elements were used in a particular scene to show your expertise.

Stuck writing a film analysis essay? Worry not! Use our template to structure your movie analysis properly.

Introduction

• The title of the film is… [title]
• The director is… [director’s name] He/she is known for… [movies, style, etc.]
• The movie was released on… [release date]
• The themes of the movie are… [state the film’s central ideas]
• The film was made because… [state the reasons]
• The movie is… because… [your thesis statement].
• The main characters are… [characters’ names]
• The events take place in… [location]
• The movie is set in… [time period]
• The movie is about… [state what happens in the film and why]
• The movie left a… [bad, unforgettable, lasting, etc.] impression in me.
• The script has… [a logical sequence of events, interesting scenes, strong dialogues, character development, etc.]
• The actors portray their characters… [convincingly, with intensity, with varying degree of success, in a manner that feels unnatural, etc.]
• The soundtrack is [distracting, fitting, memorable, etc.]
• Visual elements such as… [costumes, special effects, etc.] make the film [impressive, more authentic, atmospheric, etc.]
• The film succeeds/doesn’t succeed in engaging the target audience because it… [tells a compelling story, features strong performances, is relevant, lacks focus, is unauthentic, etc.]
• Cultural and societal aspects make the film… [thought-provoking, relevant, insightful, problematic, polarizing, etc.]
• The director and writer achieved their goal because… [state the reasons]
• Overall, the film is… [state your opinion]
• I would/wouldn’t recommend watching the movie because… [state the reasons]
• Analysis of the film Inception by Christopher Nolan .
• Examine the rhetoric in the film The Red Balloon .
• Analyze the visual effects of Zhang Yimou’s movie Hero .
• Basic concepts of the film Interstellar by Christopher Nolan.
• The characteristic features of Federico Fellini’s movies.
• Analysis of the movie The Joker .
• The depiction of ethical issues in Damaged Care .
• Analyze the plot of the film Moneyball .
• Explore the persuasive techniques used in Henry V .  
• Analyze the movie Killing Kennedy .
• Discuss the themes of the film Secret Window .
• Describe the role of audio and video effects in conveying the message of the documentary Life in Renaissance .
• Compare and analyze the films Midnight Cowboy and McCabe and Mrs. Miller .
• Analysis of the movie Rear Window .
• The message behind the film Split .
• Analyze the techniques used by Tim Burton in his movie Sleepy Hollow .
• The topic of children’s abuse and importance of trust in Joseph Sargent’s Sybil .
• Examine the themes and motives of the film Return to Paradise by Joseph Ruben .
• The issues of gender and traditions in the drama The Whale Rider.
• Analysis of the film Not Easily Broken by Duke Bill.
• The symbolism in R. Scott’s movie Thelma and Louise .
• The meaning of audiovisual effects in Citizen Kane .
• Analyze the main characters of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo .
• Discuss the historical accuracy of the documentary The Civil War .
• Analysis of the movie Through a Glass Darkly .
• Explore the core idea of the comedy Get Out .
• The problem of artificial intelligence and human nature in Ex Machina .
• Three principles of suspense used in the drama The Fugitive .
• Examine the ideas Michael Bay promotes in Armageddon .
• Analyze the visual techniques used in Tenet by Christopher Nolan.
• Analysis of the movie The Green Mile .
• Discrimination and exclusion in the film The Higher Learning .
• The hidden meaning of the scenes in Blade Runner .
• Compare the social messages of the films West Side Story and Romeo + Juliet .
• Highlighting the problem of children’s mental health in the documentary Kids in Crisis .  
• Discuss the ways Paul Haggis establishes the issue of racial biases in his movie Crash .
• Analyze the problem of moral choice in the film Gone Baby Gone .
• Analysis of the historical film Hacksaw Ridge .
• Explore the main themes of the film Mean Girls by Mark Walters .
• The importance of communication in the movie Juno .
• Describe the techniques the authors use to highlight the problems of society in Queen and Slim .
• Examine the significance of visual scenes in My Family/ Mi Familia .
• Analysis of the thriller Salt by Phillip Noyce.
• Analyze the message of Greg Berlanti’s film Love, Simon .
• Interpret the symbols of the film The Wizard of Oz (1939).
• Discuss the modern issues depicted in the film The Corporation .
• Moral lessons of Edward Zwick’s Blood Diamond .
• Analysis of the documentary Solitary Nation .
• Describe the audiovisual elements of the film Pride and Prejudice (2005) .
• The problem of toxic relationships in Malcolm and Marie .

📄 Film Analysis Examples

Below you’ll find two film analysis essay examples. Note that the full versions are downloadable for free!

Film Analysis Example #1: The Intouchables

Raising acute social problems in modern cinema is a common approach to draw the public’s attention to the specific issues and challenges of people facing crucial obstacles. As a film for review, The Intouchables by Oliver Nakache and Éric Toledano will be analyzed, and one of the themes raised in this movie is the daily struggle of the person with severe disabilities. This movie is a biographical drama with comedy elements. The Intouchables describes the routine life of a French millionaire who is confined to a wheelchair and forced to receive help from his servants. The acquaintance of the disabled person with a young and daring man from Parisian slums changes the lives of both radically. The film shows that for a person with disabilities, recognition as a full member of society is more important than sympathy and compassion, and this message expressed comically raises an essential problem of human loneliness.

Movie Analysis Example #2: Parasite

Parasite is a 2019 South Korean black comedy thriller movie directed by Bong Joon-ho and is the first film with a non-English script to win Best Picture at the Oscars in 2020. With its overwhelming plot and acting, this motion picture retains a long-lasting effect and some kind of shock. The class serves as a backbone and a primary objective of social commentary within the South Korean comedy/thriller (Kench, 2020). Every single element and detail in the movie, including the student’s stone, the contrasting architecture, family names, and characters’ behavior, contribute to the central topic of the universal problem of classism and wealth disparity. The 2020 Oscar-winning movie Parasite (2019) is a phenomenal cinematic portrayal and a critical message to modern society regarding the severe outcomes of the long-established inequalities within capitalism.

Want more examples? Check out this bonus list of 10 film analysis samples. They will help you gain even more inspiration.

• “Miss Representation” Documentary Film Analysis
• “The Patriot”: Historical Film Analysis
• “The Morning Guy” Film Analysis
• 2012′ by Roland Emmerich Film Analysis
• “The Crucible” (1996) Film Analysis
• The Aviator’ by Martin Scorsese Film Analysis
• The “Lions for Lambs” Film Analysis
• Bill Monroe – Father of Bluegrass Music Film Analysis 
• Lord of the Rings’ and ‘Harry Potter’ Film Analysis
• Red Tails by George Lucas Film Analysis

Film Analysis Essay FAQ

• Watch the movie or read a detailed plot summary.
• Read others’ film reviews paying attention to details like key characters, movie scenes, background facts.
• Compose a list of ideas about what you’ve learned.
• Organize the selected ideas to create a body of the essay.
• Write an appropriate introduction and conclusion.

The benefits of analyzing a movie are numerous . You get a deeper understanding of the plot and its subtle aspects. You can also get emotional and aesthetic satisfaction. Film analysis enables one to feel like a movie connoisseur.

Here is a possible step by step scenario:

• Think about the general idea that the author probably wanted to convey.
• Consider how the idea was put across: what characters, movie scenes, and details helped in it.
• Study the broader context: the author’s other works, genre essentials, etc.

The definition might be: the process of interpreting a movie’s aspects. The movie is reviewed in terms of details creating the artistic value. A film analysis essay is a paper presenting such a review in a logically structured way.

• Film Analysis – UNC Writing Center
• Film Writing: Sample Analysis // Purdue Writing Lab
• Yale Film Analysis – Yale University
• Film Terms And Topics For Film Analysis And Writing
• Questions for Film Analysis (Washington University)
• Resources on Film Analysis – Cinema Studies (University of Toronto)
• Does Film Analysis Take the Magic out of Movies?
• Film Analysis Research Papers – Academia.edu
• What’s In a Film Analysis Essay? Medium
• Analysis of Film – SAGE Research Methods
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How to Write a Preliminary Report: A Step-by-Step Guide

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If you are a project manager or a student, learning how to write a preliminary report is an essential skill. In this guide, we will walk you through every step of the process to help you craft a comprehensive and effective preliminary report.

Understanding the Purpose of a Preliminary Report

Before we dive into the specifics of how to write a preliminary report, it is essential first to understand why you need to write one. A preliminary report is usually a preliminary version of a more comprehensive report that will be written later. It is a concise summary of the findings that have been gathered during the preliminary research stage.

However, the importance of a preliminary report goes beyond just being a summary. It is a critical tool in project management that helps ensure the success of a project. By providing a broad overview of the situation, a preliminary report helps identify potential issues and risks that may impact the project's success.

Defining a Preliminary Report

A preliminary report is a document that presents the initial findings of a study or project. It often includes background information, research methods, findings, and recommendations. The report is intended to provide a broad overview of the situation, so the readers can draw their conclusions.

When writing a preliminary report, it is essential to keep in mind that it is not the final report. Instead, it is a tool to help guide the project in the right direction. The report should be concise, yet comprehensive enough to provide the necessary information to stakeholders.

Importance of a Preliminary Report in Project Management

Project managers use preliminary reports to ensure that all stakeholders are aware of the latest developments and any potential issues. The report provides a summary of the project's progress, identified risks, and other critical factors. Preliminary reports help managers anticipate future hurdles and plan accordingly. Thus, by sharing the preliminary review, they can make informed decisions that steer the project in the right direction.

Moreover, preliminary reports help project managers identify any gaps in the project plan. By analyzing the preliminary report, managers can identify areas that require further research or investigation. This information can then be used to refine the project plan and ensure that the final report is accurate and comprehensive.

In conclusion, a preliminary report is a critical tool in project management that helps ensure the success of a project. It provides a broad overview of the situation, identifies potential issues and risks, and helps project managers anticipate future hurdles. By using a preliminary report, project managers can make informed decisions that steer the project in the right direction. Therefore, it is essential to take the time to write a comprehensive preliminary report that provides all the necessary information to stakeholders.

Preparing to Write Your Preliminary Report

Before you start writing your preliminary report, there are a few things that you need to prepare. These include gathering the necessary information, identifying your audience, and establishing report objectives.

Gathering Relevant Information

Start by gathering all the relevant information and data that you need. The information should be relevant to the project at hand. It includes existing reports, research, and data related to the subject matter. Additionally, you may need to conduct interviews or surveys to gather additional information. Remember to keep track of your sources in case you need to reference them later.

Identifying Your Audience

Knowing your audience is essential when creating a report. Understanding who will be reading and using the report will help you tailor the content and structure to meet their needs. Consider your audience's level of expertise and the purpose of the report when considering the tone and level of technical jargon.

Establishing Report Objectives

Establishing clear objectives for your report will help guide your research and writing efforts. Think about what you want to achieve with the report and ensure your objectives align with the project's overall goals and objectives.

Structuring Your Preliminary Report

The structure of your preliminary report is just as important as the content. The structure enables readers to follow the information logically and understand how each section fits into the broader context.

Creating an Outline

Creating an outline will help you organize your information logically and create a roadmap to guide your writing. Ensure that your report follows a clear and logical structure, breaks down your information into sections with clear headings and subheadings. Along with outlining, you can use bullet points and numbered lists to make the information more scannable and digestible.

Organizing Your Information

Organizing your information effectively is crucial to ensure the report is easy to read and understand. The information should be arranged chronologically or thematically, depending on the type of report and its purpose.

Ensuring Logical Flow

When writing the report, ensure you maintain a logical flow. Each section should be structured logically, and information should be presented clearly and concisely. Avoid including irrelevant information, as this could confuse the reader and make your ideas seem disjointed.

Writing the Preliminary Report

With all the preparation out of the way, it's time to start writing the preliminary report. This section will cover the different sections you need to prepare when writing the report.

Crafting a Strong Introduction

Your introduction should succinctly summarize the report's purpose and provide an overview of the information presented in the report. It should also have a thesis statement that summarizes the key takeaways in the report.

Presenting Your Findings and Analysis

This section should provide a straightforward description of your findings. Furthermore, it should be arranged in such a manner that highlights the key issues and trends. Use tables and graphs if necessary, to show the data that supports your findings.

Addressing Potential Issues and Solutions

Identify potential issues that need addressing and discuss ways to overcome them. Furthermore, be sure to identify the consequences of not addressing the issues or taking corrective action.

Providing Recommendations and Next Steps

This section should provide recommendations on how to resolve any issues identified, the steps to be taken to implement the recommendations, and the projected results of the implementation.

ChatGPT Prompt for Writing a Preliminary Report

Use the following prompt in an AI chatbot . Below each prompt, be sure to provide additional details about your situation. These could be scratch notes, what you'd like to say or anything else that guides the AI model to write a certain way.

Please create a detailed and thorough initial document that outlines the key findings and observations of your research or investigation. This report should provide a comprehensive overview of the topic and highlight any significant insights or conclusions that have been drawn thus far.

[ADD ADDITIONAL CONTEXT. CAN USE BULLET POINTS.]

A well-written preliminary report is a valuable tool for project managers, students, and professionals. The report provides essential information about a project's progress and potential issues, enabling managers to make informed decisions. By following the steps outlined in this guide, you can craft a comprehensive and effective preliminary report that meets your project's objectives.

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Preliminary Session Analysis in Social Work Essay

Termination and follow-up, evaluation of the session.

The videotape shows the preliminary session with Joy, a young single mother of a six-year-old boy. She is also a full-time worker of the U.S. armed forces and a student. During the initial discussion, Joy mentioned feeling overwhelmed with the responsibilities and unable to cope with the number of tasks at hand. Joy is also feeling powerless to influence her son: for instance, despite her efforts to put him to bed by eight p.m., he constantly stays up late, causing her to postpone her schoolwork. Joy is also concerned about communicating her feelings and needs to others. She mentioned that due to being the oldest one of her mother’s six children she has always seemed to be a strong and independent woman, and thus she feels that asking others for help undermines that image. From the introductory session, it has been concluded that using a seven-step generalist intervention model would be the best strategy in Joy’s case.

The first step of the intervention, engagement, involves building a professional relationship between the social worker and the client (Kirst-Ashman & Hull, 2011, p. 159). This professional relationship is needed as it provides a clear purpose, ensures commitment both of the worker and the client to the change process, and determines the ethical standards applied to practice; moreover, professionalism emphasizes building a warm and empathetic relationship with the client (Kirst-Ashman & Hull, 2011, p. 159). All of these factors facilitate the client’s progress and aid in the counselor’s work.

Part of the engagement process, therefore, is to greet the client in a welcoming manner and to introduce the client to the agency’s confidentiality policy by stating that the information shared with the counselor will remain confidential unless there is a threat to life or wellbeing of the client, his or her family, or other people. After the introduction, it is necessary to determine whether the agency can be of any help to the client by gathering information about the client and his or her issues. This can be done both by asking the client directly (e.g. “How can I help you?”) and by looking at the overall patterns in the client’s story. For example, Joy’s situation cannot be solved solely by counseling because one of the issues that put great pressure on her is the behavior of her son: she claims that he has been “acting up” ever since the family split. Besides counseling, Joy could benefit from going to parenting therapy groups, which was suggested at the end of the meeting.

The assessment stage is crucial in preparation for the planning process, as it helps to evaluate the primary issues and their impact on the person’s current situation. However, there are many challenges and features to the assessment process that has to be taken into account. For instance, Kirst-Ashman and Hull (2011) note that a lack of valuable information on the issues or the client’s background can lead to a false judgment, which will harm the assessment process (p. 164). Furthermore, it is important to understand that assessment is a continual process (Kirst-Ashman & Hull, 2011, p. 159). This means that the social worker will have to evaluate factors like the client’s mood, progress, struggles, and attitude to therapy during every session and to alter the approach accordingly.

However, one of the goals of the preliminary discussion is to identify a primary issue that brought the client to the social worker. To find out about the issue, the social worker should ask questions like “Can you explain some of the pressure you are feeling?” or “How does [the situation] make you feel?”. It is necessary to listen to the client’s responses carefully, as they might indicate a larger underlying issue that is the key to a successful change process. For instance, despite all the smaller issues Joy has talked about, there was evidence that the main problem is not her inability to cope with the pressure, as she stated at the beginning, but rather her difficulty in asking for help due to the image of a strong woman imposed on her by her mother. Helping Joy to erase this stereotype would improve the situation dramatically in all the areas of concern.

Nevertheless, before the larger issue is addressed, it is crucial to follow through with the planning process. The process aims to prioritize issues, establish the primary goals of the therapy, and to develop a plan for achieving these goals. To ensure the cooperation of the patient and to avoid tackling undesirable topics at the beginning of the treatment, it is necessary to consult the client as to which topics are the most important for him or her at the moment. For instance, when asked to outline the main concern, Joy chose to focus on her education.

She stated that to balance her schoolwork and her full-time job it is necessary for her to put her son to bed early, which does not happen because he does not see her often and therefore wants to stay up late to spend more time with his mother. The main goal of the therapy would thus be to achieve a balance between parenting, education, and work. Smaller objectives would include employing new parenting techniques to minimize the child’s anxiety and to achieve effective communication, as well as to improve time-management skills and to learn to ask for the help of other people to delegate some of the tasks to alleviate some of the pressure.

The next stage is not fully applicable to the present videotape, as it involves the evaluation of the effectiveness of the social work practice at the end of working with a client (Kirst-Ashman & Hull, 2011, p. 288). Various evaluation techniques could be used depending on the client’s issues and the focus of work. In the case with Joy, goal-attainment scaling would be used to evaluate the effect of the work. Goal-attainment scaling is applicable here as it focuses on the achievement of one clear goal (e.g. finding balance in life), which is crucial to the solution of the person’s problems.

The last two stages of the generalist intervention model need to be built around the client’s progress as opposed to the theoretical models of social work. The worker should also agree with the client on the terms of termination. For example, during the preliminary session, Joy was offered a sequence of six sessions under the condition that the necessity of further sessions will be determined by her progress. Follow-up meetings were not discussed, but it would be desirable to check Joy’s progress one month after the termination of work.

Both open and close-ended questions were asked during the session. The open-ended questions were primarily used to find out more about Joy’s issues and feelings (e.g. “How are you and your son’s father? Does he come to visit?” and “How does that make you feel?”), whereas the closed questions, were used for clarification purposes (e.g. “So you are the oldest one of six children?” and “[Staying up late] makes you late for work in the morning?”). This strategy is effective as it avoids suggesting answers to the fundamental questions about feelings and emotions that could impact the person’s responses and thus the assessment. One of the weaknesses of the questioning strategy employed was the overuse of clarifying questions, which promoted re-statement. For instance, the question “So you are the oldest one of six children?” could have been changed to “How did it make you feel to be the oldest of six children?”. This change would allow exploring the client’s background in more detail.

Areas for Improvement

Given the short length of the preliminary meeting, few areas for improvement could be identified. For instance, it would be useful to find out more about Joy’s experience as the oldest child, as this might be the factor that had a profound effect on the issues she experiences now: being used to helping rather than to asking for help, she takes on too much responsibility and avoids delegating some of the tasks so as not to appear weak. Decreasing the amount of close-ended questions would also help to save extra time, which could be spent on exploring Joy’s story further. Moreover, there could have been more engagement of the client in the planning process. Allowing Joy to evaluate her contribution to completing the objectives could have a positive impact on the further change process.

Summarization

There was no clear summary at the end of the session that would draw together all the points of Joy’s story and direct her attention towards the various issues outlined by it. A summary of the session would be beneficial as it would help to prepare Joy for participation in the change process.

Overall, the introductory session provided a stable basis for further work with Joy. The application of the generalist intervention model allows splitting the change process into distinct stages, ensuring both the client’s involvement in the change process and the social worker’s ease in developing and following a plan of action. There were some minor drawbacks to the strategies used, but it is highly unlikely that they will have a significant effect on further progress. Joy’s case is not an easy one – indeed, the most challenging cases in social worker’s practice are the ones where clients experience a range of problems in various aspects of life (Boyle, Smith, Farley, Hull, & Mather, 2009, p. 6). However, with a thorough plan of change that touches all the problems, both overt and underlying, there is a great potential for progress that would enable Joy to achieve the level of balance in life that she aims to have.

Boyle, S. W., Smith, L. L., Farley, O. W., Hull, G. H., & Mather, J. H. (2009). Direct practice in social work . Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Kirst-Ashman, K. K., & Hull, G. H. (2011). Understanding generalist practice (6 th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.

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Check TS EAPCET 2024 Difficulty Level and Analysis: Also, Download Question Papers and Preliminary Key

2,05,351 people appeared for TS EAPCET 2024 engineering stream and 1,15,332 people appeared for agriculture and pharmacy stream. The counseling schedule is likely to be released on the TS EAPCET result day.

TS EAPCET 2024 Question Papers and Preliminary Key

Telangana eamcet 2024 agriculture and medical question paper with preliminary key (7 may 2024 afternoon(english & telugu)), telangana eamcet 2024 agriculture and medical question paper with preliminary key (7 may 2024 forenoon(english & telugu)), telangana eamcet 2024 agriculture and medical question paper with preliminary key (8 may 2024 afternoon(english & urdu)).

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TS EAPCET 2024 Question Papers Analysis

The TS EAMCET 2024 engineering entrance exam was held from May 9th to 11th. Here's a breakdown of the overall analysis and difficulty level across various days and shifts.

Exam Dates and Difficulty:

Shift 1 - Moderate to Difficult 

• Chemistry: Moderate
• Physics: Moderate-Difficult
• Math: Moderate: Coordinate geometry and matrices featured prominently.

Shift 2 - More Difficult than Shift 1 

• Chemistry: Moderate-Easy. 
• Physics: Moderate-Difficult: Formula-based questions were asked and most of the questions were asked from topics - force, transmitters, convex mirrors. Several assertion type questions were given in the exam as well.
• Math: Easy-Difficult: Most Questions were asked from matrices, vectors, Permutations and combinations.

May 10th: Shift 1 - Moderately Challenging 

• Chemistry: Moderate: More questions were asked from the inorganic chemistry part.
• Physics: Difficult, 
• Math: Very lengthy, formula-based

Shift 2 - Moderate 

• Chemistry: Organic/Inorganic - Easier, Physical - Harder
• Physics: Similar to May 9th 
• Math: Most of the questions were based on vectors, algebra, trigonometry and matrices. The overall section was lengthy as usual.

May 11th: Shift 1 - Moderate to Difficult

• Chemistry: Easy
• Physics: Moderate-Difficult. Application and formulae-based questions.
• Math: Lengthy.

Shift 2 - Moderately Challenging 

• Chemistry: Questions from Organic, Inorganic, Physical Chemistry
• Math: Most Difficult and Lengthy. Most of the questions were from algebra, trigonometry and vectors.
• Physics: Moderate
• TS EAPCET 2024
• TS Eamcet 2024
• TS EAPCET 2024 Question Papers with Key
• TS EAPCET 2024 Engineering Question Paper with Key
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