SHORT ANALYTICAL ESSAYS
Strategies For Success
Formatting Your Paper
• Format papers according to MLA guidelines.
• Your first sentence should be your thesis. No
introduction is necessary.
• Likewise, an extended conclusion is
unnecessary.
• Pay attention to word counts. It’s okay to go a
little over, but you should never be under.
• Include a title. This is your first opportunity to
show how smart you are.
Written Expression (Voice)
• Write in present tense.
• Avoid personal pronouns like “I” and “my.”
• Avoid opinion statements like “I think” or “I believe.”
▫ I think that Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz is a symbol of
goodness and purity.
• Instead, state your opinions as facts.
▫ Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz is a symbol of goodness and
purity.
• Then follow-up your statements with evidence from the
text to support your claim.
• Use professional, academic language. No contractions.
Thesis
• Your thesis should make a claim about the story that
your classmates might argue against.
• Begin by forming an opinion based on evidence from the
story.
▫ Dorothy is a symbol of goodness and purity.
 Some might argue that she is childish or selfish. Some might
argue that, while she is good, she certainly isn’t pure. Etc.
• Then create a blueprint. In which specific scenes does
Dorothy exhibit her goodness and/or purity? Can you
find a trend or any commonalities among these scenes?
▫ In her interactions with strangers—specifically the cowardly
lion, the tin man, and the scarecrow—Dorothy shows she is
a symbol of goodness and purity.
• This is a good start, but you’re not done yet.
Thesis Cont.
• So far you’ve only pointed something out.
• Now you must say why this is important or what
it teaches us about the story.
• This is the “so-what” of analysis, which is
essential to make an A.
• Ask yourself, “Okay, but why does this matter?”
Why does L. Frank Baum need a symbol of
purity and goodness in his book? What does is
the effect of this symbol on the book?
Thesis Cont.
• In her interactions with strangers—specifically the
cowardly lion, the tin man, and the scarecrow—
Dorothy shows she is a symbol of goodness and purity,
positioning herself in direct opposition to the Wicked
Witch and showing readers how truly evil the witch is
by comparison.
• Or . . .
• E. Frank Baum portrays Dorothy through her
interactions with strangers as a symbol of goodness
and purity in order to juxtapose the evil of the wicked
witch. Without Dorothy, the witch does not seem quite
so evil; likewise, without the witch, Dorothy is merely
good, but not necessarily pure.
One more time
• Filmmakers use black-and-white sequences in addition to color
sequences.
▫ Here you’ve really only noticed something about the text (or movie, in
this case). You need to make a claim with which one of your classmates
might disagree.
• The black and white sequences in The Wizard of Oz show the harsh
reality of Dorothy’s life in Kansas.
▫ Good. Here you’ve got a blueprint (Kansas black-and-white sequences)
and you’ve made a claim (harsh reality). Now you need a so-what.
• The black-and-white sequences, which show the harsh reality of
Dorothy’s life in Kansas, cause readers to empathize with Dorothy,
and, therefore, root for her when she begins her journey. Without
the black-and-white scenes, readers may not fully understand the
depth of Dorothy’s unhappiness.
• Here, you’ve explained WHY these scenes are important to the
movie as a whole and HOW they contribute to our understanding of
Dorothy as a character.
Avoid excessive summary
• Remember, I am your audience, and I have read the
story.
• Briefly locate your reader in the story.
▫ Near the beginning of the story . . .
▫ When the tornado strikes . . .
▫ When Dorothy meets the Tin Man . . .
• If you find yourself including more than one
sentence of summary to set up an example, you’re
doing too much. Remember, these papers are short.
Don’t waste your words on summary. Instead,
analyze. Focus on the how and why.
Citations
• Dorothy comes to realize that “there’s no place
like home” (Baum 192).
• Notice how my words flow directly into Baum’s
words.
• Notice that the period still goes at the end of the
sentence.
• Notice that the citation goes BEFORE the period
but AFTER the end quotation mark.
• If you mention the author’s name in the sentence
itself, you only need the page number.