How To Write A Critical Essay - Tips and Guidelines

A critical essay is all about critically analyzing the statements provided to you by any other author or writer. The idea is to challenge the other person's ideas and thoughts and then evaluate them as well. You need to reach a conclusion about the statements you are making. You cannot just make a claim or just agree or disagree with something. There has to be solid proof. The main thing about the critical essay is that you take advantage of all the evaluation skills you have been using up till now. It is about applying these critical skills to produce an essay which will convince the reader about your ideas. Mention why you think the opposing views are right or wrong, as well as why and which thought is the better choice. Your writing should be clear and should present the points in a precise manner. Your evidence, argument, and conclusion should not be too out of the way either and be related to the theme and the subject of the essay.

The first thing about a critical piece is that you need to build a case. That is the major difference between a typical essay and a critical essay. In a standard essay you just write down the things as they are or describe them without adding any challenge or without talking about the problems that are there in the original piece of writing. You are developing an argument in a critical essay because you are evaluating its content. You might agree to some of the things the author wrote, and you might disagree with some of them. This difference in opinion is what makes a critical essay one of the different ones in literature. If you can easily build an argument, you are in good hands because this essay will not be difficult for you to write. However, if you are better in describing things and find it difficult to challenge other people's written words, then you need to work a bit hard to get your techniques right.

You cannot go around making claims without providing the proper evidence for them. So when you are evaluating the work you have to assess critically, make sure you note down the things you are going to quote later on. Finding evidence is another problem for many students. They are good in critically evaluating the work but somehow cannot quote the things they have used to reach the deductions. The only solution for this is that you should keep a separate page for this and note the things down so that you may remember to add them when you are writing your final essay. That also makes the management of work easier, saving you a lot of time. Because of that, you will not have to go back and forth again and again.

Know the topic, the theme and the subject of your essay. You have even found the right evidence you are going to add in your essay to make it better and more authentic. On to the next step. Now what you have to focus on is to sit and just think about how you will make your essay flow into a proper form and add the necessary details. You can not write a high-quality piece if you are not going to think it out. There is an abundance of content that you can add to your essay; you just have to evaluate it all and add only the best. This evaluation can be done in your mind as well.

The good thing about critical essays is that you do not have to limit yourself to just one or two paragraphs. Want to add a couple of extras? Go ahead. If your goal is to make your writing better and more authentic with additional content, then that is not a bad idea. Paragraphing in the right way makes all the difference between high-quality essay and a low-quality one. After writing the introduction, you move on to the body of the essay. The body of the article is where all the main parts of your essay will come. You have to include the argument here and evaluate it here too. Use the paragraphs to add flow between the different points. Each point can be added to a new section. After you are done with the main body, you move on to the ending of the essay. That has to come in one paragraph.