What you need to know

An analytical essay answers a question about how a text creates meaning. It is not a summary of what happens and it is not a list of techniques. It is an argument: you take a position on the question, and every paragraph gives the reader a reason, supported by evidence from the text, to accept that position. In senior English (HSC/VCE-style essays), markers reward a clear line of argument, precisely chosen evidence and analysis that explains how language and form produce ideas. Everything below is built around one original example text, a short story called 'Salt Lines', in which a daughter returns to the river town she left, and one question: How does the composer represent the relationship between people and place?

Building the thesis, then the paragraphs

• Quote the fewest words that carry the technique. Three to eight words is usually enough; the reader needs to see the language choice, not the whole sentence.
• Spread your evidence across the text. Evidence from the opening, middle and ending shows that your argument covers the whole text, and lets you track change.
• Prefer evidence where you can name a specific choice (an image, a shift in tense, a sentence fragment, a motif) over a line that simply states the idea.
• Introduce every quotation in your own words. A quotation should never stand as a sentence on its own.
• Memorise quotations in bundles: the quotation, its technique and the idea it supports, never as a bare list.

The conclusion is not a copy of the introduction. Restate the thesis in new words, in the light of what you have shown, then widen the lens: what does this text's treatment of the idea say about people, or about the form itself? Two to four confident sentences are enough. Never introduce a new quotation or a new paragraph-sized point in a conclusion; if an idea matters, it belongs in the body.

Check yourself

1. What is the difference between a topic and a thesis?
2. Rewrite this as a thesis: 'The poem uses imagery to show nature.'
3. True or false: a topic sentence should begin by stating the technique the paragraph will discuss. Explain.
4. Name the four moves in an analysis sentence.
5. What is wrong with this evidence sentence? 'The composer writes: "The river had learned our names and it kept them the way a dog keeps a bone it has long since finished with, out of habit rather than hunger."'
6. List two things a conclusion must do and one thing it must not do.

Answers: 1. A topic is what the essay is about; a thesis is the arguable position the essay takes on that topic in answer to the question. 2. e.g. 'Through its violent natural imagery, the poem presents nature as indifferent to human loss, challenging the comfort we usually expect from the natural world.' 3. False. A topic sentence states the idea the paragraph will prove; the technique may appear, but the idea must lead. 4. Technique and context; short embedded evidence; effect of the language choice; link to the idea or question. 5. The quotation is far too long and is dropped in without analysis. Quote 'had learned our names' or 'out of habit rather than hunger' and explain the effect of those words. 6. Must: restate the thesis in new words in the light of the evidence, and widen to the text's larger significance. Must not: introduce new evidence or new points.