Help Your Reader Out

The worst thing in the world for a reader is reaching the end of a piece of work and not knowing what the author was trying to say. Either the author didn’t have a central point they (using they as singular because the gender of the author or reader is not specified) worked around or the thesis got lost in plot summary and general statements. 

This starts by avoiding plot summary. You should assume your reader knows the piece in question and only include context briefly before introducing a quotation.  A topic sentence should be able to be supported, and therefore should not be plot summary. A reader does not know what the following paragraph is going to be about and what the writer is trying to prove.

 The same idea applies to supporting textual evidence. A statement about the plot doesn’t tell your reader why the quotation is important to your thesis. The reader should be swayed by your argument and plot doesn't get the job done. You could possibly lose the direction of your thesis by including too much detail about the plot, which is counter-productive because you want your thesis to stand out. 

Textual evidence is important to any piece of analytical writing in order to back up the thesis, but the analysis of the evidence needs to be clear and persuasive to make the evidence useful. While the who, what, where, and when aspect of the evidence helps the reader with context, the why and so what facet is what the reader cares about the most. The former should introduce the evidence and the latter come after. The analysis needs to explain why you chose to include it; a single general statement is not persuasive enough to make a point.

Arguably the most important idea to keep in mind is remembering to use precise language. This allows the reader to clearly understand what you are trying to argue. An analytical essay is not the time to try Fitzgerald-like descriptions; get to your point and end the sentence. Preciseness will make the assertion stand out to the reader. Don’t try to do too much at one time, or else your reader will end up looking like Squidward. Hemingway will help you find phrases that are too wordy or should be taken out. 

The thesis is the most important part of the essay and a writer should back it up to the best of their ability. A powerful piece of writing will have the thesis stand out in the writing and the supporting assertions will always relate back to it. A reader wants to know what the author is trying to say; don’t make them work for it.