Writing an Analytical Essay – 7 Strategies to Do In-depth Research

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Writing an Analytical Essay

Do you know the biggest secret to writing an analytical essay? Yes, the biggest secret to writing a good essay is the Boy Scouts’ motto, “be prepared.” Be prepared to face challenges, be prepared to conduct in-depth research, and be prepared to grab good grades. Conducting effective research is the most crucial stage in essay writing. The reason is that it is where you look for unassailable arguments and bulletproof pieces of evidence.

However, the problem is that many students just skimp on this crucial stage. What do they do? They just jump straight into the writing process, thinking that they know everything about the topic. In reality, without effective research, forget about writing an analytical essay. So, keeping this in mind, today’s article explains the top 7 strategies you can employ to do in-depth research for your essay. However, before that, let’s explain what an analytical essay is and why research is important for such an essay.

What Is An Analytical Essay, And Why Is In-Depth Research Important?

Essays are of different types and structures and follow different writing styles for completion. An analysis essay is a type of essay which analyses a text, idea, or proposition in light of some concrete facts and figures. One of the main characteristics of such an essay is that it does not use emotional appeal or blackmailing to prove the point. Instead of doing this, it takes concrete pieces of evidence from the literature and proves the argument.

Why is conducting in-depth research important? Conducting effective research is important because it is the research that enables you to find out unassailable arguments in the literature. It also lets you explore the facts and figures that you can use in your essay to analyse the given text or idea. In-depth research is also important because it helps you define the actual problem.

7 Strategies To Conduct An In-Depth Research

The best analytical essays present a clear point of view and are well organised around the main idea. They also discuss the opposing arguments and then, in light of concrete pieces of evidence, take one side. However, they require you to conduct in-depth research. Hence, a brief description of the top 7 strategies to conduct research when writing an analytical essay is as follows:

Choose A Point Of View

First, you must choose a point of view or the central idea you will be researching. It is the first step toward conducting in-depth research for an analytical essay. For example, you choose a point of view that “Corporations should allow more work from home to their employees.” Now, what are you going to do? As you have got a topic or central idea in hand, you are, of course, going to research it and analyse it. So, choosing the central idea is the first step to conducting in-depth research. If you are unable to do so, you can buy essay online from a good writer.

Start Broad, Then Dive Into Narrowness

Undoubtedly, researching an essay topic is the most arduous task. It is very overwhelming to decide the starting point of your research. So, an effective strategy is to start researching the topic broadly. Do not look for narrow information because first, you need to make your basic understanding of the topic firm. So, use sources like Wikipedia and start broadly. After that, you can dive into the narrowness very comfortably.

Learn To Recognise Quality Sources

The 3rd strategy to conduct in-depth research is all about learning to recognise quality sources. Not every source on the internet is reliable and contains authentic information. Therefore, you must be able to recognise the good sources from the bad ones to have concrete facts backed by proper research. Following are the questions that can help you recognise a source and ultimately help you conduct in-depth research:

  • Is the author of the source an expert in his field?
  • Do this source’s results agree with other sources that I have found?

Verify Information From Different Sources

Another very helpful strategy for conducting in-depth research is to verify information from several different sources. Relying only on one source is not the way to go and writing an analysis essay. Many websites or research sources do not check their content for validity. This means there are plenty of bugs in such data that can harm your research process. So, make sure that several different sources also confirm the results of a particular source.

Read The Essay Topic And Understand It

In-depth research is crucial to your understanding of the essay topic. If you still have not understood what your essay is asking you, you put yourself at risk of going in the wrong direction. So, put the research question in front of you, read it several times, and extract the key things about the topic. For example, the topic says, “compare the benefits of ….”. So, you have got an idea that in your analysis essay, you have to compare the two things with solid facts. So, this is how an understanding of an essay is helpful in conducting in-depth research.

Make Extensive Use Of The Library

If you still have questions in your mind about your analytical essay, do not worry. You can take advantage of the library and read the books on your essay topic. The university library is the best place to find reliable and authentic information about your essay topic. Additionally, if you do not want to use the campus library, visiting digital libraries is another good strategy to conduct in-depth research for writing an analytical essay.

Look Out The References

Sometimes, looking out for the references given at the end of a particular source can also serve the purpose of in-depth research. When you explore those references, you actually get a whole idea of the topic. Moreover, such references are a great way to expand your research and look for further ideas and arguments necessary for writing an analytical essay.

Conclusion

Analytical essays do not have to give you nightmares over the research anymore. The reason is that by following the above-mentioned research strategies, you can craft a compelling and evidence-backed essay. So, make sure to make extensive use of the campus library and references given at the end of the research articles when writing an analytical essay.