How to Write a Critical Essay
Despite the fact that most people think of being critical as being negative, a critical essay can be either positive or negative in the point-of-view that is expressed. In either case, the purpose of the critical essay is to describe your attitude toward a specific topic, though you must still strive toward providing factual information and data rather than simply writing your opinion.
When writing a critique essays, you must first analyze the topic. In order to accomplish this step, you will need to provide a brief statement of your main idea, which is referred to as your thesis statement or as the theme. You will then outline the important facts that you intend to discuss in your essay and you will wrap it up by providing a summary of your article.
In order to formulate your criticism of the subject matter, you will need to complete an extensive amount of data collection. In this way, you can learn the subject matter thoroughly and you can distinguish the important information from the material that is irrelevant. Once you have selected the relevant material, read over it again in order to make sure you have a solid understanding.
Based off of the information you have gathered, you should then formulate a thesis statement and create a rough introductory paragraph. Then, determine the main topics of your next paragraphs and write a rough draft by filling in the details from your research.
Keep in mind that a critical essay is meant to be very logical in nature and is to present a great deal of information to support its point-of-view. Therefore, your critical report should include statistic, theoretical concepts, quotations, and more. Be certain to cite all of the information that you include in your critical article. Not only will this help to validate its accuracy and relevancy, it will also keep you from being charged with plagiarism.
Since writing a critical essay requires developing a clear and strong understanding of a particular topic, you should give yourself plenty of time to complete the document. Similarly, you will need to utilize a number of different resources while gathering information. In this way, you can ensure the accuracy of the information you present while also obtaining the most relevant and up-to-date information. Since you likely will not have time to read several books on the subject from beginning to end, it is better to select one specific aspect of the topic and to research that particular area. By doing so, you can read only those sections that pertain to the topic you are writing about.
When writing a critical essay, you will need to know how to sort out the relevant information quickly. One way to accomplish this is to use the table of contents of a book in order to find the chapters that are relevant. Similarly, only utilize websites and magazines that are well-respected in the field.
After writing the critical essay, set it aside for a few days and then read it again. In this way, you can better check for logic errors and you can make corrections that will help improve the overall flow.