Critical Essay

The writer of a critical essay has to read a specific piece of written work. The essay will address a particular audience and present an analysis or evaluation of the work. It is a type of review of the work interpreted by the writer of the essay.

When writing a critical essay, the writer has to make an assessment of the work and show the reader some pros and cons in the work as seen from the writer’s perspective. He presents his judgment of the work and an analysis of what he got out of the book, short story or article the essay is about.

In the introduction the writer of the essay will make a statement about the work and then support the statement with different aspects seen or experienced by the writer. It is not a summary of the work but a critique or analysis of it by looking at both the positive and negative parts of the whole. The title will reflect a specific critical facet of the work. For instance, the writer is writing a critical essay on the television series ‘Lost’. He cannot just write a general essay on the series as that would be too broad, so, he must choose something specific about the series. He might choose to write on ‘Good versus Evil battle for position in Lost’. He will make a statement in the introduction alluding to the fact that in the series the profound battle for good and evil, right and wrong, and heaven and hell prevail over the past and future lives of the characters portrayed.

The body of the essay provides information culled from the series that will support the position of the writer. In these paragraphs the writer will discover other opinions from experts that support his views and analysis of the work. The body might reference different storylines that either agree or disagree with the good versus evil concept. Using an evaluation of several of these will substantiate whether or not the series showed a correlation between the two.

The conclusion ties together the main thoughts presented in the body of the essay. It is at this point the writer has to succinctly sum up the critical analysis and get the point across. The reader will be forced to make a conclusion about the series “Lost” based on the ideas and thoughts which emerged in this critical essay.