Your essay must include these parts in this order:
1. introduction paragraph with thesis statement
2. 1-paragraph summary of the selected text
3. analysis (including some interpretation and evaluation) of the selected text
4. conclusion paragraph.

The essay must be written entirely in third person and provide appropriate citations when referring to the text.

Introduction
Based on our previous discussion of introductions, remember that the introduction should start by introducing the topic of the text you will discuss. Then you will introduce the author’s full name and the title of the text you will analyze. Then work your way down to the thesis, which should include an overview of your analysis.

Summary
Your first body paragraph will include 8-12 sentences of summary of the text you have selected. You should NOT quote directly from the text in the summary. Use your own words to accurately convey the author’s message. Assume that readers have not read the text, but cover only enough detail to give readers an overview of the text.

Analysis
When you analyze a piece of writing, you present some kind of claim about the author’s style choices to your readers. After all, every author uses certain strategies to connect with his or her readers. Your analysis will closely examine the writing decisions made by the author and the writing strategies used. You will need to ask yourself “why” and “how” questions about the author’s process.
Here are some possibilities:
• Why did the author begin the essay this way?
• What is the author’s tone and how does it affect his or her readers?
• How does the author’s diction contribute to the overall tone of the essay?
• Why does the author repeat a particular word or odd sentence structure so many times?
• Why did the author put this part of the essay in this particular place?
• How does the writer get his or her message across?
• What type(s) of support is used to help readers better understand the author’s point?
Statistics? Personal experience? Causal analysis? Definition?
• Why did the author choose that particular type of support for his or her claim?
• What is the effect of that support on readers?
• Why does the author use a metaphor about a certain topic? How does the metaphor function in the text?
• How does the writer draw the readers’ attention to the important sections of the text?
• How does the author end the text? Why might the author have decided on that particular ending? What impact does the ending have on readers?

These are not the only questions to ask. In fact, some of these questions may not be relevant to the text you have selected. For example, you cannot analyze an author’s use of metaphor if he or she does not use metaphors in the text. However, while not every text will relate to all the questions listed above, every text should connect to at least a few of these questions. For the purposes of this assignment, you should examine 2-3 aspects that you think are particularly strong or interesting in the text you’ve chosen.

As you draft your analysis, you will also include some elements of interpretation and evaluation. Interpretation means to discuss the significance of the author’s choices. For example, if analyzing the way the author ends his or her essay, you may ask these questions: Why did the author choose to end the text this way? How is this ending significant or meaningful to readers? To evaluate a text is to judge its success in reaching its target audience. Therefore, as you analyze the author’s choices and discuss their significance to readers, you will also explain whether the text was ultimately successful at communicating the author’s main point to the intended audience.
Conclusion
The conclusion should pull your points together for your readers and express the overall significance of your analysis. Show your readers that your analysis reveals something meaningful about the text.