13Jun

How To Write An Interpretive Analysis Essay

How To Write An Interpretation Essay

An interpretive essay is an essay that provides an analysis of another piece of writing. An assignment to interpret a work of literature can seem overwhelming. Figuring out where to start, what literary elements to analyze and what to interpret does not have to be an impossible task. Here at iwriteessays.com we make the task of writing an interpretive essay simple.

What is An Interpretive Analysis Essay

 Just like the name suggests, interpretive analysis essays asks students to  interpret or critically analyze a subject (such as a work of art or, a person, or event) into its constituent parts, and offer a meaning--or alternative meanings of each of the components. An interpretive or critical analysis is a common type of research papers inthe arts, literature, and the other humanities. Most students will be asked to write an interpretive analysis essay in their introductory literature courses as well as in their intermediate and advanced classes.  The most common way for this type of essay to start is by giving an interpretive question, such as "What is the relationship of Romeo to his father,"

How To Write An Interpretation Essay: Writer's Goal or Assignment Requirement

As stated above, the main goal of a literary analysis essay is to take a piece of work and look at the interesting segments in that literary work. The best way to begin is to first choose a scene, character, activity, line, or some other segment of a literary work, then break this segment into small parts, and analyze each of them individually.

The best way to analyze these segments of the literary work is to use the elements of literature to help explain the meanings, compare and contrast each part with other parts of the work or apply a literary theory to each part.

Your analysis should be logical. In addition, you should check the structure to come up with a balanced essay, which contains a brief introduction, a number of well-organized body paragraphs that focus on one idea, and a brief conclusion. Upon the instructor request, you can also include abrief first body section after the introduction to summarize the main elements of the work to introduce the work. 

What To Include In The Interpretive Analysis Essay

The Interpretive Analysis Essay should have an introduction, body, and a conclusion. The writer must consistently quote and paraphrase the literary work in the introduction, body, and conclusion to help them in their analysis and in determining the possible meanings. These quotations and paraphrases help the writer to support their arguments by showing clearly, what the author of the work has written and prevising their own interpretations to the quoted text.

Apart from this, the writer must include quotations, paraphrases, and references from other literary works and professional critics. The additional quotations will help the writer develop a well-supported claim to the meanings of the work that they are analyzing.  Finally, the writer must then add in text citations and a full bibliography on either APA, MLA or the style that the lecturer specifies.

Additional Tips On Writing An Interpretive Essay:

  • Ensure you come up with a new, interesting, or unique way of interpreting the literacy work.
  • You may decide go for the larger meanings of the whole work or some specific meaning of part of the work such as traits, symbol or setting aspects.
  • Give numerous kinds of reasons why you feel that your interpretation is true. In addition, assume that the audience had already read the literacy work.
  • Each reason should have its body division and in each body ensure that you provide a reason with a quote or paraphrase from the work.
  • The final draft of the work must contain the introduction section and the conclusion that provides the summary of the whole paper.