What is a Critical Essay?
A critical essay is a literary work aimed at studying a film, movie, painting, or any text with scrutiny, which is then related to a wider context or a bigger picture. These texts are often argumentative, serious, and objective in nature for the fact that its primary purpose is to analyze the piece of work in the point of view of the consumer. However, we need not worry that these critical essays might be biased since it is usually done using the technique of ‘detached evaluation’. This type of method prevents any critique, contradictions, or assumptions towards the work without any factual grounding. Critical essays are not always serious in nature since they can also be fun and humorous. However, to achieve that, one must be able to have knowledge about how to write one and what topics for critical essays can you write. Below are some tips on how to write them and critical research paper topics.
What is the Structure of a Critical Essay?
As said earlier, critical essays tend to be scholarly and objective, but they can also be fun and humorous at times. Usually, a Critical piece, just like any other paper, starts with an introduction. This part is where you provide a quick summary, description, or synopsis of the piece of work that you will be writing about. The Introduction should also include your objective for the study, your hypothesis, and some background details about the author and the piece. The next part is your argument. Divide this section into specific paragraphs, and make sure that each of them focuses on your specific ideas or arguments about the piece. Take note that each point that you make should be written in a separate paragraph, discussed thoroughly, and given enough evidence. Always remember that each of these paragraphs should then support your main point, which will be stressed out in the Conclusion. Conclusion – this is the last part where you synthesize the whole article. In this final part make sure that you use all the ideas written in the argumentative part so that you will achieve the aim of the essay as stated in the introductory part.
Important Tips for Writing a Critical Essay
Here are some essential and indispensable tips when writing a critical essay aside from those written above. First, you should start with a thorough reading (or watching) of the text, piece, movie, or art that you will be critiquing. You should always read between the lines and make sure that you are using your interpretations rather than just mimicking what the author originally said. Then, provide plenty of factual evidence from secondary sources to increase the credibility of your arguments. Lastly, when picking out secondary evidence, do not only choose what suits your case. Always remember to recognize other contradictory opinions against your own. You should tackle this even a little to make sure that the reader would understand your point.
Well, after knowing how to write a critical essay and what valuable tips we should know about, below are some interesting topics that you can work on:
Examples of Critical Essay questions:
- Movie review of the film Gattaca
- Critique of the novel Gulliver’s travel
- Epistemological analysis of the recurring symbols in Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy
- Importance of Niccolo Machiavelli’s work – The Prince – in the analysis of today’s politics
- Critique of Botticelli’s painting of Inferno
- Comparative analysis of your ideas with the ideas of the author of your favorite textbooks
- Study of Plato’s ideas in his book The Republic
- Art evaluation of Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa
- Essay about the underlying symbols behind the David of Michelangelo
- Article about the connection between Dan Brown’s idea in his novel Inferno with today’s overpopulation
- Critique of your favorite author’s ideas in his book
- Study of feminism from the movie Iron Jawed Angels
- A review of slavery from the film 12 Years A Slave
- Critical Analysis of Romeo and Juliet
- Contextual study of the time when Shakespeare wrote Hamlet
- Investigative study of the recurring themes behind Shakespeare’s Macbeth
- In-depth analysis of the lyrics of the song ‘Demons’ by Imagine Dragons
- Interpretative Essay of the film Inception
- Comparative analysis of the lyrics of your favorite song with contemporary events
- A study of racism and genocide from the movie Hotel Rwanda
There you go. Those are just some of the writing topics that you can work on for your next critical essay. Just always remember that you should pick what interest you the most and choose an approach that lets you squeeze as many ideas as possible from that text. Good luck and Happy Writing.