ion should come through in your analysis of those facts.It is often helpful to first generate a page of evidence and facts. This provides you with an overview of the topic and gives you a guide from which to draw inferences and information. You will discover that actually writing the essay becomes much easier once you have a sheet to glance at. If you are having trouble sorting through all the facts, a page of evidence will usually sort the data in a way that eliminates this problem.If the assigned topic seems vague, too broad, or unclear, then you must state your interpretation of the topic. It is best to indicate how you have chosen to interpret a topic before you start to actually analyze it. While ambiguous essay questions seem unfair, they are actually designed to test your ability to limit your topic area. This provides you with more room for analysis and is an opportunity to think carefully about a topic.Direction words... Direction words are the keywords in every essay question that setup the question. Understanding these words and what they are asking will immediately put you on the right track to answering the question. Some keywords and definitions are given below:Analyze: State the facts which you are asked to "analyze" and then give a detailed evaluation of the facts; this asks you to point out both similarities and differences between the facts.Compare: Examine the set of facts and information and find resemblances and differences among them. You should stress the similarities and give some indication of the differences.Contrast: Examine the set of facts and information and highlight the differences while giving some indication of the similarities. Criticize: This asks you to either agree or disagree with a statement or idea; be sure that you fairly evaluate both sides and present arguments and counter-arguments both for and against your opinions.Define: Provide a short, usually one paragraph or less, definition of the ter...
