How to actually analyse in a paragraph
NESA defines it as: “Identify components and the relationship between them; draw out and relate implications.”
Analyse is the directive you will meet most often in English, and the one students most often only pretend to do. In plain terms it asks you to take the text apart, show how the parts make meaning, and say why it matters. This page shows you how to turn that into a body paragraph the marker can reward, one sentence at a time.
New here first? Start with breaking down the whole question, then come back for this.
The engine of analysis: the Explanation (the E in TEEL)
Every piece of evidence you use runs through the same four moves inside the Explanation, the second E of TEEL. Most mid-band essays stop after the first or second and call it analysis. Band 6 essays reach the last move every time, and they do it inside a sentence or two, not across a whole paragraph.
- 1
Technique
Name the exact choice the composer made: the metaphor, the stage direction, the structural turn. Be specific, because 'the metaphor of a courtroom in the heart' does far more work than the vague label 'imagery'.
- 2
Effect
Say what that choice does to the responder: what they notice, feel or realise in the moment. This is the move most essays skip, jumping from quote to big idea and leaving the analysis hollow.
- 3
Meaning
Lift the effect into the idea it reveals, the concept about human experience the question is asking about. This is where the evidence starts answering the question rather than just sitting there.
- 4
Purpose
Say why the composer built it this way: what they want the responder to think or value, often tied to their context. Reaching this last move is the difference between explaining a text and analysing it.
A quick test: if you can read your sentence about a quote and still ask 'so what?', your Explanation has not reached the composer's purpose yet.
The shape of the paragraph
A body paragraph is a small argument, not a container you fill. It makes a claim, proves it by working the Explanation on real evidence, then shows what that proves. The engine in step three is the part that repeats.
Topic sentence (the claim)
Open with a conceptual claim that answers the question and pushes your thesis forward, in the question's own words. It should be an idea about the text, not a fact about the plot.
Watch out:If your opening could be followed by 'and then...', it is a recount. Start with an idea, rather than an event.
Orientation (the set-up)
In a single line, place the moment in the text you are about to examine, so your evidence lands in context.
Watch out:Keep it to one sentence. This is a signpost, rather than a chance to retell the scene.
The analysis engine (evidence to significance)
Embed a short quote, name the technique, then work the Explanation: effect, meaning, purpose. Run it once, then again with a second quote that deepens the idea.
Watch out:A second quote should complicate or extend the point, rather than prove the same thing twice.
The return line (the link)
Close by pulling back to your thesis and the question's key words, naming what the text invites the responder to understand.
Watch out:Do not simply repeat your topic sentence. Show what this paragraph has added.
A model paragraph, labelled sentence by sentence
Here is the structure at work. Read the paragraph straight through first: it should sound like one continuous argument, not a checklist. Then read the label beside each sentence to see the job it is doing. It is written to support this thesis:
The thesis
In The Crucible, Miller reveals how private guilt corrupts even authentic love, exposing a human experience in which our deepest attachments are inseparable from our capacity for self-betrayal.
The paragraph, read straight through
Miller first represents guilt as a court that convenes inside the individual, sentencing Proctor long before Salem's magistrates ever reach him. In the cold aftermath of his affair, the play turns the Proctor household into a place of judgement, where conscience does the work the court has not yet begun. Elizabeth names this exactly when she warns, “The magistrate sits in your heart that judges you”, a metaphor that transplants an entire tribunal into the private self, so that the audience comes to see Proctor as at once the accused and the judge of his own betrayal. Miller uses this inward court to argue that the severest verdict on our conduct is the one we pass on ourselves, a conviction sharpened by his own refusal to name others before HUAC. The same guilt curdles his marriage, and when Proctor snaps that his wife's “justice would freeze beer”, the colloquial hyperbole exposes how his shame has iced over even ordinary affection, revealing a man whose self-betrayal has quietly contaminated the very love he most wants to protect. The challenging experience of guilt is thus endured inwardly, until Proctor's deepest attachment and his deepest self-reproach can no longer be told apart, the entanglement this response sets out to trace.
Miller first represents guilt as a court that convenes inside the individual, sentencing Proctor long before Salem's magistrates ever reach him.
In the cold aftermath of his affair, the play turns the Proctor household into a place of judgement, where conscience does the work the court has not yet begun.
Elizabeth names this exactly when she warns, “The magistrate sits in your heart that judges you”, a metaphor that transplants an entire tribunal into the private self,
so that the audience comes to see Proctor as at once the accused and the judge of his own betrayal.
Miller uses this inward court to argue that the severest verdict on our conduct is the one we pass on ourselves, a conviction sharpened by his own refusal to name others before HUAC.
The same guilt curdles his marriage, and when Proctor snaps that his wife's “justice would freeze beer”, the colloquial hyperbole exposes how his shame has iced over even ordinary affection,
revealing a man whose self-betrayal has quietly contaminated the very love he most wants to protect.
The challenging experience of guilt is thus endured inwardly, until Proctor's deepest attachment and his deepest self-reproach can no longer be told apart, the entanglement this response sets out to trace.
Every quotation above is verbatim from The Crucible (Arthur Miller) and verified against the source text.
How the paragraphs build across the essay
One strong paragraph is not enough; the marker is watching whether your analysis builds. Use each topic sentence to advance a new stage of the same argument. Against our thesis, the three might move like this:
- 1Miller first represents guilt as a private court that sentences Proctor from within.
- 2That inner verdict then drives him outward, as guilt hardens into the public confession that destroys his name.
- 3By the end, Miller reframes that same guilt as the ground of Proctor's integrity, the self-betrayal he refuses to repeat.
Notice the idea deepens each time rather than repeating. That upward movement is what a sustained analytical argument looks like.
See it done on your own paragraph
Paste your essay and we will show you, sentence by sentence, where your writing stops short, and rewrite your own lines toward Band 6. Free, about a minute.
Mark my essay — free →The other key words
Back to all the key words, or learn the techniques that give you something to write about.
The definition is quoted from NESA's Glossary of Key Words. The structure, teaching and model paragraph are our own, aligned to the 2017 English Advanced syllabus (2019–2026 prescriptions).