Tips to Write a Thematic Essay

Have you ever got an assignment where you are asked to write a thematic essay based on the prompt given? Your professors give you a prompt or question. So the question is how do you write a thematic essay? Before we discuss tips for writing a well-structured and error-free write-up, let's first understand the meaning of thematic essay in brief.

What is a Thematic Essay?

In simplest terms, a thematic essay is an academic project where students are given a prompt. The prompt has a specific question that the students are supposed to answer through an essay. The question can either be based on a particular event or a debatable argument (depends on the institution you attend). Based on the central theme and prompt, the students write the essay revealing their chosen theme with the help of several literary methods such as metaphor, comparison, personification, and etc.

The main aim of the thematic essay is to develop the analytical, research, and thinking skills of the students. Some of the crucial factors your professor will take into consideration while reading a thematic essay are figurative language, imagery, foreshadowing, diction, imagery, a rhetorical device, and so on. Here we have come up with the tips to write a perfect thematic essay. Let’s have a look.

Find a Central Theme

Basically, the central theme of your essay depends on the prompt you are assigned. So, it is a bit difficult to tell exactly what central theme you can choose. But, the below-listed techniques will help you in any situation.

- Give a quick summary of the used literature.

- Choose the major subject of your discussion. Make sure that the central theme and the subject are two different concepts. In subjects, students put emphasis on the particular details whereas the central theme is a narrowed version of the former.

- Don't just skim through the sources. In fact, you must read between the lines to find useful information that can fit the question in your prompt.

Analyze Your Prompt

When it comes to a thematic essay, things are not the same as a personal essay. You are supposed to write an academic assignment, which needs to look professional and well-written. The first step to writing the best thematic paper is to understand what the prompt demands. The last thing any students would want is to write the entire essay only to discover that the central theme of the essay and prompt do not match.

Hence, it is better to reread the prompt a couple of times and then begin the writing part. Once you are done with the analyzing part, here’s the next step to follow:

- Description: Description involves the demonstration of the title of your essay. In this section, you have to choose a topic and concentrate on the main details.

- Explanation: The essay should explain the theme in a simple and logical manner.

- Discussion: As it is a thematic essay, you have to support the details and points with facts, arguments, figures, statistics, and other such factual tools.

- Showing: You have to put emphasis on the main idea of the author by supporting it with the evidence drawn from the source.

Write Excellent Introduction

The introduction of a thematic essay varies from the regular write-ups. Here, you need to focus on listing all the necessary points of the essay in the intro itself. While your intro should be engaging, it must outline the main point of your content. In simple terms, you have to present the subject of the essay in an engaging and informative manner.

The first two lines of the intro should be captivating enough to catch the reader’s attention. It should talk about the specific claim about the subject. Later, you can add primary sources, arguments, and other important information to support the claim and help your readers understand it.

Writing Body Paragraphs

Make sure that each body paragraph must feature a specific literary device that acts as the evidence supporting your claim. The topic sentence should present a literary device and how does it relate to the literature.

You can use illustrations and examples for the book to validate the claims. These examples can either state-certain actions from a story or quotations that go well with the main theme of your essay. Any action and quotation you use must be in line with your thesis statement. It is important to note that thematic essays are all about validating the thesis statement. And, that’s not possible without the use of proper literary devices in each body paragraph.

Draw a Proper Conclusion

Before winding up the thematic essay, you have to draw a conclusion. While writing a conclusion, never present new facts and figures. The conclusion is a brief summary of the facts you have already mentioned in the essay. Hence, it should only talk about the given arguments, facts, and devices.

The first step to writing a professional conclusion is re-stating the thesis statement. Once done, you can move to the next part where a summary of all the main claims and their effect on the central theme should be presented. Then, you can write a final concluding statement mentioning the world's analysis of the central theme.

Proofread the Thematic Essay

Writing a thematic essay is, indeed, a challenging task. You need to check samples of these essays before writing. As soon as you complete the thematic essay, proofread it to ensure that there is no error.

First thing first, you should check the central theme to confirm that it is the same as the author wanted to concentrate on. Your essay shouldn't talk about a theme that doesn't match the prompt. Secondly, grammar errors make your essay hard-to-read and difficult to comprehend. You must rectify as many grammar errors as possible with the help of online proofreading tools such as Grammarly or Hemingway app.

You must also take the help of professional essay writers to ensure that the essay is written properly.