The ‘analysis’ part of the PETZAL essay structure is the most important. It carries the most marks, so you need to make sure you’re doing it properly.

This is where you pick apart the quotes you’ve provided and explain what impact they have on the text. It’s all about showing your examiner that you understand how a writer’s choices affect a piece of writing.

And it’s all about choices, really. The writer could have chosen any word in the English language. There are an infinite combination of words they could use! So, why did they choose those particular words in that order? And why does that make the reader think and feel the way they do? It’s your job to make educated guesses based on what you know about words.

If you’re looking at a simile or metaphor, why did the writer want to compare those things? If it’s a rhetorical question, why didn’t the writer use a statement instead?

Analysis can be quite a tricky thing to define. Lots of people know it when they see it! It’s just hard for them to put words to what it is.

For students who are trying to learn how to do English well, that can really suck. How the hell are you supposed to know how to identify it if no one can give you a definition?

Well, it’s about knowing which questions to ask yourself, reading other people’s work and practising until you get it!

How to Do Analysis

There are plenty of questions you can ask yourself to help you:

• Who uses the word or phrase? Is it someone from a particular kind of job (e.g. doctor, farmer) or social group (e.g. working class people, teenagers)?
• What are the connotations of the word or phrase (e.g. positive, negative)?
• When and where is it usually used (e.g. in the middle of a war, in the Victorian period)?
• What does it sound like (e.g. harsh, soft)?
• How common is the word? Is it something you hear often (high-frequency vocabulary)? Or is it quite niche and specialist (e.g. jargon)?
• What is the reaction of other people when the word or phrase is used (e.g. does it make them angry or scared)? Why does it have that reaction?
• Is the writer using that word or phrase to hint at anything (e.g. allusion, symbolism)?
• Why did the writer choose to use that particular device/technique?
• How does the quote I used help the writer to achieve the effect I identified in my ‘point’?

If you have no clue what to say about a quote, you’re not alone. There are plenty of students out there who can tell you which quotes fit their point. They just can’t really put words to why the quote works so well. If that’s you, there are tricks that you can try to make sure you include analysis in your exam.

The main one is called ‘Textual Intervention’. It’s about swapping out words in your quote for their synonyms and seeing how that changes the meaning. Or, if not the synonyms, you might swap two devices to see how they change the text – like turning personification for zoomorphism and seeing what that does.

You can see more of that on its dedicated glossary page.

Things to Avoid

When students don’t use the questions above, they end up falling into some pretty bad traps. Here are some of the big ones to avoid.

DO NOT define the words. By that, I mean don’t tell the examiner what the word means. You’re not a dictionary. The examiner knows meanings. They don’t care. It doesn’t count as analysis, so it’s a waste of your precious time and energy in an exam.

Try not to talk about what isn’t there. Instead, focus on what is there. I know this can be pretty hard when I just mentioned textual analysis, but don’t say things like ‘the writer could have said…’. It just feels really clunky. Yes, they could have said many, many things! There are over 170k words in the Oxford Dictionary, after all.

If you’re still struggling with how to do analysis well, feel free to check out one of my courses! I have plenty on offer to help you!