Read the essay prompt carefully. Generally, essays that ask for something specific, such as demarcating a shift in a given text, will provide a prompt outlining exactly what you should focus on and what rhetorical analysis tools you should use. The choice of text may be up to you, or the professor may select it for you.
Write down the key ideas on scratch paper that you are required to include in your essay, such as identifying the speaker or main characters and noting abstract ideas such as themes, period or perspective.
Summarize in your own words what the prompt is asking for, then go through the text and find instances where something changes. Is the main character changing? Is the tone changing? Is the theme shifting? This exercise will help you to come up with a thesis statement about the shift in the text.
Read through the text again and write the literary tools that enable the shift to take place. Write these in the margin or on a separate piece of paper. Identify the rhetorical and literary devices that enable the shift to take place. These could be symbolism, metaphor, syntax, poetic structure, allusion, language and imagery. Mark examples in the text where this is happening.
Write a short sentence or two that summarizes what you have just identified as the shift, which after doing this analysis work should not be as hard as you thought it would be when you first opened the prompt. Identify specific literary tools the prompt asks you to identify.
Think about the significance of this shift. What does it do? Do you understand the text differently? Is there are a grander meaning that emerges? Jot down any final ideas about the broader implications of the textual shift.
Organize your thoughts into an annotated outline. At the beginning of the paper is the introduction. Begin with the broad context and narrow the focus into a thesis statement.
Organize the analysis into three sections. These sections are generally divided into three paragraphs. Each section should mark one aspect that illustrates your definition of how "shift change" is taking place in your text, and every claim should be backed up by textual examples, with page numbers and proper referencing. Be sure to make explicit how each section relates to the broad thesis of the paper. Bullet what final remarks will be included in the conclusion, which should reiterate the central claim about shifts in the paper and echo the tone and theme of the introduction.
Turn the annotated outline into rough draft of the paper using a word processor. Write a title and include references at the end of the paper.
Print the rough draft and proofread for grammar and spelling mistakes. Also review one final time to make sure that you have answered all of the questions the prompt requires.
Make any necessary edits and print a final version of your paper to turn in to the instructor or submit to the proctor.