Best critical essay topics: Tips for choosing a great theme

Choosing a proper topic for your essay is far from being easy. Often, instructors demand only the best critical essay topics from the students. In this light, we all need some form of advice to work around the demands efficiently. This article will give you some recommendations on choosing an interesting topic for a critical essay and, in the end, provide a set of ideas for something great.

Defining a critical essay

You cannot select the best critical essay topics without knowing the meaning behind the term in question. Typically, a critical essay is a type of writing that takes some other text and offers analysis and criticism of it. The process of writing something about other texts also involves interpretation and evaluation in many cases. In short, you have to offer your comments on some discourse while writing a critical essay. Here, the most important factor to consider for all individuals is the fact that a critical essay is not about criticizing someone. Most obviously, you can provide some negative opinions of an author or topic. However, the writing of this type is not about the goal of ‘destroying’ some other texts. Instead, it includes many types of legitimate reactions, such as the overall study of the arguments.

Tip 1. Don’t be afraid to be controversial

The first piece of advice we can give is to attract the attention of the readers in one way or another. You should concentrate on the following schemes for choosing the best critical essay topics:

  1. Discuss some aspects that raise controversy in your society (for example, the rights of women);
  2. Criticize the author or praise them through the analysis of counterarguments. When we were saying that critical essays are not about criticism, our intention was to mention the fact that you can also create a full-scale defense of some author, analyzing the weak arguments against his or her claims.
  3. Don’t be afraid to touch upon some small issues in texts. For example, texts about the Civil War are unlikely to feature race as the genuinely central element of their narratives. However, they can have some interesting references that, if pieced together, can point towards something novel. Your goal, as a writer, is to highlight those aspects. Many texts receive an extensive discussion of their central themes. Thus, a good idea is to talk about something that is far from central for them. We are quite sure that queer issues in Shakespeare, for example, are far from being a topic that receives a lot of attention.

In short, while discussing some texts, you should prepare yourself for being slightly provocative. Point towards the issues that other researchers don’t discuss. Show that you see some elements that others cannot view. In this manner, you will attract attention to your findings through a topic that didn’t occur in the minds of other people.

Tip 2. Look at the advice of professionals

While choosing the best critical essay topics, you should, above all, ensure the uniqueness of your work. In this regard, the best option is to look at the claims of the professionals about lacuna in a certain field. For example, you can take a look at the recent academic and journal articles about a certain topic to see its reflection in the scientific literature. Another important approach is to concentrate on communication with professors in your university. In this respect, they are highly likely to read some texts relating to your area of interest. Thus, you will be able to quickly obtain all the necessary information for finding something unique. And, what if you don’t have an opportunity to address a specialist in some university? After all, some instructors are more than willing to leave you abandoned in all processes. Well, you can try the help of an essay writing service such as EssayHave. Specialists there have lots of experience with writing essays and, as a result, can provide you with relevant topic ideas for your texts on many occasions.

Tip 3. Avoiding something widely discussed

While preparing some form of an essay, one of the worst things you can do is aim at the topics that are already discussed on all sides. To avoid this problem, choose something truly unique. Best critical essay topics attract not only by being controversial but also by providing some unique fresh perspective on a particular topic. For example, you can try finding elements of analytical philosophy in Marx’s writings while the majority of people are writing about his materialist contributions to philosophy. In short, you should be ready to write about topics that don’t receive much attention from various sources. In this way, you will be able to provide something truly critical rather than a rehash of the old arguments represented in countless other essays. Remember, the best critical essay topics provide something unique to their readers. They offer a novel perspective of the world and events within it.

Best critical essay topics: Some ideas

In the end, we would like to give some great ideas for our readers to consider. Here are some of them:

  1. Progressive nature of women’s rights in Medieval city statutes;
  2. Queer issues in the texts of Karl Marx: Do socialists really support LGBT issues?
  3. Criticism of capitalism in the works of Adam Smith;
  4. Positive philosophy of life in William Shakespeare’s tragedies;
  5. Criticism of gods in Ancient Greek texts.

As you may see, all the topics fit the criteria mentioned above. They are very controversial. More importantly, a hint of originality is present. Few people think that Shakespeare had something positive and optimistic in mind while writing his tragedies. Your goal, in this case, is to find the unfindable, however. Why are we so sure about these topics? As professionals in various fields, we are well aware that they did not receive a full discussion. In this light, our claim about the need to seek an expert also receives a full-scale confirmation.

To summarize, the best critical essay topics typically occur when you are not afraid to offer something outside the box. Don’t be afraid to provoke some protests with your criticism. In fact, they can be one of the key paths towards success. The greater discussion your text provokes, the higher your chances of getting a good score for something are. At the very least, you will receive significant attention from specialists, creating a reputation of a person that genuinely is ready to present something unconventional and truly cares about their topic. 

Critical Essay Topics for College Students

  • How effective is the clean and green campaign in the United States
  • Investigation of a toy industry examination
  • What are the issues of practicing good eating habits?
  • The discoverers of America.
  • The biggest social problem of recent times
  • Why do companies spend millions of dollars on advertising their products?
  • Health effects of video gaming
  • Drug abuse among teenagers
  • Should there be stricter prohibition and law for cyber anonymity and identity theft?
  • Provide one alternative to anti-poverty programs today and discuss
  • The impact of a positive teacher relationship
  • Effectiveness of America’s economic system
  • Securities exchange and how it influences your day by day life
  • How does politics contribute to nature?
  • Choose the most popular environmental TV shows and explain their educational significance.

Critical Essay Topics for High School Students

  • Is homelessness the biggest problem of our community?
  • What are the issues of practicing good eating habits?
  • The growth of the automobile industry in Sweden
  • The future and past of the oil industry
  • Does climate change under the influence of humans?
  • Are environmentalism and capitalism compatible?
  • A good man is hard to find
  • Development of food and other allergies
  • The viability of the law framework against drugs
  • The best places to tour around the world
  • Health effects of eating deep-fried food
  • Education systems around the world
  • Discuss the history of the USA while using a realist aspect
  • Your favorite character in a book
  • Evaluate how elite and crimes are related.

Critical Essay Topics about Movies

  • Examine the persona of a comic book character based on its movie adaptation
  • What makes a good and captivating drama series?
  • Analyze one of your favorite romantic comedies.
  • Your favorite movie and opinion about it.
  • Analyze the character of Tiny Tim in Dicken’s The Christmas Carol
  • How high school is presented in the 21 Jump Street Vs. in reality
  • Choose your favorite reality TV series and examine it.
  • Evaluate a T.V. series that is based on a novel
  • The Match Point” by Woody Allen
  • Pick a ‘dumb’ comedy movie and analyze considering its plot, characters, and mood.
  • Write a critical review of a horror movie you have watched recently.
  • Conduct a detailed analysis of one of the best cooking shows in the UK
  • Themes that make a fantastic TV series
  • How realistic is Friday Night Lights
  • What is the general “humor” portrayed or used in mass media today?

Critical Essay Topics about Literature

  • Critical analysis of Ophelia’s character in Hamlet
  • How was black humor utilized in the literature of the 20th century?
  • How was Irony used in your favorite classical book?
  • Find out about the background of an author.
  • Talk about the key events from the book.
  • Describe a critical dialogue in a play or novel
  • Describe the secondary heroes of your favorite book
  • What message does the author want to convey?
  • The concept of social injustice in Oliver Twist
  • Irony and its presentation in classical literature
  • The context when the author wrote a piece of literature
  • Describe the repetitive genre of literature in a particular era
  • Analyze the main story character
  • Analyze the main idea of the book
  • When a genius author delivers a not-so-great work

Critical Essay Topics on Social Issues

  • Pros and cons of healthy food
  • Discuss the problems of eating healthy?
  • Describe how social media plays a role in dissolving the social issues of today
  • Importance of learning social values
  • Explain the internet and social life issues
  • Inequality in terms of wealth and income
  • Fashion and its influence on the younger generation.
  • Racism in the US police system
  • Taboos in our society
  • Modern social values
  • Discuss why obesity is a problem?
  • The impact of social media on mental health
  • Racism in police enforcement
  • Pros and cons of junk food
  • Pros and cons of the legalization of marijuana in the USA

Good Critical Essay Topics

  • How education and technology go hand in hand?
  • A story from a book that you will follow in your life.
  • Pick a “cake” Show
  • Torture in Night by Elie Wiesel
  • Importance of entrepreneurship
  • Ways to improve GDP
  • Pros and cons of classical movie remakes
  • Examine a remake of a classic movie
  • Sports on television
  • Changing gender roles
  • Is crime nature or nurture related?
  • Air pollution in Beijing
  • Preparing for a safari
  • Importance of religion
  • How to choose the better topic for my critical literature review

Critical Essay Topics about Health

  • Antibiotics may cause weight gain
  • Unhealthy eating habits that cause cancer
  • Advantages and challenges of E-health technology
  • Pros and cons of health insurance
  • Effects of junk food on your health
  • Food and cancer
  • Mental health and fat food
  • Development of food and other allergies
  • Increase in drug and hospital costs
  • Importance of having a balanced diet
  • Emotional support animals are a great source of depression
  • Pros and cons of eating vegetarian food
  • Health care provider and faith diversity
  • Negative effects of meat-free nutrition
  • Causes of eating disorders and obesity

Critical Essay Topics about Environment

  • Discuss the dominant pollution in your city
  • The interaction of society and nature as a system
  • How biodiversity is put at risk in the modern world.
  • Why are world food resources declining?
  • Quality of life and quality of the environment.
  • Environmental safety and environmental risks
  • Analyze the phenomenon of climate refugees.
  • Can we reverse global warming?
  • The Pros and cons of various energy types
  • Effects and Control Measure of Nuclear Hazards
  • Examine the different sources of renewable energy.
  • Effects Of globalization on the environment
  • Discuss the word criticism in different ways.
  • Analyze up-to-date innovations that help in reducing the environmental pollution
  • World food problems and their effects on the environment

Easy Critical Essay Topics

  • Impact of video games on children
  • Drug abuse among teenagers
  • Communication differences between men and women
  • Single-parent families
  • The efficiency of the American economic system
  • Feminist ideologies in a piece of literature
  • Importance of indoor games
  • Does the size of a body affect a person’s quality of life?
  • Should money be spent on space exploration?
  • Your favorite character in a book
  • Analyze the pattern of decision making of nature
  • Sport in college.
  • Changing gender roles.
  • Victims of bullying.
  • Impact of technology

Simple Critical Essay Topics

  • The good and evil in children’s literature.
  • Anti-meth campaign.
  • Examine the influence of a popular TV series on youth.
  • Why do people have phobias?
  • Crime among neighbors.
  • The literary work of art
  • Create a correlation between different gender roles
  • Different forms of addiction among teens
  • The First Amendment
  • Capital sentences
  • Discuss how historical figures are portrayed in movies
  • Discus Al Gore’s speech on Global warming
  • Describe a static character
  • First Nations of Canada
  • Banking investments

Critical Essay Topics for Hamlet

  • Explore the use of descriptions and images in the play.
  • What is the role of revenge in Hamlet?
  • Discuss the conflicts presented by the characters of Hamlet.
  • How does a moral character live in a corrupt world?
  • Analyze the character of Hamlet from the perspective of a hero and a villain.
  • How does Hamlet go through both an outer and inner conflict?
  • Find comic scenes in the play and analyze what they serve for
  • Describe Horatio’s role in the play.
  • Think about Hamlet’s relationship with Ophelia
  • What is Goethe’s opinion of Hamlet?
  • The tragic story of hamlet
  • Where can we find hamlet in our lives?
  • Is Hamlet a hero or a villain in the play? Explain.
  • Discuss Hamlet’s relationship with Gertrude.
  • Explain the relationship between Hamlet and his mother.