You've been writing PEEL paragraphs since Year 7. Point, Evidence, Explanation, Link. You know the order. You tick all 4 parts. And the paragraph still comes back with "more analysis" or "you're retelling" written next to it.
That comment is frustrating, because you did follow PEEL. I've written "more analysis" on hundreds of paragraphs, and the students who get it almost never have a formula problem. PEEL gets taught as a checklist, and a checklist tells you what to include, not how to think. A paragraph can have all 4 letters in the right order and still say nothing.
This guide shows you the difference, using a worked Modern History example, and gives you a quick self-check for your own writing.
What PEEL is actually for
PEEL stands for Point, Evidence, Explanation, Link. TEEL and STEEL are the same idea with a different first letter. Whatever your teacher calls it, every version wants you to do one thing: build an argument instead of a recount.
Here's the real job of each part.
The Point is the argument this paragraph proves. Not the topic, the argument. "This paragraph is about the Treaty of Versailles" is a topic. "The Treaty of Versailles weakened the Weimar Republic" is a point.
The Evidence is the specific facts that back the point. Specific is the word that matters: a date, a figure, a name, a quote.
The Explanation is why that evidence proves your point. This is the analysis. It's where marks are won and lost, and it's the part most students rush.
The Link is a sentence that connects the paragraph back to the actual question.
A PEEL paragraph example: weak vs strong
Here's a question I've set Year 11 Modern History students:
To what extent did the Treaty of Versailles contribute to instability in the Weimar Republic?
A weak PEEL paragraph on that question looks like this:
The Treaty of Versailles was bad for Germany. It made Germany pay a lot of money and accept the blame for the war. Germany also lost land and had its army made smaller. This made German people angry and upset. The treaty was harsh and unfair, and it caused a lot of problems for the Weimar Republic.
Every PEEL part is technically there. But read it again. It lists what the treaty did, says people were upset, and stops. It never explains how the treaty produced instability. "A lot of money" and "a lot of problems" aren't evidence, they're gaps where evidence should be. A marker reads this and writes "retelling."
Here's the same paragraph written to argue:
The Treaty of Versailles weakened the Weimar Republic before it had a chance to establish itself. Article 231 forced Germany to accept responsibility for the war, the 1921 reparations bill was set at 132 billion gold marks, and Germany lost around 13% of its territory. Those terms did real damage, but the deeper problem was who got blamed for them. Because Weimar politicians had signed the treaty, their opponents could brand them the "November criminals" and push the myth that Germany had been betrayed at home rather than defeated in the war. Every reparations payment then became a public reminder of that humiliation, and extremist parties used it to argue the Republic itself was illegitimate. The treaty's lasting damage, then, was political: it handed the Republic's enemies a permanent grievance, which is a large part of why Weimar struggled to hold public support.
Same structure. Same 4 parts. The difference is the third part is doing real work.
The part that wins marks: the second E
Look at what changed between the two paragraphs. The Point got sharper: "weakened the Republic before it had a chance to establish itself" makes a claim the rest of the paragraph has to prove. The Evidence got specific: "132 billion gold marks" and "13% of its territory" instead of "a lot of money" and "land."
But the real change is the Explanation. The weak paragraph explains nothing. It says the treaty was harsh, then says people were angry, as if anger just follows on its own. The strong paragraph explains the steps: the treaty was signed by Weimar politicians, so those politicians could be blamed, so extremists had a grievance to exploit, so the Republic looked illegitimate. Each step earns the next one.
That chain is the analysis. A marker can see you understand not just what happened, but how one thing led to another. That's the gap between a paragraph that retells and a paragraph that argues, and it's almost always the Explanation that decides which one you've written.
A quick test for your Explanation: it usually needs words like "because," "this meant," or "which allowed." If your explanation has no cause-and-effect words in it at all, it's probably just repeating the evidence in different words.
One more thing the Explanation has to do: answer the question's verb. If the question says "to what extent" or "assess," your paragraph has to reach a judgement, not just describe. The strong paragraph above does that when it says the damage was "political" rather than economic. That's a position, and the question asked for one.
Where paragraphs lose marks
These are the habits I write the same comment about, year after year.
A point that names a topic instead of making a claim. If your first sentence could sit above any paragraph written on that topic, it isn't a point yet. "The Treaty of Versailles was important" could sit above almost anything. "The treaty handed the Republic's enemies a permanent grievance" is an argument the paragraph then has to earn.
Vague evidence. "Germany lost a lot of land" tells a marker you don't know the detail. "Germany lost around 13% of its territory" tells them you do. Names, dates, figures and quotes are free marks.
An explanation that just restates the evidence. "The reparations were 132 billion gold marks, which was a lot for Germany to pay" adds nothing. You've said the number twice. The explanation is what that number did: each payment became a public grievance extremists could point to.
A link that repeats the point word for word. A point that says "the treaty weakened the Republic" followed by a link that says "so the treaty weakened the Republic" has gone in a circle. The link is where you answer the question's wording: if it asked "to what extent," say to what extent.
Check your own paragraph before you hand it in
Before a paragraph goes in, read it once and ask yourself:
- Could someone tell what I'm arguing from the first sentence alone?
- Is every piece of evidence specific? A name, a date, a figure, or a quote, not "a lot."
- Does my explanation say why the evidence matters, or does it just say the evidence again?
- Does my last sentence connect back to the words in the question?
Answer yes to all of them and you've written a paragraph that argues. A no tells you exactly which part to fix.
Want MarkMate to run this check for you?
The 4 questions above are exactly what MarkMate looks for, paragraph by paragraph, before your teacher sees it. It scores each PEEL part against the rubric for your subject, flags where the explanation is thin, and points you to the sentence that needs more work. It's the check I run with my own students.
Students get 5 free self-checks a month. Student plans start at $7.99 a month.