What Is Analysis

WHAT IS ANALYSIS? (From Writing Analytically by David Rosenwasser and Jill Stephens )

“Learning to write analytically is primarily a matter of becoming aware of your own thinking”

What does it mean to analyze? To analyze is to ask:  what something means  how something does what it does  why something does what it does

What is the goal of analysis? An enlarged understanding of your subject

What are some characteristics of analysis and analytical writing? 1. Analysis involves breaking a subject into its parts and seeing how they might be related. Analytical forms of writing always look at details closely. Our first impressions of anything are usually general and only focus on the global aspects rather than the particular features. Global comments usually do little to help our understanding. The comment “Good book” doesn’t tell you anything about the book. Get into the habit of asking yourself questions like these: What is this made of? “How do these parts help me understand the meaning of the subject as a whole?”

2. Analysis differs from judging. You can increase your understanding if you analyze before you judge. If we judge before we analyze, we often reveal our own biases. We therefore focus more on defending our own ideas rather than trying to understand the subject of our inquiry. Suspending judgment is hard to do because our first tendency as human beings is to evaluate almost before we understand!

3. Analysis seeks to make the implicit explicit. Analytical writing (with its goal of enlarged understanding) seeks to look beyond the obvious. It looks for unstated assumptions about things. It “reads between the lines” in order to discover what is only being hinted or suggested. It aims to make explicit (overtly state) what is implicit (only suggested).

4. Analysis involves a process of asking (and learning how to ask good questions).

 Which details are significant and which aren’t? Why?  What is the significance of a particular detail? What does it mean?  What else might it mean?  How do the details fit together? What do they have in common?  What does this pattern of details mean?  What else might this same pattern of details mean? How else could it be explained?  What details don’t seem to fit? How could they be connected with other details to form a different pattern?  What does the new pattern mean? How might it cause me to read the meaning of individual details differently?

5. Analysis is a trial and error process: Analysis is a recursive process, which means it continually circles and moves back and forth. We don’t analyze in the same order that we present the information in a finished paper. Good analytical writers will try to retain some of this open and exploratory stance toward their subjects as they share their process of discovery with their readers

6. Analytical topics for writing locate questions, problems, areas of uncertainty that allow you to formulate ideas.

What does it mean to have an idea? When an assignment asks for your ideas about a subject, it is usually not asking for your opinions—what you think about the subject—but for your reasoning on how, why, or what the subject means. Analytical topics for writing deliberately locate you, the writer, in an area of uncertainty. As you write you go through an inquiry process as you try to figure out what you are uncertain about. Analytical writing, in other words is all about “making sense.” A good idea for writing  Moves beyond a summary of the subject.  Explains things. It often starts with something puzzling, something you don’t already understand, that you want to figure out. It makes the implicit explicit.  May be the discovery of a new question that needs to be asked.  Makes new connections and explains significance of those connections.  Tries to account for how or why something doesn’t seem to fit; it explains the anomalies.

How can you deal with the complexity and uncertainty factor in analytical writing? Good ideas are sometimes messy and complex. Most of your writing process will be focused on trying to deal with the messiness, complexity or uncertainty of your topic. Here are some things you can do:

 Reduce the scope of your inquiry; limit the topic in some way.

 Study the topic and look for specific, unstated assumptions and questions in the topic and focus on these.

 Suspect your initial response; it is likely to be superficial, obvious, or too broad. Simply reiterating conventional wisdom (homilies and clichés) will result in mediocre papers.

 Begin writing by asking questions. What do you wonder about? This process will lead you to deeper interpretation and not just plot summary.  Focus on the unexpected similarities rather than obvious differences.

 Think aloud on paper what you are studying while you study it; writing while you are reading often produces interesting ideas for your papers.

 Expect to become interested in your subject. Look for ways to engage it and make it interesting to you (we usually makes things interesting by asking questions about it and looking for ways to make personal connections with it).