PROCESS· ANALYSIS Takes, Only Beautiful Happy Accidents
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Process Analysis ..- 293 CHAPTER EIGHT that it was really supposed to be a bike. Who knows? Maybe I'll end up being a police hamster who's been put on "hamster wheel" duty because I'm "too much of a loose cannon" in the field. In improv there are no mis PROCESS· ANALYSIS takes, only beautiful happy accidents. And many of the world's greatest discoveries have been by accident. I mean, look at the Reese's Peanut 9 9 9 Butter Cup, or Botox. -TIN A FEY, Bossypants In a directive process analysis, you typically use the second-person pro noun (you) because you're giving instructions directly to the reader. Some HE essays in this chapter are examples of PROCESS ANALYSIS* or "how times the you is understood, as in a recipe: [you] combine the milk with Allegra Goodman, T to" writing. Basically, there are two kinds of process analysis: directive the eggs, then add .a pinch of salt and the juice of one lemon. In an P· 322, uses the and explanatory. A directive process analysis explains how to make or do second-person to explanatory process analysis, you typically use the third-person tell you how to be something-for instance, how to throw a boomerang. ("Bring the boomerang pronoun (he, she, it) because you're giving information about some- a good writer. back behind you and snap it forward as if you were throwing a baseball." thing to the reader: howstuffworks.com) An explanatory process analysis explains how something works; it tells you what makes the boomerang come back. The uneven force caused by the difference in speed between the two Both kinds of analysis break a process into the sequence of actions that wings applies a constant force at the top of the spinning boomerang . lead to its end result. In her sassy memoir Bossypants, for example, the comedian Like a leaning bicycle wheel, the boomerang is constantly turning to Tina Fey explains how to do improvisational comedy by breaking the process the left or right, so that it travels in a circle and comes back to its start into four basic rules. "The first rule of improvisation," Fey writes, "is AGREE-. ing point. Always agree and SAY YES." Then "add something of your own" (rule 2), con - howstuffworks.com tinue to make positive statements (rule 3), and treat all "mistakes" as "opportu nities" (rule 4). The end result of improvisational comedy, of course, is the audience's laughter. Here's an example of how Fey follows her own "rules" to achieve this end: If I start a scene as what I think is very clearly a cop riding a bicycle, but you think I am a hamster in a hamster wheel, guess what? Now I'm a hamster in a hamster wheel. I'm not going to stop everything to explain *Words printed in SMALL CAPITALS are defined in the Glossary/Index. Bring behind head, then snap forward 292 .. 294 Process Analysis Process Analysis .. 295 Sometimes a process is best explained by showing how it works, so you may (5) storing. When you plan an essay that analyzes a process, make a list of all the want to add diagrams or drawings to the written text. An analysis of how stages or phases in the process you are analyzing. Make sure that they are sepa to throw a boomerang, for example, might benefit from a clearly labeled rate and distinct and that you haven't left any out. When you are satisfied that diagram. your list is complete, you are ready to decide upon the order in which you will Most processes that you analyze will be linear rather than cyclical. Even if present the steps. the process is repeatable, your analysis will proceed chronologically step by step, The usual order of process analysis is chronological, beginning with the stage by stage to an end result that is different from the starting point. Consider earliest stage of the process (the culling of the split and rotten oranges from the this explanatory analysis of how fresh oranges are turned into orange juice rest) and ending with the last, or with the finished product (concentrated orange concentrate: juice in holding tanks). Notice that after they leave the conveyer belt, McPhee's oranges come to a fork in the road. They can go in different directions, depend ing upon what kind of juicing machine is being ·used. McPhee An early stage in As the fruit starts to move along a concentrate plant's assembly line, it is briefly follows the oranges into one kind of juicer and then comes becoming a man, first culled . Moving up a conveyer belt, oranges are scrubbed with says Jon Katz, detergent before they roll on into juicing machines. There are several back to the other. He has stopped time and forward motion for a p. 316, is learning . to show no fear. kinds of juicing machines, and they are something to see. One is called moment. Now he picks them up again and procee d s d own t h e 1me: the Brown Seven Hundred. Seven hundred oranges a minute go into it "from either machine, the juice flows on into a thing called the finisher" where it and are split and reamed on the same kind of rosettes that are in the is strained. From the straining stage, the orange concentrate goes into the fifth centers of ordinary kitchen reamers. The rinds that come pelting ou.t (and final) holding stage, where it is stored in large tanks. the bottom are integral halves, just like the rinds of oranges squeezed Another lesson to take away here: if the order of the process you are ana in a kitchen. Another machine is the Food Machinery Corporation's lyzing is controlled by a piece of machinery or other mechanism, let it work FMC In-line Extractor. It has a shining row of aluminum teeth. When for you. McPhee, in fact, lets several machines- conveyor belt, extractor, and an orange tumbles in, the upper jaw comes crunching down on it while finisher-help him organize his analysis. at the same time the orange is penetrated from below by a perforated Some stages in a process analysis may be more complicated than others. steel tube. As the jaws crush the outside, the juice goes through the Suppose you are explaining to someone how to replace a light switch.' You might perforations in the tube and down into the plumbing of the concentrate break the process down into six stages: (1) select and purchase the new switch; plant. All in a second, the juice has been removed and the rind has been crushed and shredded beyond recognition. (2) turn off the power at the breaker box; (3) remove the switch plate; (4) disc on From either machine, the juice flows on into a thing called the nect the old switch and install the new one; (5) replace the switch plate; (6) turn finisher, where seeds, rag, and pulp are removed. The finisher has a big the power back on. Obviously, one of these stages-"disconnect the old switch stainless-steel screw that steadily drives the juice through a fine-mesh and install the new one"-is more complicated than the others. When this hap screen. From the finisher, it flows on into holding tanks. pens, you can break down the more complicated stage into its constituent steps, - JoHN McPHEE, Oranges as McPhee does with his analysis of the production of orange juice concentrate. The most complicated stage in McPhee's process analysis is the third one, John McPhee divides the process ofmaking orange juice concentrate from fresh extracting. He breaks it into the following steps: (1) an orange enters the fruit into five stages: (1) culling, (2) scrubbing, (3) extracting, (4) straining, extractor; (2) it is crushed by the extractor's steel jaws; (3) at the same time, the 296 P. Process Analysis Process Analysis · 297 orange is "penetrated from below by a p~rforated steel tube"; (4) the extracted by step, from beginning to end, is much like the twisting and turning of the juice flows on to the next stage of the process. All of this happens "in a second," PLOT in a NARRATIVE. Like plot in narrative, a process is a sequence of events says McPhee; but for purposes of analysis and explanation, the steps must be or actions. You are the NARRATOR, and you are telling the exciting story of presented in sequence, using such TRANSITIONS as "when," "while at the same how something is made or done or how it works. Also as with a narrative, you o II H 11 ° d JJ "f t1me, a 1n a secon , rom ... to," "next," and "then." will want your process analysis to make a point so the reader "The Pizza Plot," McPhee's process analysis is explanatory; it tells how orange juice concen knows why you're analyzing the process . and what to expect. p. 342, combines trate is made. When you are telling someone how to do something (a directive narrative and When Tina Fey analyzes how to do improv, for example, she is Process analysis- Jeffrey Skinner uses process analysis), the method of breaking the process into steps and also careful to explain that "the rules of improvisation appealed but not to tell how to make pizza. t his kind of process stages is the same. Here's how our analysis of how to change a light analysis to explain to me not only as a way of creating cqmedy, but as a worldview." how to write switch might break down the most complicated step in the process, You may simply conclude your story with the product or end result of the poetry, p.