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  • How To Analyse PDF

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    How To Analyse PDF

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    Andre Gordon

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    2 Charren! will differentiate analytical writing from the other forms you may often be called upon to do: argument, summary, and personal expression. What Is Analysis and How Does It Work? To analyze something i to ask what that something means, I st ak How topeting does what it des or why itis ast Anais the ind of thik ing youll most often be asked to do in your work and in school ts not the toefied and exclusive province of scholars and intelectual enact, tne ofthe most common of out mental aces Ifo example, you hind yourself eng followed bya large dog your fst response ther tan breaking int cold sweat, wl eto analyze the situa tons What does being followed by a age dog mca forme, her, now? Does itmean the dog stows and about to atack? Does mean the dog i cusious and wants to play Simla iyou ae losing agin of tenis or You've fst Teta fob tnervew oryou ae looking aa palstng of x woman with three noses, you wil begin {o analyze. How cant play dierentyto Increase my Chance of winning? Am Likely to get the Jo, and why (or why not? Why Ghd the att gve te woman hee noses? As these examples sugges, most people already analyze all he tne, but they often dont realize tat tsa what they're dog. Ait step, the, toe wrod becoming a better analytical thinker and witr sto become more aware of Jour own thinking proeses, buldng on sls hat you erendy posses, and ei Mtg habs ta er th way Tovar tis en, heat ive moves 10 Prac tee consul, ive aves people engage in when they analy, Move I: Suspend Judgment “This fist move, suspending judgment, Isa singulaly difficult thing for most people to do, As tie paycllogis Catl Rogers and others have argued, our habitual tendency isto evaluate. Walking out of a movie, for example, most people will immediately voice their approval or disapproval, usually in either/or terms: I liked itor didn't lke it; it was rght/wrong, good/bad, ineresting/boring. The other people in the conversation will then offer their ‘own evaluation plus thei judgment of the others” judgments: | think that it "was a good movie and that you are weong,to think itwas bad. And so on. “There ate several problems with this kind of rellex move to evaluation. Such comments, because they ae so general, really don't say much of sigafic cance about the subject. The fact that you ike or dd lke a movie probably 5293 more about you—your tastes, interests, biases, and experiences —than it does about the movie. And although you might go on to substantiate your judgment, saying that you thought the leading man was miscast or the dia logue too long-winded, these futher comments tend to be motivated more by Your deste to defend your position than by your desire to understand what the film was trying to accomplish. When people leap to judgment, they Writing and Thinking Analytically 3 Usually land in the mental pathways they've grown accustomed to traveling, {guided by family or friends or popular opinion, Moving through these path. ‘ways can become so automatic that thinking stops. f you can break the eval. ation reflex and press yourself to analyze before judging a subject, you will ‘often be surprised at how much yous initial responses change. _ Asa general rule, you should seek to understand the subject you are ana- lyzing before moving to a judgment about it. Try to figure out what your subject ‘means before deciding how you feel about it. Move 2: Define Significant Parts and How They're Related ‘Whether you are analyzing an awkward social situation, an economic prob- Jem, a painting, a substance in a chemistry lab, or your chances of succeeding in a job interview, the process of analysis is the same: += Divide the subject into its defining parts, its main elements or Ingredients + Consider how these parts are related, both to each other and to the subject asa whole. Inthe case of the large dog, you might notice that he's dragging a leash, hasa ballin his mouth, and is wearing a bright red eat, Having broken yous lniger subject into these defining pats, you would try to see the connection mong them an eine what hey en, what thy allow yout ee about the nature ofthe dog: appaenly somebody’ lst pt, play, probabh ‘not hostile, unlikely to bite me. " Pet payieh Dy ¥ Analysis the painting ofthe woman with thee nossa subject more ke the hind you might be asked to write about in a college course, would proceed in the same way. You result—ideas about the nature ofthe panting would be determined, as with the dog, not only by your noticing is various pars, but also by your familiarity with the subject you Knew Ihe abut a MStOy, Scrutiny ofthe painting’ pacts would not tl you, for instance, tha I example ofthe movement known 3s Cubism. Even without ths context, how, ‘ver, You would stil be able to daw soni analytical conclusions~ideas about the meaning and nature ofthe subject. You might conclude, fr example, hat te artist is interesed in perspective or inthe way we see a opposed eal Aedeplctons ofthe wore One common denominator ofl effective anal wring is that it close attention to detail We analyz because ou global responses, t0 4 ply, for example, orto a specch ora cial problem, ae too general you Comm ment on an ene football game, you'l tind yoursl saying things Uke “great fame,” which isa generic resposte, something you could say about alert Anything. This “onesie-fitall” kind of comment doesnt telus ey mach {xcept that you probably Ike the game. In oede to Say more you world ase, essay become more analycal—shiting yout attention tote sigicane of some important aspect ofthe game, suchas "they won because he offensive 4 Charren | line was giving the quarterback all day to find his receivers” or “they lost be- ‘cause they couldn’t defend agains the safety blitz." "This move {10m generalization to analysis, from the larger subject to its dy components, is characteristic of good thinking, To understand a subject, wwe need to get past our frst, generic, evaluative response in order to discover ‘what the subject Is “made of,” the particulars that contribute most strongly to the character of the whole. Ifall that analysis did, however, was to take subjects apart, leaving them broken and scattered, the activity would not be worth very much. The student ‘who presents a draft of a paper to his or her professor with the words, “Go ‘ahead, rip it apart,” reveals a disabling misconception about analysis—that, like dissecting a frog in a biology lab, analysis takes the life out of its subjects. Clearly, analysis means more than breaking a subject into its parts. When you analyze a subject you ask not just "what is it made of?” but also “how do these parts help me fo understand the meaning ofthe subject as a whole?” A good analy- sis seeks to locate the life ofits subject, the ideas that energize it Move 3: Make the Implicit Explicit ‘A definition of analytical writing to which this book will etuen repeatedly is ‘that it makes explicit (overtly stated) what Is implicit (suggested but not overtly stated) in both your subject and your own thinking. This process of converting suggestions into direct statements is essential to analysis, but it is also the fea- tute of analysis least understood by inexperienced writers. They fear that, like the emperor's new clothes, implications aren't really "there," but are instead the phantasms of an overactive imagination. "Reading between the lines” Is the ‘common and telling phrase that expresses this anxiety. We will have more to ‘say against the charge that analysis makes something out of nothing—the spaces between the lines—rather than out of what is there in black and white. ‘But for now, let's look at a hypothetical example of this process of drawing cout Implications, pausing first to offer a couple ot detinitions. Ine process of

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