What is analysis?

Remember that there are many “possible” meanings to a text.  There are no “right” answers so analysis involves making guesses and taking intellectual risks.  Here are some general guidelines about analysis from the book Writing Analytically by David Rosenwasser and Jill Stephen:

 “Analysis is a search for meaning. To analyze something is to ask what that something means.  It is to ask how something does what it does or why it is as it is” (1).

            “Analysis is 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 understand the meaning of the subject as a whole?’” (3).

            “Analyzing differs from judging.  As a general rule, you should seek to understand the subject you are analyzing before moving to a judgment about it” (3).

            “Analysis makes the implicit explicit.  [One] definition of analytical writing. . . is that it makes explicit (overtly stated) what is implicit (merely suggested) in both your subject and your own thinking” (4).

            “Analysis is a process of asking yourself questions.  Although the process of analysis always involves the same basic moves – determining the significant parts of a topic and how they are related – there is no set formula, no single set of steps for arriving at an analysis” (5).

Rosenwaser & Stephen suggest you begin an analysis by asking questions like the following (listed on pages 5-6):

q       Which details are significant and which aren’t?  Why?

q       What is the significance of a particular detail? What does it mean?

q       What else might it mean?

q       How do the details fit together? What do they have in common?

q       What does this pattern of details mean?

q       What else might this same pattern of details mean?  How else could it be explained?

q       What details don’t seem to fit?  How might they be connected with other details to form a different pattern?

q       What does this new pattern mean?  How might it cause me to read the meaning of individual details differently?

They go on to say that “the process of posing and answering such questions—the analytical process—is one of trial and error. Learning to write well is largely a matter of learning how to frame questions” (6).