In English...and in English class, please tell us...
WHAT EXACTLY IS "ANALYSIS?"
What is analysis?
Analysis is way of thinking wherein you take something and examine its parts to arrive at conclusions about the way it works. Some random examples:
1) Dissecting a frog
2) Breaking a math problem down into its parts to solve the problem
3) Writing the parts to a song (on paper or using technology)
4) Diagramming a sentence
5) Examining a criminal's motives for murder
6) Considering the elements of an work of art and how it was made or written
When you say the word "analysis," you may think of science and logic. And that's certainly true--analytical thinking is based in a scientific method of taking a whole thing (like a frog) and looking at all its parts (like dissecting the frog) for the sake of learning something about it or understanding something related to it (like how it's respiratory system works or how a disease works on certain tissues).
But unless you just happen to get a kick out of that sort of thing, you may find yourself wondering WHY we do it.
What is the purpose of analysis?
This is the good part, because now it gets personal: By understanding how things work, whether it's an animal or song or a story, we improve our personal talents.
What personal talents do we improve through practicing analytical thinking?
Other than becoming stronger overall thinkers, some specific talents improve as we build analytical skills:
1) Problem-solving skills
2) Understanding cause-effect
3) Creative ability
These talents are important in any pursuit.
Let's say you weight about 98 pounds and want to become the next great athlete. To do that you have to 1) Find the best SOLUTION to that PROBLEM given your age, gender, and diet. . .2) Understand your natural abilities paired with what actions will CAUSE you to find the right sport and, in EFFECT, not lead you to waste your time. . . 3) Know enough how about the sport has been played and is being played so that you can do something NEW, something interesting, something that will get you noticed.
The problem
Because analysis is "scientific," many students have another word to describe analysis-based work: BORING. And sure, analysis can be boring--but so can anything. I've seen movies that were non-stop explosions and I was bored because those movies weren't creative, and neither were the explosions. That's the fault of the people who made the movie. And the same is true with analysis reading and writing--if it's boring its because the author made it that way.
It's true that analysis takes work. And it involves reading--which we must be good at in the information age or we get LEFT BEHIND.
It's also true that sometimes, just to make sure we're honest, we have to report just the facts. But, at least in my class, part of our job is to make the facts interesting. We get to play with the facts. We get to use the facts to argue, and arguing is fun. We get to turn the facts over and show the underbelly.
What's more, in this class, facts are a beginning that we never leave behind--but facts ARE just a beginning. We get to have opinions and use our imaginations to communicate our feelings based on the evidence we see. Explaining HOW we see the facts is a special kind of analysis called interpretation. This is what artists, musicians, writers all do. They break things down into parts (analysis) to create new things, to make their own personal versions of things they love.
Two kinds of logic
DEDUCTION:
When you use analysis to break down the facts and relate them to conclusions based entirely on the facts, it's called DEDUCTIVE logic, and requires basic logical thinking skills:
Example from a crime story:
Charlie was nowhere to be found when Sheila was killed. Charlie was discovered to have Sheila's blood under his fingernails and on a hunting knife that belongs to Charlie. Also, one of Charlie's hairs was found on Sheila's sweater. Sheila and Charlie did not know each other previously. DEDUCTIVE CONCLUSION: Charlie killed, or helped kill, Sheila. This case is closed. Charlie is a murderer.
INDUCTION:
When you use the details and conclusions to come to a hypotheses (educated guess) that is outside of the facts and includes personal experience, it's called INDUCTIVE logic, and requires both logical thinking skills and imagination, experience, and wisdom:
Continuing the above example:
Continuing our investigation, we found some strange details. Sheila's father and Charlie look a lot alike. Sheila's father was abusive when Sheila was a child. Sheila's medical records reveal years of hospitalization for violent outbursts against male co-workers in the same age range as Charlie, who is approximately the same age as Sheila's father when the abuse took place. There is evidence of a violent struggle at the scene of the crime--which, oddly, is not Sheila's apartment but Charlie's house. INDUCTIVE CONCLUSION: Charlie may have killed Sheila in self-defense after Sheila followed him home and attacked him. This case is far from closed.
As you can see, INDUCTION leads us to far more interesting roads, and it involves intellectual analysis used ALONG WITH intuition, instinct, personal experience, and imagination.
So there you have it. That's my introduction, but you should always get two sides of any story so make sure to read the following information from the University of Richmond website:
http://writing2.richmond.edu/writing/wweb/analysis.html
We will be going back to this site, as it contains just about everything we'll need this year when it comes to writing analytically--from the brainstorming to the writing process itself.