Writing Analytically, 6th Edition - Rosenwasser, David & Stephen, Jill [24]
HEURISTICS
1. Notice and Focus + Ranking
(select a few details as most important: What do you find most “Interesting” or “Strange”?)
2. The Method: Looking for Patterns of Repetition and Contrast
(organize details into groupings based on similarity or opposition)
3. Asking So What?
(make the leap from observing X to querying what X means)
4. Paraphrase × (times) 3
(recast the key words in new language to question what they mean)
5. Identifying a “Go To” Sentence
(locate the sentence shape a writer habitually uses; then ponder how that shape reveals the writer’s habitual ways of seeing)
Note: these heuristics are not formulae for organizing papers. They are “thinking moves” designed to produce higher quality material that will eventually go into an essay or argument or report. The heuristics lend themselves to group work, to collaborative thinking, as well as individual work. The best way to get good at these observation and thinking skills is to try them out repeatedly with other writers. In Unit II, you’ll be invited to put them to work in writing papers and other kinds of assignments.
1. NOTICE AND FOCUS + RANKING
RULES OF NOTICE & HABITS OF MIND: SLOW DOWN
Not “What do you think?” &
Not “What do you like or dislike?”
but
“What do you notice?”
A few prompts:
What do you find most INTERESTING?
What do you find most STRANGE?
What do you find most REVEALING?
The activity called Notice and Focus guides you to dwell longer with the data before feeling compelled to decide what the data mean. Repeatedly returning to the question, “What do you notice?” is one of the best ways to counteract the tendency to generalize too rapidly. “What do you notice?” redirects attention to the subject matter itself and delays the pressure to come up with answers.
Start by noticing as much as you can about whatever it is you are studying. Next, narrow your scope to a representative portion of your evidence, and then dwell with the data. Record what you see. Don’t move to generalization, or worse, to judgment. What this procedure will begin to demonstrate is how useful description is as a tool for arriving at ideas. If you stay at the description stage longer, deliberately delaying leaps to conclusions, you are more likely to arrive at better ideas. Training yourself to notice will improve your memory and your ability to think.
Step 1: Cast a wide net by continuing to list details you notice. Go longer than you normally would before stopping—often the tenth or eleventh detail is the one that will eventually lead to your best idea.
Step 2: Focus inside what you’ve noticed. Rank the various features of your subject you have noticed. Answer the question “What details (specific features of the subject matter) are most interesting (or significant or revealing or strange)?” The purpose of relying on interesting or one of the other suggested words is that these will help to deactivate the like/dislike switch of the judgment reflex and replace it with a more analytical perspective.
Step 3: Say why three things you selected struck you as the most interesting (or revealing or significant or strange). Saying why will trigger interpretive leaps to the possible meaning of whatever you find most interesting in your observations.
Discussion Let’s pause a moment to ponder the key words in step 2: interesting, revealing, strange. What does it mean to find something interesting? Often, we are interested by things that have captured our attention without our clearly knowing why. Interest and curiosity are near cousins. To say that something is interesting is not the end but the beginning of analysis: then you figure out what is interesting about this feature of your subject and why.
The word strange is a useful prompt because it gives us permission