Writing Analytically, 6th Edition - Rosenwasser, David & Stephen, Jill [42]
4. Analyze an Image in Relation to Text. The Adrian Tomine New Yorker covers that we referred to in Try This 2.3 could produce a good short paper. You could do The Method on the two covers in order to write a comparative paper. Or, you could do The Method on the Tomine cover called “Double Feature” and the two paragraphs from “The End of Solitude” above, and write about them comparatively. (Note: the entire article is available online.)
What do you think Tomine’s cover says about the issues raised in “The End of Solitude” by William Deresiewicz? How might Tomine see the issues differently? And how might Deresiewicz interpret Tomine’s cover, and so what?
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Chapter 3
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Analysis: What It Is and What It Does
NOW THAT YOU HAVE acquired an overview of the study of writing (Chapter 1) and an acquaintance with some essential tools for doing analysis (Chapter 2), it is time to focus in on the process of analysis itself—how a writer uses these tools to produce better, smarter, more interesting thinking on the page.
This chapter defines analysis as the search for meaningful pattern. It asks how something does what it does or why it is as it is. Analysis is a form of detective work that typically pursues something puzzling, something you seek to understand rather than something you believe you already know. Analysis finds questions where there seemed not to be any, and it makes connections that might not have been evident at first. Analysis is, then, more than just a set of skills: it is a frame of mind, an attitude toward experience.
A. Five Analytical Moves
At the heart of this chapter are what we call the Five Analytical Moves. These represent our attempt to present a template for the analytical frame of mind.
Move 1: Suspend judgment (understand before you judge).
Move 2: Define significant parts and how they are related.
Move 3: Look for patterns of repetition and contrast and for anomalies (aka The Method).
Move 4: Make the implicit explicit (convert to direct statement meanings that are only suggested—make details “speak”).
Move 5: Keep reformulating questions and explanations (what other details seem significant? what else might they mean?).
We have seized upon analysis as the book’s focus because it is the skill most commonly called for in college courses and beyond. When asked in faculty writing seminars to talk about what they want from student writing, faculty say that they want students to be able to arrive at ideas about information, rather than merely report it (neutral summary) or try to match information with personal experience. Control of information matters; engagement with the information also matters, but neither extreme is enough. Analysis occupies the middle ground between these two extremes.
What Faculty Seek in Student Writing
Metacognition
The word metacognition means thinking about thinking. The first step in improving as a writer is to press yourself to become more aware of your own thinking, not just what you think—your “database” of customary convictions—but how you think. Interestingly, most of us don’t pay much attention to how we think. It just happens. Or does it?
An obstacle in learning to think well is that we are accustomed to being rewarded for having answers. This was the view advanced by one of America’s greatest metacognitive philosophers, John Dewey, in his book How We Think (1933, rev. ed.). Dewey:
located the origin of thinking in uncertainty and doubt;
worked to understand understanding—the meaning-making process; and
defined thinking as “systematic reflection and inquiry.”
In this context, let’s now return to the five analytical moves in more detail. These will add to the repertoire of observation and interpretation strategies you learned in Chapter 2—enhancing your ability to engage