Writing Analytically, 6th Edition - Rosenwasser, David & Stephen, Jill [84]
APPLY A READING AS A LENS
This final section of the chapter shows how to apply a reading to other material you are studying. Using a reading as a lens means literally looking at things as the reading does, trying to think in its terms.
As with using a reading as a model, when you use a reading as a lens, you first need to separate its analytical method from the particular argument to which it leads. Not that the argument should be ignored, but your emphasis rests on extracting the methodology in order to apply it to your own analytical ends. For example, you can learn a lot about looking at spaces from one of Mike Davis’ urban studies articles on the relocation of the homeless in Los Angeles without necessarily focusing on either L.A. or the homeless. Most college campuses, for example, offer significant opportunities to observe the manipulation of public space either to encourage or deter use by certain populations.
Your first goal when working with a reading as a lens is to fully explore its usefulness for explaining features of your subject. Of course, the match between lens and new material will never be perfect. Thus, you need to remember that whenever you apply the lens A to a new subject B, you are taking lens A from its original context and using its ideas in somewhat different circumstances for at least somewhat different purposes. Using the lens in a different context on a different kind of information will often require you to adjust the lens—to refocus it a bit to bring this new content into clear focus.
Let’s say, for example, that you read a smart review essay on the representation of black/white race relations in contemporary films in the 1970s, and you decide to use the review as a lens for exploring the spate of black/white buddy films that emerged in the 1990s.
“Yes, but …,” you find yourself responding: there are places where the 1990s films appear to fit within the pattern that the article claims, but there are also exceptions to the pattern. What do you do? What not to do is either choose different films that “fit better” or decide that the article is wrong-headed. Instead, start with the “yes”: talk about how the film accords with the general pattern. Then focus on the “but,” the claims in the reading (the lens) that seem not to fit, or material in your subject not adequately accounted for by the lens.
Because cultural climates and trends are constantly shifting and reconfiguring themselves, particularly in popular culture, you will learn from examining the films how the original review might be usefully extended to account for phenomena that were not present when it was originally written.
Using a Reading as a Lens: “Self-Deprecation on Late Night Television”
The following student paper by Anna Whiston was a culminating project for a firstyear seminar. The assignment was to use concepts from two books by sociolinguist Deborah Tannen—You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation and That’s Not What I Meant: How Conversational Style Makes or Breaks Relationships— to explore a conversational topic of the student’s choice, in this case, conversations among male celebrities on late night talk shows. The essay won an award at our college for best writing by a first-year student. The faculty reviewers praised the essay for its analytical depth, its respect for complexity, and its sophisticated use of secondary sources as lenses.
Throughout the essay, the writer deliberately seeks out evidence that might initially seem to contradict theories supplied by her lens. But rather than finding fault with the lens or dismissing the apparent contradictions, she deftly locates the complexity in Tannen’s thinking and in her