Writing Analytically, 6th Edition - Rosenwasser, David & Stephen, Jill.original_ [178]
If this is so, then biography does not provide a repository of unshakeable facts from which to interpret an author’s work. Greenblatt criticizes the fact that the methods of literary interpretation are applied just to art and not to life. As he observes, “We wall off literary symbolism from the symbolic structures operative elsewhere, as if art alone were a human creation” (Begley 37). If the line between art and life is indeed blurred, then we need a more complex model for understanding the relationship between the life and work of an author.
In this example, the writer shows us how her thinking has been stimulated by the source. At the end of the first paragraph and the beginning of the second, for example, she not only specifies what she takes to be the meaning of the quotation but also draws a conclusion about its implications (that the facts of an author’s life, like his or her art, require interpretation). And this manner of proceeding is habitual: the writer repeats the pattern in the second paragraph, moving beyond what the quotation says to explore what its logic suggests.
Strategy 2: Attend Carefully to the Language of Your Sources by Quoting or Paraphrasing Them
Rather than generalizing broadly about ideas in your sources, you should spell out what you think is significant about their keywords. In those disciplines in which it is permissible, quote sources if the actual language they use is important to your point. Generally, disciplines in the humanities expect you to quote as well as paraphrase, while in the social sciences, students are encouraged to paraphrase, not quote.
Quoting and paraphrasing has the benefit of helping writers to represent the views of their sources fairly and accurately. In situations where quoting is not allowed— such as in the report format in psychology—you still need to attend carefully to the meaning of keywords in order to arrive at a summary or paraphrase that is not overly general. As we have suggested repeatedly, paraphrasing provides an ideal way to begin interpreting because the act of careful rephrasing usually illuminates attitudes and assumptions implicit in a text. It is almost impossible not to have ideas and not to see the questions when you start paraphrasing.
Another reason quoting and paraphrasing are important is because your analysis of a source will nearly always benefit from attention to the way the source represents its position. Although focusing on the manner of presentation matters more with some sources than with others—more with a poem or scholarly article in political science than with a paper in the natural sciences—the information is never wholly separable from how it is expressed. If you are going to quote Newsweek on Pakistan, for example, you will be encountering not “the truth” about American involvement in this Asian nation but rather one particular representation of the situation—in this case, one crafted to meet or shape the expectations of mainstream popular culture. Similarly, if you quote President Bush on terrorism, what probably matters most is that the president chose particular words to represent—and promote—the government’s position. It is not neutral information. The person speaking and the kind of source in which his or her words appear usually acquire added significance when you make note of these words rather than just summarizing them.
Strategy 3: Supply Ongoing Analysis of Sources (Don’t Wait Until the End)
Unless disciplinary conventions dictate otherwise, analyze as you quote or paraphrase a source, rather than summarizing everything first and leaving your analysis for the end. A good conversation does not consist of long monologues alternating among the speakers. Participants exchange views, query,