Writing Analytically, 6th Edition - Rosenwasser, David & Stephen, Jill.original_ [57]
It follows that the character of the speaker (ethos) in an analysis will serve to create a more collaborative and collegial relationship with readers than might be the case in other kinds of writing.
Classical rhetoric thought of the impact that writers/speakers had on audiences in terms of three categories: logos, pathos, and ethos. These categories are very useful, especially as you go about trying to construct a written version of yourself that will allow you to succeed and grow as a college writer. The word logos (from Greek) refers to the logical component of a piece of writing or speaking. Pathos refers to the emotional component in writing, the ways it appeals to feelings in an audience. Ethos will be familiar to you as a term because of its relation to the word ethics. In classical rhetoric, ethos is the character of the speaker, which is important in determining an audience’s acceptance or rejection of his or her arguments.
Much of this book is concerned with the logos of academic writing, with ways of deriving and arguing ideas in colleges, universities, and the world of educated discourse. Ethos matters, too. The thinking you do is hard to separate from the sense the audience has of the person doing the thinking. In fact, the personae (versions of ourselves) we assume when we write have a formative impact on what we think and say. Ethos is not just a mask we assume in order to appeal to a particular audience. The stylistic and thinking moves prescribed by the ethos of particular groups become, with practice, part of who we are and thus of how we think and interact with others.
Eventually, college writers need to learn how to adopt different self-presentations for different academic disciplines. The acceptable ethos of a Chemistry lab report differs in significant ways from the one you might adopt in a Political Science or English paper. For present purposes, we’ll note that the ethoi of most analytical writing across the curriculum share certain significant traits:
nonadversarial tone—is not looking for a fight
collaborative and collegial—treats readers as colleagues who are worthy of respect and who share your interest
carefully qualified—does not making overstated claims
relative impersonality in self-presentation—keeps focus primarily on the subject, not the writer
ANALYSIS VERSUS SUMMARY: THE EXAMPLE OF WHISTLER’S MOTHER
One of the most common kinds of writing you’ll be asked to do in college, other than analysis, is summary. Summary differs from analysis, because the aim of summary is to recount, in effect, to reproduce someone else’s ideas. But summary and analysis are also clearly related and usually operate together. Summary is important to analysis because you can’t analyze a subject without laying out its significant parts for your reader. Similarly, analysis is important to summary because summarizing is more than just copying someone else’s words. To write an accurate summary, you have to ask analytical questions such as:
Which of the ideas in the reading are most significant? Why?
How do these ideas fit together? What do the key passages in the reading mean?
Summary Is a Focused Description
Like an analysis, an effective summary doesn’t assume that the subject matter can speak for itself: the writer needs to play an active role. A good summary provides perspective on the subject as a whole by explaining, as an analysis does, the meaning and function of each of that subject’s parts. Moreover, like an analysis, a good summary does not aim to approve or disapprove of its subject: the goal, in both kinds of writing, is to understand rather than to evaluate. (For more on summary, see Chapter 7, Making Common Topics More Analytical, and Chapter 5, Writing About Reading.)
So, summary, like analysis, is a tool of understanding and not just