analysis it sounds hard but it's actually pretty simple hi there it's great to have you here if you do much writing in school chances are that you'll end up doing some kind of analytical writing you might be doing a rhetorical analysis or a literary analysis or who knows what else kind of analysis the point is that analysis is a common type of analytical writing and it can be tricky at first because it requires a different kind of attention or discipline when compared to other things like research writing instead of going out into the world and finding sources while doing research analysis requires focused attention to detail you think deeply and thoughtfully about a single thing rather than going out and collecting information from a lot of different places and because that kind of focused attention is unfamiliar to a lot of people at first it can be hard to know where to get started with analysis the good news though is that analysis is fairly simple and it really just involves answering three questions what so what and how do you know today I want to show you how to answer those questions and write a really fantastic analytical paper but before we do that I think it's worth spending some time to get on the same page about what the goal of analysis really is at its most basic analysis is a process of explaining how something works by breaking it down into its individual parts and then explaining the role that each piece plays in contributing to that object's overall purpose so for example we could analyze a pen by pulling apart its separate pieces and then explaining how each piece contributes to the Pen's overall purpose which of course is to write and here we can see a pen broken down and ready for our analytical Insight you have the barrel this piece houses all the internal stuff but it also gives you something to hold on to and it makes the pen look nice from the outside the cap keeps ink from leaking all over the place when you aren't using the pen and of course the clip lets you clip your pen onto something like a pocket for convenient Transportation moving into the center you have the nib that's the part that transfers ink to paper allowing a person to write there's the grip which a person holds while writing and the converter which holds ink so that you can keep writing without having to dip your pen in an Inkwell every six letters if our goal is to analyze the pen and explain how it works we can identify each individual piece and explain how that piece contributes to the overall purpose of writing and at its most basic that's what analysis is of course it's not likely that you'll be writing a paper in which you analyze something as simple as a pen rhetorical and literary text can get kind of complex but the basic process of analysis Remains the Same and like I mentioned it happens in three easy steps [Music] the first step of analysis is to document the individual pieces of the thing you're analyzing break it down cut it up separate its individual components our goal is not to see the pen but to see the individual working pieces of the pen when you answer the question what you're telling your readers what you notice that it's important to be as specific as possible remember we're looking for details and the more specific those details are the more convincing your analysis will be so for example if you wanted to say something about an author's word choice don't just say the author uses a lot of scientific and Technical language that might be true but it doesn't really show readers the actual details and it doesn't specifically answer the what question in order to do that it would be more effective to say something like the author uses scientific and Technical words like lysis hydrophobic and mitochondria see how this sentence provides more specific details that's what we're after when we're doing analysis be detailed be specific and be thorough row I've yet to see a writer be too specific but I've seen countless writers not be specific enough of course your job is not just to list every specific detail that you notice more than likely you'll have limited space to write your analysis and a bulleted list of every specific detail by themselves would be pretty uninformative and kind of boring so as you prepare to write your analysis you'll want to focus on the most significant details in the thing that you're analyzing you aren't going to be able to talk about everything so you'll need to draw your reader's attention to the most important things and in order to do that you might Begin by looking for patterns in the thing that you're analyzing are there things that the Creator or author does consistently if so those patterns might point you to the most significant details or there might be places where the author violates their patterns and does something unusual these are also a likely place to find significant details whatever the object you're analyzing remember that your job is to explain how the overall object functions so focus on the details that contribute the most to that purpose for example when we were talking about the pen we focused most on the details that help the pen to function we didn't spend a lot of time talking about aesthetic decorations or colors because our objective was to explain how the pen works not how it looks so think about the overall purpose of your analysis analysis and then focus on the details that contribute the most to that purpose and again be as specific as possible [Music] but identifying specific details is of course only part of the job anyone can take apart a pen or notice details in a poem or advertisement but an analyst goes one step further by explaining the significance of those details to their readers by showing them how those details work so again we didn't just point out the nib of the pen we explained that the nib transfers ink from the pen to the paper helping the pen to do its job of writing so when you identify important details on the thing that you're analyzing the next step is to spend some time explaining how those details contribute to the object's overall purpose for example how do the scenes in an advertisement of a car racing through the forest motivate the viewers to go by that car or how does the rhyme pattern in a poem contribute to the poet's feeling of Joy often I'll see less experienced analysts only partially explain the significance of the details often they'll say what they mean but they don't go as far as to explain how they work to contribute to the purpose of the object for example they might say something like the author uses scientific and Technical words like lysis hydrophobic and mitochondria these words show that they know about science this isn't bad writing but it's only part of the analytical job remember the question now is so what why do these Details Matter it's true that they show that the author is knowledgeable but why does that matter so what this analysis could go a step further by saying something like the author uses scientific and Technical words like lysis hydrophobic and mitochondria these words show that they are knowledgeable a move that prompts readers to trust them and believe their message see how this sentence goes a step further and explains why those Details Matter in terms of the object's overall purpose the words are not just a demonstration of the author's knowledge they have a purpose one of getting readers to trust the author or you could say something like the Rhythm in this poem a mix of trokies and dactyls evokes the feel of nursery rhymes and then go on to explain why that pattern Matters by saying this Rhythm complements the nostalgic tone of the poem bringing readers back to their childhood again don't just point out the details and don't explain them in isolation show your readers why those Details Matter by explaining how they work and how they contribute to the overall purpose of the thing you're analyzing and it's worth remembering that how you answer the so what question will depend on the kind of analysis that you're doing for example if you're doing rhetorical analysis and let's be honest why would you want to do any other kind the purpose of your analysis will be to explain the significance of those details in terms of how they motivate the audience to do what the author wants them to do and finally once you've spent some time to identify the details and explain their significance it's important to show your readers how you know that your analysis is in fact valid this step gets us back to one of the primary purposes of academic writing your readers don't just want to know what you know they want to know how you know it they want to see where your knowledge comes from and how you got it so take a little time to explain the logical steps that you took to interpret the details in the way that you did If This Were a math problem I'd be telling you to show your work put your thought process on the page so that your readers can see it so going back to our sample analysis if we read this we could say that's fine this is what you know but how do you know it what leads you to believe that the nursery rhyme rhythm is nostalgic or evokes childhood you could show your work or make that thought process explicit by saying something like this the Rhythm in this poem a mix of trokies and dactyls evokes the feel of nursery rhymes nursery rhymes are a common fixture in early childhood literature so the poet's use of those rhythms brings back reader's memory of the nursery rhymes they learned as children thereby enhancing the nostalgic tone of the peace now I understand that this might feel like a little bit of a tedious process but remember that you've spent a good long time analyzing this object and your readers haven't what may feel obvious to you might not be so obvious to them so make sure that your readers get it by taking the time to explain your thought process show your readers how you know something and you'll make it much more likely that they understand your analysis in the way that you intend your job as an analyst is to show your readers the things that they might Overlook and to make the implicit explicit so even if you're reasoning for how you know feels obvious say it explicitly so that nobody can miss it so even if how you know something feels like it would be obvious say it explicitly so that nobody can miss it now before we quit I just want to show you a real life example of academic analysis so that you can see how it works in the wild and also to show you that I'm not making this stuff up so here's part of an analytical paragraph that I wrote when I was finishing up PhD School the focus of this paragraph is to analyze a physics girl video and to explain how she communicates her ethos or her Persona to her audience with some minor adjustments to include information that shows up elsewhere in the paragraph we can see answers to all three questions in this one passage what do we notice well we get a good list of specific details from the video so what we get a description of what those details contribute to the Creator's overall Persona that's why those Details Matter and how do I know well the paragraph concludes with an explanation of how those details contribute to the purpose of constructing an authoritative but relatable persona it's as easy as that even for someone working on a PhD so see you're already doing real serious academic work work and all it takes is answering three simple questions also just as a reminder you do need to answer these three questions probably in just about every paragraph that you write but you don't need to answer them in the same order every time as you can see in the paragraph we just talked about I answered those questions in a different order and that's totally fine as long as the pieces are there you'll be in good shape so that's it for today like I said in the beginning analysis can be a little tricky at first because it's a different kind of skill compared to the research papers that we might be more used to writing but the reality is that analysis is easy peasy you just have to answer three simple questions and you don't even have to go to the library or the library website to find the answers before you go let me know if you have any questions or if there's some other writing topic that you'd like me to talk about my goal is to be helpful to you so don't be shy about letting me know how to do that best in the meantime we're always talking about writing and how to make it more effective and meaningful so I hope you'll stick around to see some of the other things that we've already talked about either way though thanks for spending this time with me happy analyzing and I'll see you next week foreign [Music]