HOW TO CREATE

ANALYSIS
How to Analyze different texts
Analysis Overview
◦ In writing about literature or any specific text, you will strengthen your discussion if you offer specific
passages from the text as evidence. Rather than simply dropping in quotations and expecting their
significance and relevance to your argument to be self-evident, you need to provide sufficient analysis of
the passage. Remember that your over-riding goal of analysis writing is to demonstrate some new
understanding of the text.
How Can I Analyze a Text?
◦ Read or reread the text with specific questions in mind.
◦ Marshal basic ideas, events and names. Depending on the complexity of book, this requires additional
review of the text.
◦ Think through your personal reaction to the book: identification, enjoyment, significance, application.
◦ Identify and consider most important ideas (importance will depend on context of class, assignment,
study guide).
◦ Return to the text to locate specific evidence and passages related to the major ideas.
◦ Use your knowledge following the principles of analyzing a passage described below: test, essay,
research, presentation, discussion, enjoyment.
Principles of Analyzing a Passage
◦ Offer a thesis or topic sentence indicating a basic observation or assertion about the text or passage.
◦ Offer a context for the passage without offering too much summary.
◦ Cite the passage (using correct format).
◦ Then follow the passage with some combination of the following elements:
◦ Discuss what happens in the passage and why it is significant to the work as a whole.
◦ Consider what is said, particularly subtleties of the imagery and the ideas expressed.
◦ Assess how it is said, considering how the word choice, the ordering of ideas, sentence structure, etc., contribute to
the meaning of the passage.
◦ Explain what it means, tying your analysis of the passage back to the significance of the text as a whole.
◦ Repeat the process of context, quotation and analysis with additional support for your thesis or topic
sentence.
When Analyzing Written Text
◦ When you analyze an essay or article, consider these questions:
◦ What is the thesis or central idea of the text?
◦ Who is the intended audience?
◦ What questions does the author address?
◦ How does the author structure the text?
◦ What are the key parts of the text?
◦ How do the key parts of the text interrelate?
◦ How do the key parts of the text relate to the thesis?
◦ What does the author do to generate interest in the argument?
◦ How does the author convince the readers of their argument’s merit?
◦ What evidence is provided in support of the thesis?
◦ Is the evidence in the text convincing?
◦ Has the author anticipated opposing views and countered them?
◦ Is the author’s reasoning sound?
When Analyzing Visual Text
◦ When you analyze a piece of visual work, consider these questions:
◦ What confuses, surprises, or interests you about the image?
◦ In what medium is the visual?
◦ Where is the visual from?
◦ Who created the visual?
◦ For what purpose was the visual created?
◦ Identify any clues that suggest the visual’s intended audience.
◦ How does this image appeal to that audience?
◦ In the case of advertisements, what product is the visual selling?
◦ In the case of advertisements, is the visual selling an additional message or idea?
◦ If words are included in the visual, how do they contribute to the meaning?
◦ Identify design elements – colors, shapes, perspective, and background – and speculate how they help to convey the visual’s
meaning or purpose.