Chapter Guide

• Chapter Objectives
• What is an Analysis?
• How to Write an Analysis
• What is Analyzing Visual Media?

• To carefully define the rhetorical strategy of analysis, showing how different the strategy is to synthesis studied in previous chapters.
• To provide a demonstration of an analysis.
• To guide students through the steps of using analytical principles, formulating a thesis, developing an organizational plan, and drafting/revising their essays.
• To introduce students to an innovative new approach to analysis: analyzing visual media.
• To provide several writing assignments to help students practice these principles.

Chapter 6 is very careful to point out the differences between synthesis and the analytical tool of analysis presented here. You will be guided in how to determine what analytical tool to use and how to apply it to an article. You will also be introduced to a new strategy fast becoming popular in academia: analyzing visual media.

What is an Analysis?

An analysis is an argument in which you study the parts of something to understand how it works, what it means, or why it might be significant. The writer of an analysis uses an analytical tool, a principle, or a definition, to divide and examine the parts of an object, event, or behavior.

Analysis is used to help you (or your readers) probe an object (or event/behavior) with questions and to observe patterns and relationships in the object so that you can derive a more significant understanding of it. Analyzing an object is like putting on a pair of eye glasses and seeing the object in a new light. The analytical tool you use to asses the object functions like the glasses, and there can be as many different analytical tools as there are persons who analyze the object.

A good analysis causes your reader to say "Wow, I never thought of ____ that way." You as the writer have offered them a new perspective with which to see an object which may already be familiar to them. The insight you present them with depends entirely on the analytical tool you choose to apply to the object.

To analyze means to break something down into parts to better understand it as a whole, an activity we engage in daily. It is an essential element of academic inquiry. We analyze things, or critically examine them, to identify their key elements, as well as their causes, or (if they constitute an action of some sort) their possible results. In addition, analysis does not simply ask you to break things down and describe them, but to go further and state what the information arrived at through analysis means.

Purpose. Your purpose in an analysis is to convey your idea, your insight, which you discovered about an article or piece of fiction when you applied your analytical tool to it. It will be the power of your purpose that will reveal to the audience objects or events that they might not have otherwise considered.

Locate an Analytical Principle. When beginning your analysis assignment you will first want to employ one of two different reading strategies in order to determine the analytical tool or principle you will use to analyze the work:

• Look for a sentence that makes a general statement about the way something works. It can be a rule, a law, or a conclusion that you will use to guide your analysis.
• Look for a statement that takes this form: "X" can be defined as (or consists of) the following: A, B, and C. You will then use the specific elements of the definition to analyze your subject.

An essential part of your analysis is to make sure your insights or conclusions about the piece are indeed valid and accurate once you apply the analytical tool you have chosen.

Formulate a thesis. An analysis is a two-part argument. The first part states and establishes the writer's agreement with a certain principle or definition (Principle "X" (or definition "X") is valuable).

The second part applies the specific parts of your principle or definition to the topic (By applying principle (or definition) "X," we can understand). Therefore, the second part, which identifies your topic and your conclusion regarding the topic, is your thesis.

Develop an Organizational Plan. You will want to turn key elements of your analytical principle or definition into questions and then develop the paragraph-by-paragraph logic of the paper. By developing questions based on the definition or principle you are going to apply, and then directing these questions to the object to be studied, you prepare a straightforward method for your analysis.

For example, when outlining the plan for the drafting of your essay, you will first state, as clearly as possible, the principle or definition to be applied. You will then divided the principle or definition into its parts and apply the analytical tool to the object. This introductory portion will later become the introduction and thesis of your essay.

Next, through the questions you have developed for each part of the analytical tool, you will identify and examine the meaning of each part in relation to the object. This detailed analysis will create the body of your essay when you are ready to draft.

Drafting and Revising. When drafting your essay, keep the following points in mind:

• Write an analysis, not a summary. Although summary is a natural part of the analysis paper because you are summarizing parts of the piece and the principle or definition applied, you must take the next step and share your insights into the significance of the piece's meaning.
• Make your analysis systematic. Your essay must present a systematic, purposeful examination of the object. It must apply the principle or definition systematically throughout the entire object and not to a portion of it.
• Answer the "so what" question. Remember as we stated above, a good analysis has laid the object bare; it has discussed in revealing ways its significance. The reader should be saying "Wow, I never thought of ____ that way" when they finish reading your analysis.
• Attribute Sources Appropriately. Your work with analysis only uses one or two sources (unlike the synthesis which incorporates several sources). It can be easy to overlook citing your sources appropriately because much of the essay is derived from your application of the principle. Just remember when quoting, summarizing, or paraphrasing examples/evidence to support your analysis, you will need to cite your sources.

What is Analyzing Visual Media?

Quickly becoming more popular in academia is the subject of visual literacy-that is the ability to read and understand visual artifacts, such as paintings, architecture, film, graphic arts, and even Web design. Academic disciplines are also interested in their students' abilities to analyze various forms of visual media, such as advertising.

Visual literacy involves analyzing the object from a variety of angles, such as cultural studies, literary studies, and American studies. Scholars in these fields are interpreting the messages of advertisement for high cultural value (art and literature) and popular culture value.

Because this field is quickly attracting the attention of the academic world, your text has created an assignment centered around analyzing visual media.