Overview

The word 'analysis' is actually very simple in meaning. It means to break something into its component parts, to see how it is put together. Still, for many students, it is a mystery word, a process that is something like an old-fashioned hamburger grinder. You put the meat in one end, and it comes out all chopped up on the other end. What happens in between the ends can sometimes seem mysterious, especially if a student is trying to get a handle on just what it is.

Analytical reports call on you to answer questions, to ask why something happens, which product is the best, or is an idea good. Analytical reports call for research, interpretation and recommendation. And when you work within particular professional contexts, analysis often means very specific things involving your particular skill set and expertise.

If you are writing a professional analysis from within your profession, you will very likely be called upon to apply a particular methodology to conduct your analysis. That, for you, is your meat grinder. A civil engineer is called on to analyze a situation to properly ventilate a room containing chemical fumes. Federal standards require the room air to change completely X number of times in an hour for the workers who must work in the room. The civil engineer uses certain professional skills to analyze the room dimensions, fan capacity, possible sites for fan placement, etc. Those are the parts that the problem is broken down into according to the expertise of that field.

More than any other type of technical writing, analytical reports call on you to use critical thinking skills. They require you to analyze a problem, to analyze the work that has been done before on that problem, and to recommend a solution. Analytical reports also call for self-criticism and objectivity on your part to come to the best possible solution.

They also require a frame of reference, if not a full-blown professional research methodology based in a discipline. It is difficult to conduct an analysis without expertise in something. On the other hand, many people have expertise they didn't know they had. A group of first year students in a laptop computer pilot program were called on to analyze and write a report evaluating the program. They argued that they were only first year students and knew nothing about the program. But they were indeed experts. They had used their laptops and participated in the program for an entire year. They were the people most suited to conduct the analysis of the program.