Description

ENGLISH 1101 ESSAY 3: WRITING TO ANALYZE  All papers must have a title, and they must be typed and double spaced with Times New Roman 12 pt. font.  All papers must contain the information detailed in the procedure section of these guidelines.  Your completed essay should be 3 pages. Description: To analyze is to examine something carefully to determine how all of its parts work together as a whole. Analysis also suggests a degree of critical reflection or a sense of evaluation and judgment. Some might understand “being critical” as a tendency to point out flaws; however, being critical more accurately means careful evaluation or scrutiny. Critical analysis is a process of thoroughly examining something while becoming aware of details and how they relate to one another. Analysis is a central part of critical thinking and problem solving. Procedure: An analytical essay means you will need to present some type of argument, or claim, about what you are analyzing. Most often, you will have to analyze another piece of writing or a film, but you could also analyze an issue or an idea. To do this, you must break the topic down into several parts and provide evidence, either from the text/film or from your own research that supports your claim. 1. Select a text—a film, a book, an essay, a website, a video game, a song, a social issue, or an idea. Examine it carefully. 2. Make sure that your topic is something that you are interested in writing about. 3. Then conduct a thorough content and rhetorical analysis of the text. Once you feel comfortable with your analysis and your understanding of the text, you are now ready to explain the text you selected. For example, “Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining uses a repeating motif of Native American culture and art to comment on America’s history of colonizing Native Americans’ lands” is an analytical thesis. It is analyzing a particular text and setting forth an argument about it in the form of a thesis statement. Pick a type of analytical essay. Here’s the central focus for various topics: Analyzing a short story or a work of fiction: You could focus your argument on what motivates a specific character or group of characters. Or you could argue why a certain line or paragraph is central to the work as a whole. Analyzing a film: You can choose one of the following:  What is a motif that appears in various parts of the film? What does it mean?  Who is a central character in the film? What does he or she represent? What is different about this character and all others in this film?  How does location play an important role in the film? Analyzing a historical event: Try focusing on the forces that contributed to what happened. Analyzing scientific research or findings: Follow the specific scientific method to analyze your results. Analyzing a website: Describe the website. What does it represent? What is a specific item of interest? How do visuals either enhance or complicate this website? Why does this site exist? Analyzing a social issue: For example, let us look at white privilege. What is white privilege? How and why was this term created? What are the main issues pertaining to this idea? Does most of the population understand this concept or is most of the population blind to it? What are some examples that demonstrate that white privilege exists?