What is a text?
A text can be any written material: a poem, story, novel, memoir,
or essay, for example. A text also can be pictorial. Scholars
can analyze advertisements, posters, paintings, illustrations,
works of art.
Why analyze it?
When you analyze a text, you give it meaning beyond what the text tells you directly.
What is analysis?
A text can be summarized: that is, you can extract the main points
of an argument or condense the plot of a story. When you summarize,
you essentially report about the contents of the text. But when
you analyze a text, you ask questions about it so that you can
offer an interpretation of the text.
Analysis is the breaking down of something into its component parts. When that something is a text, the reader is examining different aspects of the text. In a play, for example, the reader might look at the plot, the themes, the characters, the setting, the dialogue. In a poem, the reader might look at theme, imagery, language (word choice), voice (who is speaking - the poet or someone else), rhythm, structure.
How do you find a thesis?
Read the text more than once. What interests you about it? What
seems odd, unexpected, troubling? Start writing down questions
you might ask about the text. Evaluate the questions as you write,
checking the ones that seem more interesting or those that relate
to one another. Look for patterns among your questions; these
patterns will help you to discover what interests you about the
text. Your questions might help you find a thesis (that is, a
idea that you can assert about the text and discuss by referring
to specific details of the text).
Here are some general questions that you can use as a model to formulate specific questions about a specific text:
Your analysis should be placed in some context of its own.
...Give your reader a sense of the significance of your analysis:
How does your analysis enhance your reader's consideration of
this text?
All contents Copyright © The Writing Center,
Barker Center 019, Cambridge, MA 02138.