Done. Ma'muraxon

Done.Ma'muraxon

Alysis is a critical thinking skill you use quite often, in academic as well as professional and everyday reading and writing. You may analyze the argument in a text or article, the benefits of a business proposal, and/or the ideas offered in a news editorial or television news commentary. Analysis helps determine the quality of the information you read by extracting and examining different aspects of that information.

Reading to Analyze
Analytical reading starts with finding and understanding a main idea, and then considers the validity of that main idea by studying its parts, to see how logically those parts fit together. As the American Heritage Dictionary states, analysis is “the separation of an intellectual…whole into constituents for individual study.” Analysis essentially takes apart the whole text and examines how the parts relate to one another to make up the text’s ideas and content, in order to determine the quality of the ideas and content.

There are four main parts to a text that you may analyze, and multiple sections within each part.

Content
Language
Purpose
StructureAnalytical Reading Process Reading a text for the purpose of analysis usually requires you to read that text more than once. Upon a first reading, take note of characteristics to investigate further. Do you agree or disagree with certain ideas? Did you react to certain phrases? How do the ideas in the text relate to your own experience? Application of reading skills such as previewing, annotating, note-taking, and summarizing all help you note characteristics that you may want to investigate further as they promote your ability to understand the text. Understanding is the basis for analysis. Fuller analysis happens after a first reading, when you delve into the text more completely, asking and answering specific questions about its parts. Ask and answer three basic questions as a starting point for analyzing a text: What is the main idea? What is the author’s purpose? What additional pieces of the text should I question more fully (content, language, structure), based on the author’s purpose? Main Idea Always start by identifying the main idea of the text that you have read. What is the one thing that the author wants you to understand after reading the text? The main idea may be stated directly in the text, or it may be implied, in which case you need consider the text carefully in order to identify its main idea. Purpose Once you identify the main idea, identify the purpose in order to determine how/whether to analyze the text. If the purpose is to persuade or logically argue, you always need to analyze the text to see if the main idea is justified, and to see how the supporting ideas, language, and structure relate to the main idea. Persuasion and argument need to present logically valid information to make the reader agree intellectually (not emotionally) with the main idea. If the purpose is to inform or explain, you usually need to analyze the text, since the text needs to present valid information in objective language to meet its purpose of informing (as opposed to persuading) the reader. You may analyze the text in terms of its structure as well, since information placement can influence its importance and how that information is perceived. If the purpose is to entertain, then you may or may not need to analyze the text for its content. Writing that entertains does not necessarily have to be either logical or complete in order to accomplish its purpose. You may want to analyze the text for language, though, to see how an author uses language to accomplish her purposeAdditional Questions for Analysis When you decide to analyze a text, and when you determine the pieces (content, language, structure) on which to focus the analysis, ask and answer additional analytical questions. Questions to analyze content: Is the information mostly fact, opinion, or a combination of both? Is the type of information appropriate to the purpose and main idea? Is the support relevant to the main idea – does it relate to and enhance the main idea? Is the support logical? Does supporting evidence come from trusted, valid sources? Is there enough support to verify the main idea and supporting ideas? Does the support consider and deal with an opposing viewpoint if there is a significant opposing viewpoint? For example: If the text’s main idea is that new work-at-home policies need to become standardized within specific professions, the support needs to include many different reasons why, and each reason why should have its own supporting evidence. Just offering one reason with its accompanying evidence, that standardization would increase employee retention, is not sufficient support in itself. and: In the argument about work-at-home policies, does the support acknowledge what’s good about previous and current practices? Note that strong support acknowledges and then logically explains away any opposition simply by offering stronger logical evidence on one side than the other. Questions to analyze language: What do the words imply/connote and how do the words influence the reader’s understanding of the main idea? Are the author’s tone and general point of view intended to sway the reader to a certain way of thinking about the main idea?Questions to analyze structure:

Why is certain information placed as it is within the text? How does that placement emphasize or de-emphasize the information?

How does the order of information align with the text’s main idea and purpose?
These questions are a starting place for text analysis. Note that more questions may occur to you based on the specifics of the text.

TRY IT

Read the article, “Why Aren’t Governments as Transparent as They Could Be?” Then ask and answer the following analytical questions based on this article.

Basic Analytical Questions

What is the main idea?
What is the author’s purpose?
What additional pieces of the text should I question more fully (content, language, structure) based on the author’s purpose?
See how one reader answered these basic analytical questions
Questions to Analyze Content

Is the information mostly fact, opinion, or a combination of both? Is the type of information appropriate to the purpose and main idea?

Is the support relevant to the main idea–does it relate to and enhance the main idea?
Is the support logical?
Does supporting evidence come from trusted, valid sources?
Is there enough support to verify the main idea and supporting ideas?
Does the support consider and deal with an opposing viewpoint if there is a significant opposing viewpoint?
See how one reader answered questions to analyze content
Questions to Analyze Language

What do the words imply/connote and how do the words influence the reader’s understanding of the main idea?

Are the author’s tone and general point of view intended to sway the reader to a certain way of thinking about the main idea?Questions to Analyze Structure

Why is certain information placed as it is within the text? How does that placement emphasize or de-emphasize the information?

How does the order of information align with the text’s main idea and purpose?Writing to Analyze
If you were writing an analysis based on the article “Why Aren’t Governments as Transparent as They Could Be?,” your next steps might be to review the answers to the analytical questions above and develop a unique insight or argument based on those answers. You would not have to deal with all of the items noted; based on your answers, you might create your own insight or assertion about the language used, the quality of information, the idea about having a stronger argument if it were focused on either local or federal government, or one of many other possibilities. Or you might want to analyze the article as a whole piece and touch on content, language, and structure in his analysis.

The video below discusses both reading and writing to analyze.

In more general terms, analytical writing uses the same whole-parts concept as analytical reading. You offer your overall judgment of/argument about the whole, or a portion of, the article’s quality as your main idea or thesis. You then group and organize the parts that you are analyzing. You may want to focus on mapping or outlining as you prewrite for an analytical essay, since both mapping and outlining help you picture and understand the relationship between your own main idea and its supporting parts. Note that you usually create groups dealing with content (type of information, amount of information, logical problems with information), language (inference, tone, point of view), and/or structure (placement of information, emphasis of information via placement) when you analyze the quality of a text.

Like analytical reading, analytical writing focuses on the relationship between the thesis, supporting ideas, and the language and order in which they are expressed. A reader should be able to analyze any piece of college writing that you do, apply the analytical reading questions and process, and (hopefully!) determine that your ideas and information are logically valid and of good quality.

You will be asked to analyze in many different ways in college. For example, you may be asked to analyze a company’s marketing strategy. You may be asked to analyze the results of a sociological survey. You may be asked to analyze the causes of fire-related behavior. You may be asked to analyze the validity of a policy decision. You may be asked to analyze an author’s use of symbol in a literary work. No matter what type of analysis is assigned, you will be expected to judge the whole text or a portion of the text based on your understanding and questioning of its parts and their relationship to the whole.
As a middle school English teacher I’ve spent countless hours reading novels, short stories, poetry, and beyond with my students. We read for content, we read for meaning, we read for literary devices, we read for themes, we read for countless reasons.

With each new work of literature we read, we try to extract the story’s lesson, its central message, its theme.

If you’ve found yourself in the same position my students often find themselves, grappling to understand an abstract idea like symbolism, you’ve come to the right place. If you read on, you will be able to understand the following principles of writing a symbolism essay:

Defining symbolism.

The different types of symbolism.
The function of symbolism in literature.
Components of a symbolism essay.
How to Write a Symbolism Essay: Defining, Identifying, and Analyzing Symbols
One of the many ways we arrive at a work’s meaning is through an analysis of the literary devices employed by writers. When we get to our study of symbolism, students like you have no trouble understanding the overarching idea of symbolism. However, independently identifying and analyzing symbolism in a passage can be mind-boggling.

One of the easiest and most relatable examples I use to teach symbolism is the American flag. Concretely, it’s a rectangular piece of fabric with red and white stripes and white stars upon a navy blue background.

Symbolically, however, the flag means so much more. It represents our freedom, patriotism, the thirteen original colonies, the 50 states, liberty, justice, our independence from Great Britain, and so much more.

Easy peasy, right? You get it just like my students get it! But when they have to apply the idea of identifying symbolism in literature, they’re totally lost.

In trying to help my students recognize symbolism I’ve visited countless forums, blogs, university websites, and beyond to try to strategize ways to make the concept clearer. What it comes down to is, as with any other assignment, you have to be willing to do the work to conceptualize symbolism.

To be good a analyst of symbols, you need to truly understand what a symbol is. So let’s start in the same place I start with my own students: defining symbolism. After that, I’ll tell you how to write a symbolism essay.

Symbolism Defined
In short, symbolism is the literary device that refers to the use of words, colors, objects, people, locales, or ideas that represent an idea beyond itself.
If you’ve ever read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby,” try to recall how frequently he references the color green. Green is widely accepted as symbolic of greed and money. In the novel, green represents the protagonist’s belief that he has to earn and maintain great wealth to win the heart of the object of his affection.

Symbolism calls on readers to make the connection between recurring objects, colors, words, etc., and their intended meaning. Ask yourself, is green just a descriptive word that modifies a noun? Or is there more to it than that? If, as a reader, you can attach greater significance to that recurring element, you’ve likely just identified symbolism.

In this helpful video, an Oregon State University professor discusses ways to recognize symbolism in literature.
He provides some really great examples to further aid students like you in identifying recurring objects that are likely symbolic.

3 Types of Symbolism in Literature

Although how we define symbolism has not fluctuated over time, the types of symbolism writers use, have. With that being said, the three most commonly used types of symbolism are as follows:

1. 
   Religious Symbolism
   

Probably the most widely recognized type of symbolism, religious symbolism refers to objects or ideas that have sacred, spiritual, or holy significance. For instance, in Christianity, the Crucifix is literally the wooden cross upon which Jesus Christ lost his life, but spiritually it represents God’s sacrifice for the salvation of humanity.

In Buddhism, a Lotus on its surface is a beautiful flower, while symbolically the stages of the flower’s budding represent Buddha’s awakening and a Buddhist’s spiritual growth.

Religious symbols have been used by writers throughout the ages to allude to the conflicts, settings, etc. That characters endure in the plot of a story.

For example, in William Golding’s “The Lord of the Flies,” the story’s setting, a utopian island with temptation at every turn, religiously symbolizes the Garden of Eden. Much like the boys on the island who are unable to regulate their desires without social order, the Garden of Eden is absent of authority which leads its occupants to their own devices.

2. 
   Romantic Symbolism
   

Romantic symbolism refers to those objects correlated to expressions of love. Love has been a topic for many novels and poems. Romantic symbols are those objects, words, colors, etc. That so emblematically express and signify love.
Sonnet 130” for instance, the speaker compares his mistress’s cheeks to the color of a rose and her scent to the fragrance of a rose. Red roses are commonly accepted as a symbol of love; through the speaker’s comparison of his mistress to the rose, the reader understands, that although it’s not implicitly stated, the rose represents his love for her. Ergo, romantic symbolism.

3. 
   Emotional Symbolism
   

Good writers use figurative language to hint at the emotions and feelings characters experience rather than coming right out and saying it. Doing so is what makes literature engaging and entertaining.Emotional symbols represent particular sentiments. Like when someone raises a clenched fist it represents political solidarity as in the Black Lives Matter Movement. The fist is just a fist, but depending on the circumstances in which it’s raised, it may carry this much deeper meaning.

The Effect of Symbolism in Literature

Rarely are fictitious stories written purely for the reader’s enjoyment. Like your literature teachers have likely told you, good fiction writers teach a lesson or moral or recreate some significant conflict from which you, the reader, are called upon to recognize the importance.

By including literary devices like symbolism, writers create layers of meaning beyond the prosaic. Symbols demonstrate and reveal themes, lessons, morals, and significance better than just outright saying them.