W1.sat.Journal | About (how to develop) Ideas

***copied from "Chapter 3 - Argument," Let's Get Writing

Arguments of Interpretation

Arguments of interpretation come mainly in the form of critical analysis writing.  Scholars and students use critical analysis to understand a text more deeply; therefore, it is common in disciplines in which texts are the main objects of study—literature, philosophy, and history.  However, we can also think of critical analysis as any analysis where someone takes raw data—from texts, from objects and images, from laboratory experiments, from surveys of people—and analyzes that data to come up with what they mean.  The “what it all means” is an interpretation.  The argument in critical analysis writing is the interpretation of the data.  This must be a logical interpretation with the data also used to support the interpretation through reasoning and examples.

The guidelines for analyzing data are determined by the experts in those areas.  Scholars of the life, earth, and physical sciences; the social sciences; and the humanities gather all sorts of different data. When writing up an interpretation of that data, writers and researchers should follow the models and standards provided by experts in those fields of study.  In college, professors are important sources of these models and standards.

In the humanities, particularly in literature, there are generally four ways (or perspectives) for analyzing a text: writing from the perspective of a reader, writing as if the text were an object of study, writing about or from the perspective of an author, and writing about where a text fits into a particular context.

• • Writing from the perspective of a reader: You seek to understand a text through your own experience, yet you also try to understand how others who may be different from you understand the same writing through their experience. This is characterized by noting down first impressions and lines or words that strike you in profound ways.  This sort of analysis is common in journal or response paper assignments and can be a simple way to begin a discussion of a text.

• • Writing about the text as an object of study: This is a perspective that highlights what makes up that text and what meaning we can find in it. Finding meaning relies on identifying the patterns, segments, and strategies (devices) in the writing you choose to analyze.  This is one of the most common types of essay assignments in a literature class.

• • Writing about the text’s author: Sometimes this provides another perspective with which to deepen an understanding of a piece of writing. Examining his or her life, thought processes, behaviors, and beliefs can help you to further understand an author’s work.  This type of analysis can be the basis of a research paper on a work of history or literature.

• • Writing about the text’s context: This approach usually has to do with how a text compares to other texts as well as how the text interacts with history and society.  When historians analyze texts, studying context is crucial, but contextual analysis can also be the focus of a literature essay.

The process of critical analysis is dependent on close reading of the data or text and is an analytical process in which the writer moves from analyzing the details of the text to a broader conclusion that is logically based on those details.  What can confuse a lot of students is that formal essay structure is must be framed by the conclusion, not the details: They must establish the main claim immediately, and then use the reasons for the claim to organize the details in each body paragraph.  For more on close reading, see Chapter 1, “Critical Reading.” Links to an external site.

Figure 3.8 “From Analysis to Argument”