TOPIC 1: ANALYSIS – Draft

Summarization and analysis are skills which may overlap. However, when you analyze a piece you are taking a step to making the material your own. You will still need to read a complete article by someone else, but in writing about it, you organize it using your own ideas.

Example – For instance, an article about the Civil Rights movement may be a narrative written in chronological order. It could start with events which occurred in 1951 and then proceed to events which occurred year-by-year until it reaches 1965. In your analysis, you could reorganize the specific facts and events into other categories. The outline could begin with “I. Immediate causes”, then proceed to “II. Important people”, and then “III. Media coverage”. The point is that the new organization is that of the writer of the Analysis paper, not the organization of the author of the article.

After completing the your new outline, fill in your analysis paper with the appropriate details and ideas from the article. The article should again be focused on the subject of your research, but once again, it probably will but does not have to appear in your final research essay.

Assignment:

ANALYSIS: Draft of Paper Two

In the summary, you first determined an author’s organization and then used it to summarize an article. In this paper, the task changes. Devise a structure other than the author’s, and then impose it on the article.

Inevitably analysis overlaps with and involves summary as well. However, with analysis more than merely relating other’s material is required. For analysis, completely take apart an article, then use a new organization or system to put it back together again. This new organization should provide an insight (or insights) into the article for your reader.

This is the key to effective analysis. The major goal is to provide access to a chosen piece of writing by stating in your own words the ideas which will give your reader a particular slant on the article. These ideas will be what you have analyzed to be the central themes of the article, or at least the themes important to you.

The organization becomes a key part of analysis. After putting your own ideas about the article in an outline form, you will find plugging appropriate sections of the article into your ideas a much easier step.

TOPIC 2: Analysis & Citations

When you use material from a different source for your essay, you need to indicate to the reader what material in your essay has been gathered from a source, and what page numbers of the source the material was borrowed from. The standardized way of doing this quickly and efficiently is to use in-text, parenthetical citations.

We will use the in-text citation guidelines created by the Modern Language Association, called MLA guidelines. A similar set of guidelines, also in your text, was created by the American Psychological Association, called APA guidelines. Generally, the MLA method of citation is used for papers in English and the Humanities, and APA guidelines are used for papers in the Social Sciences. There are even other methods, such as the University of Chicago guidelines. Footnotes, once the nearly universal method, are even still preferred by some professors and editors.

For research for English 102, use the MLA method of in-text citations.

Readings:

from Writing Research Papers,

pages 171-197.

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Assignment:

Complete a final draft of your analysis paper. When you refer to new information from the article, include in your essay an in-text citation with the page number from the article. A more detailed description of what information to cite is in the text on pages 144-146. However, the rule of thumb for a research paper such as this is if the information is new to you, then cite it.

Remember, information does not have to be quoted verbatim in order to need a citation. Rather, any new information, even without quotation marks, needs to be cited.

As described in the text (see above Readings), if you have not mentioned the author’s name, then the author’s last name should be included in the in-text citation along with the page number. – example: (Weidenborner 147) If there is more than one author, see the text for further special rules.

Even though in most cases there will only be one work listed, your citations require you to include a “Works Cited” page with your paper. The format and necessary material about the publication you used is also in the text.

Create a title for your essay which is appropriate to your analysis of the material. Generic title such as “Analysis Paper” or “Analysis of ” will lose points in the evaluation of your essay.

Finally, complete a final editing process for your short, analysis essay. Again, use the score sheet on the following page to check your essay for each item listed.

Include a complete photocopy of the article with your draft.

Be sure to include a “Works Cited” page, a formal outline, and the score sheet printed on the next page with your essay.