6 Chapter 1 Fourteen Short Takes on Writing and the Writing Process Breaking Out of 5-Paragraph Form 7

• How to Think About Grammar and Style (Beyond ~rror-Catching) 3. Analysis begins in and values uncertainty rather than starting from settled
• A Quick.Word on Style Guides convictions.
• How to Think About Writing in the Disciplines 4. Analytical arguments are usually plurali~tic; they tend to tryon more than one
way of thinking about how somethi'ilg might be best understood.
• Academic vs. Nonacademic Writing: How Different Are They?
f
I
I
THINKING ABOUT WRITING AS A TOOL OF THOUGHT
Learning to write well means more 't han learning to organize information in appropri-
r WHAT DO FACULTY WANT FROM STUDENT WRITING?
Here is a list of faculty expectations based on what faculty across the curriculum say
ate forms and construct clear and grammatically correct sentences. Learning to,write
well means learning ways of using writing in order to think well.
I
~
at our seminars on writing:
• Analysis rather than passive summary, personal reaction and opinions
The achievement of good writing does, of course, require attention to form, • Analysis before argument, understanding in depth before taking a stand
but writing is not just a thing, a container for displaying already completed acts of
• Alternatives to agree-disagree & like-dislike responses
thinking-it 'is also a mental activity. Through writing, we figure out what things
mean, which is this book's definition of analysis. ' . • Tolerance of uncertainty
The book will make you much more aware of your own acts of thinking and • Respect for complexity
will show you how to experiment more deliberately with ways of having ideas-for , • Ability to apply theories from reading, using them as lenses
example, by sampling kinds of informal and exploratory writing that will enhance
your ability to learn. t
I
• Acquiring and understanding the purpose of disciplinary conventions
As the next few chapters will show, the analytical process is surprisingly formulaic. • Ability to use secondary sources in ways other than plugging them in as "answers"
It consists of a fairly limited set of basic moves. People who think well have these moves (' Overall, what faculty across the curriculum want is for students to learn to do
at their disposal, whether they are aware of using them or not. Analysis, the book things with cQurse material beyond merely reporting it on the one hand, and just
argues, is a frame of mind, a set of habits for observing and making sense of the world. reacting to it with personal response on the other. This is the crux of the issue that
Writing Antilytically addresses: how'to locate a middle ground between passive sum-
maO' and personal response. We call that middle ground analysis.
ANALYSIS: A QUICK DEFINITION To these expectations, we would add that the-ability to cultivate interest and curiosity
Just about all of the reading and writing you will do in college is analytical. Such writing is a great desideratum of faculty across the curriculum. They want students to under-
is concerned with accurate description and with thinking collaboratively (rather than stand that interest need not pr~cede writing; interest is more often a product of writing. ..,;-
combativelyLwith readers about ways of understanding what things might mean. The
problem is-that much of what we hear on television or read online seems to be primarily
devoted to bludgeoning other people into submission with argumentative claims. The BREAKING OUT OF 5-PARAGRAPH FORM
book's analytical methods provide a set of moves that derail more unproductive responses, The shift from high school to college writing is not just a difference in degree but a
such as agree/disagree, like/dislike, and other forms of gladiatorial opinion-swapping. difference in kind. The changes it requires in matters of form and style are inevitably
Chapter 2 offers the first set of methods, along with discussion of the counterpro- also changes in thinking. In order to make these changes in thinking, you may need to
ductive habits of mind they are designed to deflect. Chapter 3 defines analysis in detail "unlearn" some practices you've previously been taught. At the top of the unlearning
(in what we call the five analytical moves) and shows you how it operates differently list for many entering college students is 5-paragraph form-the rigid, one-size-fits-all
from other forms of thinking and writing. For now, we offer the following list on the organizational scheme that is still taught in many high schools.
goals of analysis and its identifying traits: If you have come to rely on this form, giving it up can be anxiety-producing. This
is especially so when you are asked to abandon an all-purpose form and replace it
Analysis Defined with a set of different forms for different situations. But it's essential to let go of this
particular security blanl<;et.
1. Analysis seeks to discover what something means. An analytical argument So, what's wrong with 5-paragraph form? Its rigid, arbitrary and mechanical
makes claims for how something might be best understood and in what context. organizational scheme values str\lcture over just about everything else, especially
2. Analysis deliberately delays evaluation and judgment. in-depth thinking.

David Rosenwasser and Jill Stephen. Writing Analytically, 6th ed (2012).

 Premature Leaps 43
42 Chapter 2 Toolkit of Analytical Methods I: Seeing Better, Seeing More

REACTING IS NOT THINKING

A lot of what passes for thinking is merely r~acting. Ask someone for a description of
Locate a sentence in something you have written. Reading for repetition will a place, a movie, a new CD, and see what you get: good/bad, loved it/hated it, couldn't
relate to it, boring. Responses like these are habits, reflexes of the mind. And they are
help you find a characteristic sentence shape. You might try looking for key
connecting words, such as "and" or "but" or "however" or "because" or for surprisingly tough habits to break. All of the tools in the toolkit seek to slow down
characteristic ways that your sentences begin and end. Remember that you are unthinking (reflex) reactions.
We live in a culture of inattention and cliche. It is a world in which we are
not looking for bad examples or to criticize your own writing. You're looking to
perpetually assaulted with mind-numbing claims (Arby's offers "a baked potato so
identify and understand the sentence shapes you rely on. This exercis!; is useful
good you'll never want anyone else's"), flip opinions ("The RepublicanslDemocrats
to do in small groups. When time allows, we like having students present their
are idiots") and easy answers ("Be yourself"; "Provide job training for the unemployed,
"go td' sentence and analysiS to the class.
'!~
and we can do away with homelessness"). We're awash in such stuff.
" &iIi:
On this note, we turn to a closer examination of four Of the most stubbornly
counterproductive habits of mind: (1) premature leaps, (2) the judgment reflex,
(3) generalizing, and (4) naturalizing assumptions (overpersonalizing).
B. Counterproductive Habits of Mind
Analysis, we have been suggesting, is a frame of mind, a set of habits for observing 1. PREMATURE LEAPS
and making sense of the world. There is also, it is fair to say, an anti-analytical frame
In a way, the premature leap is the most fundamental bad habit. The others-reflex
of mind with its own set of habits. These shut down perception and a~rest potential
judgments, generaliZing, and overpersonalizing-are all versions of leaping too
ideas at the cliche stage.
quickly to conclusions.
So far, you have been working through the solutions. For the rest of the chapter,
A classic example of the prem~ture leap is the one that inexperienced writers make to
we will spell out in more detail the problems. Here's a quick review of the solutions.
arrive at a thesis statement before they have observed enough and reflected enough to find
,.,.,.
one worth using. These writers end up clinging to the first idea that they think might serve
as a thesis, with the result that they stop looking at anything in their evidence except what
SOLUTIONS THE CHAPTER HAS OFFERED: they want and expect to see. Typically, they find themselves proving the obvious-some
Slow down: describe what you are studying; give yourself more too general and superficial idea. Worse, they miss opportunities for the better paper lurk-
chances to see what you think . ing in the more complicated evidence screened out by the desire to make the thesis "work:'
Start your thinking with the local rather than the global; trace You'll know you are becoming a more accomplished analytical writer when the
impressions back to causes; apply the heuristics meaning of your evidence star:ts to seem less rather than more clear to you, perhaps
eyen strange-and you don't panic. Then you will begin to see details you hadn't seen
Recognize and reject the reflex move to generalization and
before and a range of competing meanings where you had thought there was only one.
judgment
Assume you don't completely understand what you are studying;
look for questions rather than answers; invite rather than flee Make It Strange
uncertainty Making it strange rll-ther than trying to normalize what you see and read is a produc-
tive habit of mind. It opposes our more usual habit to quickly render things familiar
THE PROBLEM by locating them in comfortable and habitual categories. One purpose of writing,
as the writer David Lodge suggests, "is to overcome the deadening effects of habit
leaps to
by representing familiar things in unfamiliar ways." Defamiliarization is a term used
data (words, images, other detail) ---------> broad generalization
by artists, philosophers and psychologists to talk about the need to fight against the
deadening effects of habit. The man who coined the term defamiliarization, Victor
Shklovsky, wrote, "Habitualization devours works, clothes, furniture, one's wife, and
leaps to
the fear of war.. . . And art exists that one may recover the sensation of life" (David
data -----------> evaluative claims (like/dislike; agree/disagree)
,.,. ,. Lodge, The Art of Fiction. New York: Penguin, 1992, p.53).
 44 Chapter 2 Toolkit of Analytical Methods I: Seeing Better, Seeing More The Judgment Reflex 45

The following quotation from an article entitled "The Transition to College Walking out of a movie, for example, most people will immediately voice their
Reading" remarks on the need for de familiarizing in its account of students' approval or disapproval, usually in either/or terms: I liked it or didn't like it; it was
misunderstandings of readings: right/wrong, good/bad, interesting/boring,;The'<lther people in the conversation will
then offer their own evaluation plus their judgment of the others' judgments: I think
"I find that [students] are most inclined to substitute what they
it was a good movie and you are wrong to think it was bad. And so on. Like the knee
generally think a text shourd be saying for what it actually
jerking in response to the physician's hammer, such reflex judgments are made with-
says [.... ] They want to read every text as saying something
out conscious thought (the source of the pejorative term "knee-jerk thinking").
extremely familiar that they might agree with':
This is not to say that all judging should be avoided. Obviously, we all need to
Robert Scholes, "The Transition to College Reading:'
make decisions: whether we should or shouldn't vote for a particular candidate, for
Pedagogy, volume 2, number 2, Duke UP. 2002, page165.
instance. Analytical thinking does need to arrive at a point of view-which is a form of
What is interesting here is the idea that people actually substitute something they judgment-but analytical conclusions are usually not phrased in terms oflike/dislike
already think, their habitual frames of reference, for what is actually on the page. or good/bad. They disclose what a person has come to understand about X rather than
how he or she rules on the worth of X.
Get Comfortable with Uncertainty
Three Cures for the Judgment Reflex
To short-circuit premature leaps and see though the veil of familiarity, you'll need
to find ways of becoming more comfortable with uncertainty. In fact, it's a healthy • Neither agree nor disagree with another person's position until you can repeat
practice to assume you're missing something, always. Prepare to be surprised at how that position in a way the other person would accept as fair and accurate. Carl
difficult this can be. Why? Most of us learn early in life to pretend that we understand Rogers recommends this strategy to negotiators in industry and government.
things even when we don't. Rather than ask questions and risk looking foolish, we nod • Try eliminating the word "should" from your vocabulary for .a while. Judgments
. our heads. Soon, we even come to believe that we understand things when really we often take the form of should statements.
don't, or not nearly as well as we think we do. • Try eliminating evaluative adjectives-those that offer judgments with no data.
The nineteenth-century American poet Emily Dickinson, writes about this prob- "Jagged" is a d~s~ve, concrete adjective. It offers something we can experience.
lem in her poem that begins "Perception of an object/Costs precise the object's loss:' "Beautiful" is an evaluative adjective. It offers only judgment. Sometimes the
The point of the Dickinson poem is a paradox: when we think we understand some- concrete-abstract divide is complicated. Consider for example the word "green:'
thing, we in a sense cease to see it. Our idea of the thing has replaced the thing itself, aliteral color with figurative associations (envious, innocent, ecological, etc.).
producing a form of mental blindness-loss of the object.
By training yourself to be more comfortable with not knowing, you give yourself
license to start working with your material, the data, before you try to decide what you
think it means. Only then will you be able to see the questions, which are usually much The dividing line between judgmental and nonjudgmental words is often more
more interesting than the temporary stopping points you have elected as answers. difficult to discern in practice than you might assume. Categorize each of the
terms in the following list as judgmental or nonjudgmental, and be prepared
2. THE JUDGMENT REFLEX to explain your reasoning: monstrou~, delicate, authoritative, strong, muscu-
lar, automatic, vibrant, tedious, pungent, unrealistic, flexible, tart, pleasing,
In its most primitive form-most automatic and least thoughtful-judging is like an clever, slow.
on/off switch. When the switch gets thrown in one direction or the other-good/
bad, right/wrong, positive/negative-the resulting judgment predetermines and over-
directs any subsequent thinking we might do. Rather than thinking about what X is
or how X operates, we lock ourselves prematurely into proving that we were right to
think that X should be banned or supported.
It would be impossible to overstate the mind-numbing effect that the judgment Write a paragraph of description-on anything that comes to mind-without
reflex has on thinking. The psychologist Carl Rogers has written at length on the using any evaluative adjectives or adverbs. Alternatively, analyze and categorize
the adjectives and adverbs in a piece of your own recent writing.
problem of the judgment reflex. He claims that our habitual tendency as humans-
*" "
virtually a programmed response-is to evaluate everything and to do so very quickly.
46 Chapter 2 Toolkit of Analvtical Methods I: Seeing Better, Seeing More Naturalizing Our Assumptions (Overpersonalizing) 47

3. GENERALIZING
Vagueness and generality are major blocks to learning because, like the other habits of
mind discussed so far, they allow you to dismiss virtually everything you've read and Find a word above (more abstract) arid a:~ord below (more concrete) for each
heard except the general idea you've arrived at: What it all boils down to is . .. What of the following words: society, food, train, taxes, school, government, cooking
this adds up to is . .. The gist of her speech was .. . oil, organism, story, magazine.
Most of us tend to remember our global impressions and reactions. The dinner
was dull. The house was beautiful. The music was exciting. But we forget the specific,
concrete causes of these impressions (if we ever fully noticed them). As a result, we
deprive ourselves of material to think with-the data that might allow us'1 0 reconsider
our initial impressions or share them with others.
Often, the generalizations that come to mind are so broad that they tell us nothing. Make a list of the first 10 words that come to mind and then arrange them from
To say, for example, that the economy of a particular emerging nation is inefficient, most concrete to most abstract. Then repeat the exercise by'choosing key words
accomplishes very little, since the generalization could fit almost any economy. from a page of something you.have written recently.
hjiWi¥• .;ji'~i!i.'I'~i!d$aI;.j,Wfi.tiiJ&i!iliwil:$jl.:;!M'4'ri,*,;a"£i!.!li!~, . ,g,-t44.ti:Jim.%t."'\ilii
Take My Word for It?
Generalizing is not always a bad habit. We generalize from our experience because
this is one way of arriving at ideas. Summary writing, which you will do a lot of in 4. NATURALIZING OUR ASSUMPTIONS
college, is a useful form of generalizing. Summarizing materials helps you to learn and
(OVERPERSONALIZING)
to share information with others. It is surpfisingly difficult to break the habit of treating our points of view as self-
The problem comes when generalizations omit any supporting details. Consider for evidently true-not just for us but for everyone. The overpersonalizer assumes that
a moment what you are actually asking others to do when you offer them a generaliza- because he or she experienced or believes X, everyone else does, too.
tion such as "The proposed changes in immigration policy are a disaster:' Unless the What is "common sense" for one person and so not even in need of explaining
recipient of this observation asks a question-such as "Why do you think so?"-he or she can be quite uncommon and not so obviously sensible to someone else. More often
is being required to take .your word for it: the changes are a disaster because you say so. than not, "common sense" is a phrase that really means "what seems obvious to me
What happens instead if you offer a few details that caused you to think as you do? and therefore should be obvious to you:' This way of thinking is called "naturalizing
Clearly, you are on riskier ground. Your listener might think that the details you cite our assumptions:' The word naturalize in this context means we are represent-
lead to different conclusions and a different reading of the data, but at least conversa- ing-and seeing-our own assumptions as natural, as simply the way things are and
tion has become possible. ought to be.
Writers who naturalize their own assumptions tend to make personal experiences
Antidotes to Habitual Generalizing and prejudices an unquestioned standard of value. A person who has a nightmarish
experience in the emergency room may lead him to reject a plan for nationalized
• Trace your general impressions back to the details that caused them. This tracing
health care, but his writing needs to examine in detail the holes in the plan, not simply
of attitudes back to their concrete causes is one of the most basic and necessary
evoke the three hours waiting to get seen by a doctor.
moves in the analytical habit of mind. Train yourself to become more conscious
about where your generalizations come from (see the Five-Finger Exercise at the
end of Chapter O.
• Think of the words you use as steps on an abstraction ladder, and consciously climb
down the ladder from abstract to concrete. "Mammal:' for example, is higher on Take a day to research just how pervasive a habit of mind naturalizing assump-
the abstraction ladder than "cow:' A concrete word appeals to the senses. Abstract tions is in the world around you. Start listening to the things people say in
words are not available to our senses of touch, sight, hearing, taste, and smell. everyday conversation. (Lunch lines are a choice site for a little surreptitious
"Peace-keeping force" is an abstract phrase. It conjures up a concept, but in an overhearing.) Or read some newspaper editorials with your morning coffee
abstract and general way. "Submarine" is concrete. We know what people are talking (a pretty disturbing way to start the day in most cases). Jot down examples of
about when they say there is a plan to send submarines to a troubled area. We can't be people naturalizing their assumptions.
so sure what is up when people start talking about peace-keeping forces.
48 Chapter 2 Toolkit of Analytical Methods I: Seeing Better, Seeing More Naturalizing Our Assumptions (Overpersonalizing) 49

"I Didn't Know You Wanted My Opinion" Opinions: Are They Counterproductive Habits of Mind?

We cannot leave the topic of naturalizing assumptions~assuming our way of seeing So: are opinions counterproductive habits of mind? Not necessarily. It would be naive to
the world is the only way-without contemplating the key term at the heart of the say that each of us should get rid of our o1>ini~ns in order to think well. This simply is not
subject: opinions. Over the years, those of us who teach have heard our students say possible nor is it desirable. To see opinions only in the negative would be to diminish the
a million times, "I didn't know you wanted my opinion:' important role that they play in the lives of individuals and of cultures. Rather than trying
This classic student/teacher miscommunication warrants some analysis. What, in to suppress opinions, we need to take responsibility as thinkers for having opinions about
this context, does the word "opinion" mean? You may have already 'done some think- things and for respecting the fact that other people have opinions too. It's a civic duty.
ing on opinions and people's attitude toward them in the paraphrase X 3 section of this We should examine our opinions, not primarily to assert and defend them, but
toolkit. There we asked you to paraphrase the assertion "I am entitled to my opinion:' to explore them for what they might reveal about ourselves and the communities
Now let's pursue the implications (which is what analysis does) of the exclamation-or to which we belong. Opinions as kneejerk reactions-reflexes-cannot help us. But
complaint-"I didn't know you wanted my opinion:' thoughtful examination of our opinions can.

• Paraphrase #1: You should have told me sooner that it is okay for me to talk
about my personal beliefs! Habits of Mind in Psychology: A Psychologist Speaks

• Paraphrase #2: I am pleasantly surprised to find that you are interested in my In the following Voice from Across the Curriculum, clinician and psychology profes-
feelings and experience. sor Mark Sciutto notes that the problematic habits of mind identified in this chapter
• Paraphrase #3: I had not anticipated that you might expect me to say what I think. are also recognized as problems in the discipline of psychology. In cognitive behavior
therapy, these habits are called automatic thoughts.
Paraphrases 1 and 2 reveal a common but problematic definition of opinion as
Voices From Across the Curriculum
personal beliefs and feelings. This way of thinking leads to the implicit ground rule
that when a teacher asks for personal opinion, students believe they do not need to o Readers should not conclude that the "Counterproductive Habits of Mind"
prOVide evidence or reasoning. They're in a "free zone:' which is why another ground presented in this chapter are confined to writing. Psychologists who study the way
rule seems to be that "opinion pieces" should be graded more leniently or not at all. we process information have 'established important links between the way we think
and the way we feel. Some psychologists such as Aaron Beck have identified com-
The problem with this way of understanding opinion is that it assumes our opin-
mon "errors in thinking" that parallel the habits of mind discussed in this chapter.
ions are merely personal. In fact, our opinions are never just our opinions. They are Beck and others have shown that falling prey to habits of mind is associated with a
deeply embedded in the conceptual fabric of a culture, and they are always learned. variety of negative outcomes. For instance, a tendency to engage in either/or think-
As contemporary cultural theorists are fond of pointing out, the ''I'' is not a wholly ing, overgeneralization, and personalization has been linked to higher levels of
autonomous free agent who writes from a unique point of view. Rather, the ''I'' is anger, anxiety, and depression. Failure to attend to these errors in thinking chokes
shaped by forces outside the self-social, cultural, educational, historical, and so on. off reflection and analysis. As a result, the person becomes more likely to "react"
Chronic naturalizers will not see the extent to which they are socially constructed, rather than think, which may prolong and exacerbate the negative emotions.
sites through which dominant cultural ways of understanding the world (ideologies) - Mark Sciutto, Professor of Psychology
circulate. To put it perhaps too strongly, they're like actors who don't know they're
To familiarize yourself further with the thinking errors identified by cognitive
actors, reciting various cultural scripts they don't realize are scripts. therapy, one place to look is Cognitive Therapy: Basics and Beyond by Judith S. Beck
What about the third paraphrase, "I had not anticipated that you might expect me (the daughter of Aaron) (NY: The Guilford Press, 1995). There Dr. Beck lists 12 of
to say what I think"? Paraphrase #3 reveals a person who recognizes that she is being
the most common "automatic thoughts" that she labels "mistakes in thinking:' These
asked to share her thinking, not just her views. include "Emotional reasoning:' about which she writes,
She is ready to think more about what opinion means. Is an opinion the same as an
idea or theory? Are most ideas just opinions? How do I figure out what I think about "You think something must be true because you 'feel' (actually
things other than simply consulting my ready store of familiar views? believe) it so strongly, ignoring or discounting evidence to the
What do faculty really want when they make assignments to which students contrary'" (119).
respond, "I didn't know you wanted my opinion?" Faculty at our college tell us they
want two things: ' Opinions-A Democratic Disease? A Political Science Professor Speaks
(1) for students to do more than merely transmit information
As a final word for the chapter, we turn to our colleague, Jack Gambino, who offers
(2) for students to do more than merely react and instead find thoughtful ways to the view of a social scientist that everything is not opinion, nor are all opinions equal
engage the information and develop a stake in it. in weight.
70 Chapter 3 Analysis: What It Is and What It Does What It Means to Have an Idea 71

anxious about having open-heart surgery. It would not, Thinking, as opposed to reporting or reacting, should lead you to ideas. But what
however, be a joking matter-a heart is among the few does it mean to have an idea? It's one thing to acquire knowledge, but you also need
organs that are crucial for the very basis of life. Teeth on to learn how to produce knowledge, to think for yourself. The problem is that people
the other hand - well , who wants to admit that teeth are get daunted when asked to arrive at ideas. They dream up ingenious ways to avoid the
important? Certainly not as important as a heart, right? task. Or they get paralyzed with anXiety.
[15] So we are anxious about the dentist smelling our breath What is an idea? Must an idea be something entirely "original"? Must it revamp
or discovering bits of food stuck between our teeth, about the way you understand yourself or your stance toward the world?
having a smile that indicates social order, and, to further Such expectations are unreasonably grand. Clearly, a writer in the early stages of
complicate matters, we are anxious about admittin!,l all this. learning about a subject can't be expected to arrive at an idea so original that, like a
[= ultimate claim] Because teeth shouldn't be that important. Ph.D. thesis, it revises complex concepts in a discipline. Nor should you count as ideas
only those that lead to some kind of life-altering discovery. Ideas are usually much
[16] Out of th is anxiety, dentist jokes are born. Comedy is often
smaller in scope, much less grand, than people seem to expect. -
a vehicle for truth: dentist jokes indicate that our fear of the
Some would argue that ideas are discipline-specific, that what counts as an idea in
dentist-physical discomfort or pain, the power the dentist
Psychology differs from what counts as an idea in History or Philosophy or Business.
holds over an important part of our body-is real. And jokes
Surely the context does affect the way ideas are shaped and expressed. This book
are a way to ease that fear, to make dentistry accessible and,
operates on the premise, however, that ideas across the curriculum share common
occasionally, even funny.
elements. All of the items in the list below, for example, are common to ideas and to
[17] So today, on our inaugural day as dentists, let's embrace the idea-making in virtually any context.
dentist joke! Teeth are important, and we like them I We're It is easiest to understand what ideas are by considering what ideas do and where
going out into the world to change smiles and lives. And they can be found. Most strong analytical ideas launch you in a process of resolVing
we're going to make jokes when opportunities arise-not problems and bringing competing positions into some kind of alignment. They locate
because what we do isn't serious, but because we can't and you where there is something to J;legotiate, where you are required not just to list
shouldn't take ourselves too seriously. answers but also to ask questions, make choices, and engage in reasoning about the
significance of your evidence.
Here is a partial list of what it means to have an idea:
1. An idea usually starts with an observation that is puzzling, ~ith something you
Speeches provide rich examples for analYsis, and they are easily accessible on
want to figure out rather than something you think you already understand.
the Internet and on You Tube. We especially recommend a site called American
Rhetoric. (You can Google it for the URL). Choose any speech and analyze it 2. An i~ea may be the discovery of a que~tion whert~ there seemed ~ot to be one.
for its use of the five analytical moves. Where, for example, does the speech 3. An idea
)
answers a quest!Qn; it explains something that
.
needs to be-explained or
locate pattern? How does it define significant parts and locate them in relation provides a way out ~f a difficulty that other people have had in understanding
to the whole? Where dges the speaker make inferences? To what extent does it something.
reformulate its questions and explanations? 4. An idea may make explicit and explore the meaning of something 'i mplicit-an
On the basis of your results~ draw <;l few conclusions about the speech's point unstated assumption upon which an argument rests, or a logical consequence of,
of view and its way of presenting that point of view, which is to say its rhetoric. a given position.
Try to get beyond the obvious and the geIi.~r<l!. What does applying the moves
5. An idea may connect elements of a subject and explain the significance of that
cause you to noti~~ might not have noticed before? --
connection.
' k~ ~ '.~ ~. ,--,•. , ~!~ 'v, 'j ,~' -..
6. An idea often accounts for some dissonance, that is, something that seems to not
fit tog:!!:.er.
WHAT IT MEANS TO HAVE AN IDEA
In the final sections of this chapter, we will go on to distinguish analysis from other
forms of writing: argument, summary, and personal response. We ,conclude this open-
ing section of the chapter, on the Five Analytical Moves, with discussion of what
counts as an idea in analytical writing.