Analytical Thinking

What is analysis and

how does it work?

What is analysis?

To ask what something means

To ask how something does what it does or

To ask why it is as it is

Analysis is thinking – the kind we do every day!

Most of us analyze all the time!

We don’t realize that is what we are doing

Steps to becoming a better analytical thinker

Become aware of your thinking process

Build on skills you already have

Eliminate habits that get in the way

Move 1: Suspend Judgement

We tend to evaluate, make judgements

We follow the mental paths we are used to

Becomes automatic and thinking stops

FIGURE OUT WHAT THE SUBJECT MEANS BEFORE DECIDNG HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT IT

Move 2: Define significant parts & how they’re related

Divide the subject into its defining parts, its main elements or ingredients

Consider how they are related, to each other and to the whole subject

Analytical writing pays attention to detail

Moves from larger subject to key components

Get past first generic response to discover what it is made of

Then how do these parts help me understand the meaning of the whole subject

Move 3: Make the implicit explicit

Converting suggestions into direct statements

Essential step

Known as making inferences

Implication is to describe something suggested; inference describes the thinking process

You infer what the subject implies!

Converts suggestions not overly stated into direct statements of meaning

Analysis

Move 4: Look for patterns

How do you know which parts to pay attention to?

What makes some parts more important than others?

3 principles to select important parts

Pattern of repetition or resemblance

Organizing contrasts

Anomalies-unusual things, things that don’t fit

Move 5: Keep reformulating questions and explanations

Requires experimenting

Purpose of analytical writing is to figure something out

Don’t expect to know where you’re going, how all the subject’s parts fit together, and to what end

Questions to take you from uncertainty to understanding

Organized by the moves they come from

Define significant partsMake implicit explicit

Which details seem significant? Why?

What is the significance of a particular detail? What does it mean?

What else might it mean?

Look for patterns of resemblance & contrast

How do the details fit together? What do they have in common?

What does this pattern of details mean?

What else might this same pattern of details mean? How else could it be explained?

Look for anomalieskeep asking questions

What details don’t seem to fit? How might they be connected with other details form a different pattern?

What does this new pattern mean? How might it cause me to read the meaning of individual details differently?