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 parts Make 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 anomalies keep 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?