As a college student, you will frequently be asked to respond to written material, sometimes in the form of a book report, a critique, a summary analysis, or an analysis of a critical article in a journal or magazine. Usually this response includes a brief summary, as discussed previously.
Steps in the Process of Analyzing Written Material
1. Read for understanding and a general overview.
2. Read again. Highlight or underline major ideas to which you wish to respond.
3. Focus on a general thesis that agrees or disagrees with major ideas in the article.
4. Formulate more specific topic sentences which express your attitude toward the author’s major points.
5. Gather support for these topic sentences.
6. Write a rough draft of your analysis. Begin by including the name of the book or article you have read, name of author, summary of written material, and your thesis or, in other words, your response to what the author says.
7. Each of the body paragraphs should include a statement of the major idea to which you are responding, your response to that specific idea, and your support for that response. The support can be in the form of facts, examples, personal experience, or description.
The topic sentence of each paragraph should agree with or disagree with the author’s point. Use the title of the book or article or the author’s last name in each of the paragraphs as a way of unifying the composition.
8. Your concluding paragraph should be a statement of your own conclusions after reading and considering the book or article.