Operating Definitions and Guidelines for Writing

Analysis

Writing at the college level and above is most often analytical and informative. It is very different from writing in which

• a student expresses feelings or in which
• the student reports what s/he has heard or read about a topic.

The latter results in a summary of what most people already know about a subject. Both types are useful when a student is learning grammar and just needs to write sentences which show that s/he knows it.

On the job and in college, however, the writing is required for other reasons. At work, an employee may be asked to write

• to analyze a process so others can perform it,
• to justify purchasing a tool or a service, or
• to explain how something can be improved.

It’s rarely required to express feelings or summarize general knowledge.

In college, it’s often assigned to show how the student thinks. Analysis at the college level calls for a student

• to break a topic down according to the rules for description, illustration, process, cause and effect, comparison, classification, and/or definition, and
• to show why doing it is important.

Summarizing what s/he has heard or read merely states what everyone already knows, and does not show s/he can think. Neither does associating a writer's content with events in his or her biography as is done here. It is true that authors write what they know, but to focus only on the events in their lives keeps readers from learning all of the other valuable insights they may have to offer.

In a college essay on a literary topic, for example, it’s not enough to say that William Wordsworth uses speakers. Most authors do. Most readers can see that for themselves when they read his poems. Such an essay should not answer the question, "Does Wordsworth use speakers?", or result in a "Yes" or "No" answer.

What a student essay needs to do is look at how Wordsworth uses speakers and in the essay, the student writer needs to tell the reader what one learns from examining Wordsworth’s use of speakers. In other words, include a thesis which tells the reader what s/he cannot see alone. Make it informative: tell the readers something they don’t already know, or give them a new perspective on something they do already know. The thesis page explains further.