Analysing versus describing – 195
system of a particular society, the land forms of a stretch of country,
a chain of historical events, and so on. You will also from time to time
need to describe what the authors of your sources have said about
the subject matter you are enquiring into. But in modern academic
writing, it is generally true to say, description by itself is not enough.
It must be used to serve the purposes of analysis – of reflecting upon
the significance of the information, the data, the evidence and the
arguments that you assemble in your attempt to answer the question
raised by your topic. We have noted in an earlier chapter that one of
the more common remarks tutors make on an essay is that it is ‘Too
descriptive’ or that it ‘Needs more analysis’. How can these criticisms
be met?
We have already seen how important it is for your essay
to establish a case and argue for it. This is the first and most
important condition to be met if your writing is to be analytical. But it is not the only one. In chapter 5 we examined the
ways in which the case can be expanded. Not only might you
need more information, but you also need to consider exceptions
and alternatives, clarify the meaning of statements and substantiate
your generalisations. You need, furthermore, to enhance the value
of your information by asking and answering a whole variety of
questions, like: When? Where? Who? By whom? For whom? By
what means or methods? To what degree? For what reason or purpose? With what effect? Under which conditions? The application of
these strategies was exemplified by the passages on rural poverty in
the Third World in chapter 5. It is by expanding on your descriptive information in these ways that your writing can begin to become
analytic.
Thirdly, analytical writing is of a piece with the analytical
quality of your reading. In chapter 3 we saw how asking questions
about what writers of your books are doing (and not doing) makes it
possible to analyse and interpret their words. If we pay attention only
to the ‘content’ of Thomas Glick’s paragraph (11) about the dhimma
contract in mediaeval Spain (p. 75 above), we will be tempted to
produce a purely descriptive account – a paraphrase – of what Glick
is writing about:
system of a particular society, the land forms of a stretch of country,
a chain of historical events, and so on. You will also from time to time
need to describe what the authors of your sources have said about
the subject matter you are enquiring into. But in modern academic
writing, it is generally true to say, description by itself is not enough.
It must be used to serve the purposes of analysis – of reflecting upon
the significance of the information, the data, the evidence and the
arguments that you assemble in your attempt to answer the question
raised by your topic. We have noted in an earlier chapter that one of
the more common remarks tutors make on an essay is that it is ‘Too
descriptive’ or that it ‘Needs more analysis’. How can these criticisms
be met?
We have already seen how important it is for your essay
to establish a case and argue for it. This is the first and most
important condition to be met if your writing is to be analytical. But it is not the only one. In chapter 5 we examined the
ways in which the case can be expanded. Not only might you
need more information, but you also need to consider exceptions
and alternatives, clarify the meaning of statements and substantiate
your generalisations. You need, furthermore, to enhance the value
of your information by asking and answering a whole variety of
questions, like: When? Where? Who? By whom? For whom? By
what means or methods? To what degree? For what reason or purpose? With what effect? Under which conditions? The application of
these strategies was exemplified by the passages on rural poverty in
the Third World in chapter 5. It is by expanding on your descriptive information in these ways that your writing can begin to become
analytic.
Thirdly, analytical writing is of a piece with the analytical
quality of your reading. In chapter 3 we saw how asking questions
about what writers of your books are doing (and not doing) makes it
possible to analyse and interpret their words. If we pay attention only
to the ‘content’ of Thomas Glick’s paragraph (11) about the dhimma
contract in mediaeval Spain (p. 75 above), we will be tempted to
produce a purely descriptive account – a paraphrase – of what Glick
is writing about: