Whereas a summary most often answers the question of what a text says, an analysis looks at how a text conveys its main idea. Start your analysis with questions you have about the text. What puzzles you or doesn’t make sense about the text? Is there a contradiction in the text or a misguided assumption? Do you have questions about the author’s thesis or use of evidence? Your analytical questions will lead you to formulate a thesis and will establish the reason your audience needs to read your essay.
Summary and analysis need each other in an analytical essay; you can’t have one without the other. Your readers may or may not be familiar with the text you are analyzing, so you should summarize the text briefly to orient readers and to help them understand the basis of your analysis. The following strategies will help you balance summary with analysis.
An effective thesis statement for analytical writing responds to a question about a text or tries to resolve a problem in the text. Remember that your thesis isn’t the same as the text’s thesis or main idea. Your thesis presents your judgment of the text’s argument.
If Emilia Sanchez had started her analysis of “Big Box Stores Are Bad for Main Street” (4d) with the following thesis statement, she merely would have repeated the main idea of the article.
INEFFECTIVE ANALYTICAL THESIS STATEMENT
Big-box stores such as Wal-Mart and Home Depot promote consumerism by offering endless goods at low prices, but they do nothing to promote community.
Instead, Sanchez wrote the following thesis statement, which offers her judgment of the assumptions that form the basis of Taylor’s argument.
EFFECTIVE ANALYTICAL THESIS STATEMENT
By ignoring the complex economic relationship between large chain stores and their communities, Taylor incorrectly assumes that simply getting rid of big-box stores would have a positive effect on America’s communities.