Analytical writing for langlit

1. Analytical Writing

2. What is Analytical Writing?
 Analytical writing:
 Evaluates data
 Distinguishes the important from the less
important
 Relates one idea and its details to another

3. An Analytical Writer Should…
 Organize material in a proper manner
 Reveal that organization in the document
 Help the reader recognize the logical
development of the writing and see how
the bits and pieces fit together

4. Types of Analyses in Analytical
Writing
 Rhetorical analysis
 Process analysis
 Casual analysis

5. Why Analytical Writing?
 It teaches students how to devise analysis
methods to study a situation or issue.
 It requires research because the facts to be
documented are never provided up front.
 It requires the writer to have a rich
understanding of the audience.
 It requires the students to work with an
indeterminate, evolving rhetorical situation,
which is essentially unpredictable.

6. Four Levels of Knowledge
1. Know what you know
2. Know what you don’t know
3. Don’t know what you know
4. Don’t know what you don’t know

7. Basic Principles of All Writing
 Clarity
 Conciseness
 Correctness
 Precision
 Mechanical correctness

8. Other Important Considerations
in Writing
 Appropriateness
 Complete
 Coherent

9. Keys to Good Writing
 Keep the title to four or five words
 Keep information organized
 Make each word count
 Make sure writing is well thought out in advance
 Use active voice sentences vs. passive voice
sentences
 Self-edit your work
 Understand the “art forms” of your workplace

10. Important Writing Tips
 Emphasize use of simple and complex
sentences
 Great variety of word order of the sentences
 Tie ideas together and discriminate among
details
 Emphasize use of one and two syllable words
 Minimize use of internal punctuation
 Thoughtful use of dependent clauses and no
prepositional phrases
 Sentences should not normally begin with a
dependent word, phrase or clause