Elements and Methods 1: Close Reading of Evidence; Analytical Question; Thesis; Motive

Close Reading
This is a fundamental skill youll use again and again in academic writing. In close
reading, you analyze evidence from a text. This means you quote passages and tell us why they
matter.
The process of close reading is aimed at revealing a passages meaning. There are two
steps to the process. The first is observation and annotation or written notes of such especially
literary elements as the passages narration, tone, dialogue, imagery, and diction (word choice).
You may also note striking terms and descriptions, references to other texts or figures, references
to opponents or allies. The second step is a matter of judgment. To judge is to express the
significance of whats been observed. Youve noticed something interesting, what a character
says, what the narrator says, to whom they say it, how they say it, under what conditions they say
it, etc. So what? Whats your view on what youve noticed? Why does it matter? But what makes
an observation significant? What makes it have meaning? Often this will depend on the
analytical question youll be trying to answer in your writing. What do want to know? What
does the piece of evidence youre close reading tell you that can answerat least in partthat
analytical question?
So, in close reading, you will be keen to observe terms, ideas, assumptions, perspectives,
beliefs, contradictions, curiosities, inconsistencies that cry out for your analysis. Then, youll
judge the significance of this observation, telling your reader why what you observe has meaning,
helps to answer your analytical question.
How Do You Ask an Analytical Question?
An important step in writing academic essays is to ask a good analytical question that
gives us something to discover. This isnt always a matteroften its notof literally asking a
question in an essay, though such a strategy can be quite useful and welcomed by your readers.
Establishing this question wont be your first stepyoull need to observe, annotate, and
thoughtfully consider specific passages of text (thats right, do some close reading) to help
develop an analytical question.
So heres the challenge, the paradox: youll want to answer an analytical question in your
writing; close reading helps to answer that question. To formulate a good analytical question,
though, you have to pay close attention to the textyou have to do some close reading first. This
working back-and-forth between attention to the text and the question to ask of a text is part of
the vital labor of writing.
A good analytical question:
o points to a genuine intellectual dilemma or problem in the text. The question focuses
on a confusion or ambiguity in a text, an issue on which different readers will have
different ideas.
o yields a specific answer that is not obvious. A question such as Does Alida Slade
dislike Grace Ansley in Edith Whartons Roman Fever? offers nothing to discover
its answered easily by anybody who reads the story. However a question such as: How
does Edith Wharton use the setting in her story Roman Fever to symbolize important
elements of the story? yields a far more complex answer.
o suggests an answer complex enough to require a whole essays worth of argument. If
the question is too small (Was Grace Ansley a weak woman?) or vague and speculative
(Were women in the Victorian era frustrated?), it wont suggest a bold line of argument.
And the question should elicit analysis and argument rather than summary or description.

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Tips:
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can be answered by the text in question. Were not looking for generalizations or
copious external research (i.e., What is the latest development in string theory?).
How and why questions generally require more analysis than
who/what/when/where.
Good analytical questions can highlight patterns and/or connections, inconsistencies
and/or contradictions.
Good analytical questions can also ask about implications or consequences of your
analysis.
So your analytical question should have an answer, given the available evidence, but not
an easy one, not one that would be the same for all readers, not one that is obvious to all
readers.

Thesis
Your thesis of one or two or three sentences should give at least a provisional answer to
your analytical question, an answer that needs to be developed and defended. Your thesis wont
be a statement of the obvious, or a statement of fact. It will be an interesting and important,
specific and daring answer to your analytical question. Your readers will learn that they should
approach a text or texts with a new perspective, a new understanding that they havent thought of
before.
Bear in mind that a narrow focus, rather than a broad one, will allow you to develop
powerful insights. Stick closely to what you find in your evidence, that is, in your quoted
passages, which illustrate your argument and lend it specificity. This is the essence of close
reading. Be sure your thesis stems from the evidence youve studied in your close reading.
A thesis statement in the introductionnear or at its end, most likelywill drive your
audience into the paper. And its what most professors and academic readers will expect. So its a
good place for a thesis. A thesis is by no means required to be in the introduction (unless a
professor requires it; when in doubt, ask). It could come late, the apex of a building argument.
But in all cases, the reader should know what is the thesis when she sees it.
Tips:
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A good thesis will relate specifically to the evidence explored in the paper; offers a
provocative way to think about an issue of some complexity; will make a claim that isnt
obvious, but rather arguable--someone could disagree with it; will take a big risk.
Specificity, complexity, arguability, risk: SCAR!
How can you diagnose thesis problems? Think of the three Ts. A dysfunctional thesis
may be: toothless, teasing, too much for the text

Motive
Why should the reader care? Why did you take up this topic? Why are you asking that
analytical question?
People besides your instructor, people who are literate and intellectually curious, should
want to read your paper. They wont want to read your response to an assignment; you have to
give them a reason why your thinking is worth their time.
Possibilities:

The way to think about the topic isnt what theyd expect, or what it might appear to be
on first reading.
o The standard view of the topic or text, which you might find in some other books or
essays, needs to be challenged or corrected.
o Theres a mystery here, a puzzle, a question, an interesting wrinkle, a complexity, or
perhaps a overlooked contradiction that needs to be seen and sorted out.
o Theres an ambiguity here, something unclear, that could mean two or more things.
o Theres an overlooked matter or approach that is actually interesting and important.
o Theres a pattern that needs to be discerned or that reveals an underlying meaning.
o Theres a connection between two or more texts that shed new light on another text or
even those two texts themselves; or theres a connection or tension between two or more
aspects of a single text that shed new light on that text.
o Theres something to learn about a bigger phenomenon by studying this smaller one (but
be careful; this motive is why we might say something too broad, impossibly diffuse:
o Throughout human history, man has struggled to learn about his environment...).
Your motive should be stated early in the paper. The introduction is probably best.
o

How Writers Write

Remember that for our purposes in this writing class, we not only want to think about what
people are writing about, but how they do it. In reading the work of your peers, and other
essayists I will assign, well encounter a wide variety of arguments, evidence, and analysis.
Note the sort of examples that authors use, the sort of analysis they offer. What type of sources
do they have? How do they interact with their sources? Note, too, the sort of complications they
entertain. Do they just use the ideas from a source directly? Do they modify the ideas from a
source? Do they point out weaknesses in a source? Does a source contribute to their theory? Does
the author explain how this happens, if it does? Does an authors own, new argument have some
holes or weaknesses that she addresses or at least acknowledges? How do they introduce their
topic and their thesis? How do they conclude?
Example:
A good thesis, motive and analytical question are inextricably linked.
An excellent opening paragraph containing an Analytical Question, Motive, and Thesis:
Hilary Catherine Robinson.
From Expos: Essays from the Expository Writing Program, Harvard University, 99-00.
Questions of Rejected Motherhood: Male Creation, Ambition, and Solitude in Mary
Shelleys Frankenstein
At first glance, especially from the perspective of cinematic renditions of the story, Mary
Shelleys Frankenstein emerges as a horror tale about a monstrous creature and a murderous
rampage. In truth, however, the monstrosity of Frankenstein lies not in the appearance and deeds
of its inhuman creation, but rather in the disastrously ambitious machination of the creator
himself and his refusal to accept the socially and philosophically revered role of motherhood. In
her novel, Mary Shelley makes a statement about men who endeavor to create and the emotions
that motivate them. Such men create at the call of ambition and rivalry; they are ill-suited for a
motherhood they will ultimately reject. In contrast to her overly ambitious male figure, Shelley
includes throughout the novel female figures who exemplify the traditional characteristics of
motherhood: stability, capability, self-sacrifice, and ingenuity. Elizabeth, for example, sustains the
Frankenstein family through tragedy and death; Justine Moritz bravely hangs for a crime she did

not commit; Caroline Beaufort, Victors mother, dies selflessly while caring for the sickly
Elizabeth, whom she has treated as her own child. Women act as healing and generating forces,
while men, working in solitude, breed evil and create horrors, as Victor Frankenstein does.