Summarizing vs Analyzing in English Literature
By Sonali Khemka
(English Literature, English Language, LNAT tutor at The Edge Learning Center)
Throughout your tenure as an English literature student, you will often be faced with the task of “analyzing” a particular text. While most students believe they at least have an idea of what this means, the task is often misinterpreted and students end up simply summarizing or describing the contents of a text. Below, let’s take a look at how you can ensure you are truly analyzing a text:
1. Step away from the text
When reading a text, it is very easy to treat the characters, setting, and events as if they exist in real life. We tend to forget that every single word written was chosen by the author. Instead of simply reacting to the text like a reader would, we need to step away from the text and examine it. Remember, you are a literature student when you are reading a text, not a member of the reading audience. Instead of saying – “this text confuses me.” (reacting), step back and ask yourself why does it confuse you? (examining) Has the author intentionally created confusion? If so, how?
2. Ask yourself, if not —- then what?
You may or may not find something worthy of analysis every time you do a close reading. Some of the lines in a poem or some parts of a narrative may simply seem mundane without any interesting literary features to extract from them. Be careful before you make this judgment. It is likely that the author’s craft is still very much at play, even in those seemingly ordinary bits of the text. Perhaps all you need to do is either narrow or widen your vision, i.e. either look at that “boring” part of the text more broadly (for e.g. look at tone, mood or structure) or zoom in and narrow down onto some specific words (for e.g. diction) and then ask yourself – “if not —- then what?”
What this means is that you take that broad or narrow feature, and then ask yourself, had the author made an alternative choice, how would that have changed things? For example, you could be reading a poem and after broadening your vision a little, you realize the poem’s tone is quite reassuring and self-confident. Ask yourself this then – had the tone not been reassuring or self-confident, how would the poem change? If you are zooming into some details, ask yourself – had the writer not used this word, how would the sentence change? It is likely that doing this will enable you to appreciate these subtle yet powerful writing choices a writer makes. By considering the alternative you should be able to understand why the author did make the decision to write the text in a particular way.
3. Use analytical verbs
When annotating a text, try to include an analytical verb next to each literary feature that you notice. This will push you towards questioning what the literary feature is doing, which will ensure that you are not simply describing or pointing out the literary feature but actually analyzing its effect. Instead of simply underlining a line in a poem and labeling it as “personification”, use an analytical verb to note down the effect – (for e.g. personification conveys the wrath of nature.) Verbs are action words so by using analytical verbs throughout your annotation, you will be directing yourself towards examining the function/role of the literary feature in what it does for the text. There are several resources online which provide a list of analytical verbs (listed below) – know them and try to use them as often as possible.
Links to analytical verbs:
http://msweinfurter.weebly.com/uploads/5/4/3/7/5437316/analytical_verbs.pdf
http://amlitmorse.weebly.com/uploads/1/3/4/9/13490098/rhetorical_power_verbs_list.pdf
Need help with your IB coursework? The Edge is offering a FREE Trial Lesson*(English/Math/Physics/Biology/Chemistry/History) to new students, so join our class and learn how to apply the knowledge you learn in school to your AP/IB/IGCSE examinations. SIGN UP HERE!
Check out The Edge’s other blogs
Causeway Bay: 2972 2555 / Mong Kok: 2783 7100
About The Edge
The Edge Learning Center is Hong Kong’s premier Test Preparation, Academic Tutoring, and Admissions Consulting services provider. Founded in 2008, The Edge has helped thousands of students improve their ACT and SAT scores as well as their IB and AP grades. The AC team has just finished off a very successful year in which 84.62% of their clients were accepted into one of their top 3 schools and an astounding 48.15% of their Ivy Plus* applicants were accepted. (The general acceptance rate was only 7.61% last year) Check out the rest of our 2017 Admissions Results!
