Summary
vs. Analysis
What is the difference between
summary and analysis?
Using summary to describe a text is something we have
been doing since our very first book report.
It does not require a whole lot of critical thinking since the writer is
focusing more on what the story is about instead of what the story really
means. They use summary to describe the who,
what, where, when and how’s of a text. It
is simply stating the obvious to anyone who has already heard of the
story. Writing a summary does not take much
risk of the writer. Its purpose is simply
to inform the reader of what happened in the story, not how the story affected
them.
Analysis goes much deeper into a text than
summary. When you analyze a text you
examine the key elements in order to look for their full meaning. Rather than just writing about what happened
you start to think about why it happened.
Analysis is about finding your argument.
You find a pattern in a story and decide what you think the author is
really trying to say and then you prove your argument by providing proof from
the text.
I
recently read (and absolutely enjoyed!!), The
Friday Night Knitting Club, by Kate Jacobs.
If I were to write a summary of this book, it would be that it is a
story of women of different ages, different backgrounds, and very different personalities
who meet at a little yarn shop on Manhattan’s Upper West Side and forge an
unbreakable bond of friendship.
My
analysis would be that The Friday Night Knitting club explores the role traditional
crafts have in creating community among modern women. Without traditions, like
a knitting circle, there is no telling if this incredible group of women would
ever have been brought together. You
have a single mother and her 13 year old daughter, a widow in her seventies, a
couple twenty something’s, a grad student, women professionals, and rich girl
who has never worked a day in her life. Traditional
women's art included pottery, weaving, needlework, spinning and sewing, as
women expressed their creativity within everyday activities necessary for a
household. Today women are gathering to
work on creative projects while creating lasting relationships with women whom they
may never have met.
It's a great example of a summary and an analysis. Bravo where you used the book you read as an example. If I were to read the summary in the book store I might not have been inclined to purchase the book but I do crochet, bead and sew so that artistic side of me would find the book interesting.
ReplyDeleteThanks.
Alexanderia Schaalman
Marie,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, great post! I think you did a great job of telling the difference between a summary and an analysis. I, too, think that a summary just tells what a story is about not what it actually means. It does, simply just answer the five W's. (Who, What, When, and Where) Also, I must agree that an analysis goes deeper than a summary would, because it picks apart the literary work piece by piece and finds out what the author is actually writing about.
Anyways, thanks for the post!
Great post, you did a very great job telling the difference between the two. I always find it kind of hard but after researching the difference you learn more and more.
ReplyDeleteHello,
ReplyDeleteGreat post and great video of explaining the different between the two. Also thanks for the two links you posted there. After reading from those links I learned a little bit more. Summary can be easy, but Analysis is a kind of hard sometimes, and I do agree that analysis goes much deeper than summary.