The difference between summary and analysis can be foggy at times but there are important differences between the two that every writer should be aware of. Summarizing is much like the book reports that you used to do in elementary school. You basically describe what the story is about and there is no way to argue about the plot of a book. Analytical writing is different because you focus on what can be interpreted about certain aspects of the novel. Like the Cinderella example that Mrs. Cline used in the lecture. My example is a short story by Chuck Palahniuk called “Negative Reinforcement.” In this short story the narrator is describing a woman he knows on a bus. He describes everything about her as if he has already witnessed all of it before. Then it turns out that it is not the woman he knew. It reads as if the narrator once was in love with the woman he knew but, he is describing all of her negative attributes to remind him that she treated him horribly. If I was going to write about this story in an analytical way I could argue that the things that the narrator describes are all the things that he loved about this woman. Or I could state that I believe the narrator is in fact a woman, I could also say that the narrator was never the boyfriend/girlfriend of the woman he describes. All of these “arguments” are open to interpretation by the reader. When you write an analytical essay you have to have a thesis about a specific part of whatever it is that you are writing about you can’t be vague. It is always a good idea to use the argumentative skills that you have acquired in previous English classes to help you learn how to write a good analytical paper. I may not be very articulate in describing the differences that are important but I hope this is helpful to anyone that reads this!
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Hi Noel,
ReplyDeleteOn reading the story I think that the author does not know the woman. He keeps making statements about the woman and then backing them up with contradictory ones. For instance:
"You know she killed her parents because they physically abused her; but if they're alive, she's disowned them because they're billionaires."
It seems like the short story is full of unsupported assumptions about this woman, as though the subject has become fascinated with a figure he's only seen on the bus a few times and invented a back story for her.
Noel
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your blog on summary and analysis. You did a great job of covering and explaining the difference between the two. The only thing I would disagree on, would be that a plot summary can not be argued. I think that if the class were all to write a plot summary on the same book. That we would all interpret the plot a little differently.