Analysis (Analysis). How to analyze information correctly

The analysis of articles when writing their own scientific papers is incorrectly carried out not only by graduate students and students, but also by reputable scientists, often infuriating editors and forcing the latter to expand the submitted papers. For this reason, it is worth analyzing separately how the analysis of scientific literature is carried out correctly.

Selection of literature for analysis: how to find a suitable topic and save the collected material?

Any scientific article is written on the basis of an analysis of sources, problems and opinions. However, in most cases, the entire analysis is carried out as follows:

• The author gets acquainted with the selected scientific literature;
• Makes comparisons with own point of view;
• If the opinions agree, the material is added to the lists of references; if they disagree, a mental argument is held with the author of the work, and the text is sent to a distant box as useless;
• Writes a scientific article.

The main mistake in such a situation is the third point, since it is in this point that more than half of all important and useful information is lost, without which it is impossible to give reasoned counterexamples. For this reason, in order to avoid a devastating review of their own article, many authors analyze the scientific literature according to a different scheme:

• Carefully get acquainted with all points of view that differ from their personal opinions. Constant hard work in one direction can lead to a "blurring" of the mind and eyes, because of which you can miss really important information. As an option, you can refer in the article to other opinions and views regarding the chosen problem, and justify the advantage of personal decisions and conclusions;
• Issues that are touched upon in the literature in passing require no less close study: often the author does not cover them due to lack of time, opportunities, and the need for additional research. You can always explore such nuances when writing a scientific article;
• All information is checked for uniqueness. If the analyzed literature is based on data 20-30 years ago, then it can be refreshed and a new study published on its basis;
• Unfamiliar terms, parts of the text are not skipped, but carefully studied - a work not fully understood can adversely affect the evidence base and destroy the entire logic of a scientific article;
• Most of the works, the analysis of which is required to be carried out, do not end with full-fledged conclusions, but with new questions.

A careful analysis of the scientific literature used will not only increase the volume of a scientific article, but also improve its quality.

Making a short summary of what you have read

After collecting the material, it is reduced and “dismembered”: the main theses are highlighted, the biography and bibliography of the author are analyzed. This is done as follows:

• After reading the work, it is desirable for the author to retell its main concept and thought. If this fails, the literature is studied again;
• The methods and results of the study, the goals set are written out separately. At the same time, you can comment on all the fragments - such changes will help to find the main theses of the work on which the scientific article will be built and the analysis will be carried out;
• An abstract of the article is being compiled. To do this, it is desirable to carry out an analysis of the bibliography of the author and his biography. This makes it possible to assess the objectivity of the author and the restrictions imposed on him during the period of work;
• The purpose of scientific work is clearly, clearly and understandably formed. Evidence is also highlighted, a characteristic is given of how well the author coped with the task.

Putting information into work

• It is desirable for the author to determine in advance the scope of his work. Review articles, reports, term papers, and candidate papers are strikingly different in the number of pages, so the text must be compiled in accordance with the requirements;
• The readership is defined. When writing a popular science article, it is advisable not to use special terminology, but to make all calculations as clear as possible;
• A well-written abstract to a scientific article not only attracts attention, but also allows the reader to understand whether he should study the article. For this reason, it should not contain facts, quotations and figures that are well covered and without a scientific article proposed for consideration;
• The introduction indicates all materials that are related to other authors. In the main body of the article, such information is not indicated (with rare exceptions - if the work is devoted to a specific text, or if this becomes necessary due to the conditions of the research method used.

After completing the analysis of scientific literature, you should not finish the work - the resulting calculations can be re-read, checked for errors and shortcomings, put off for a couple of days and sit down again for them - the likelihood of obtaining new information will increase if you look for them with a fresh mind.

Despite the fact that literature as a subject is widely in demand in a modern school, few students are able to correctly read a work of art and understand what it is about. This is partly due to the fact that a certain proportion of literary works is given to schoolchildren "beyond their years." But an even bigger problem in reading comprehension, as a rule, is formed through the fault of teachers who do not want to reveal to students the simple secrets of text analysis. And we will reveal.

The most important thing in any work is its idea, meaning, essence, not what the work is written about, but what it is written for. It's like printing drawings - if they are published, then certainly not in order to admire their beauty and correctness, but in order to see the whole building behind them.

As soon as you take the position of the author, you immediately begin to understand what is behind this whole complex system, which teachers call "artistic images", "chronotope" or "conflict". If you can’t get into the author’s intention the first time, you can cheat and turn either to the conversations of the main characters of the work, or, if there are none, to the direct or veiled statements of the author. As a rule, any writer lays his main ideas inside the brightest, most characteristic characters. If you look at the behavior of the latter, evaluate how other heroes treat them, then a lot will become clear. And to make it easier, you need to do all this as if you are evaluating real people, those with whom you are friends, communicate, exchange greetings at the entrance.

The secret of understanding a literary work lies in a good reader's fantasy. If you bring the characters closer to you or you yourself approach them, then they begin to reveal their secrets to themselves. You can evaluate the images of the heroes of a literary work: by the way they look, speak, dress, live, in what places (residential and natural) they are shown, what they love, what they hate, and, finally, what actions they perform (change, kill, save etc.).

As a rule, everything in a literary work is subordinated to the same goal - to fully reveal the main and accompanying ideas (this is also worth remembering, because in addition to the main question “To be or not to be?”, The book can also be asked by a couple of others questions). You can find these questions in the most peak scenes of the works: in the heat of passion or in a complete breakdown of feelings, in scenes that tell about making important decisions or directly committing actions that follow them.

Separately, it is worth mentioning such things as descriptions of nature. If someone thinks that they are written only for the reader to die of boredom, then he is deeply mistaken. Usually, behind all natural scenes there is a symbolic image either of what this or that hero feels, or of what happens to him (however, often these are one and the same).

Any other symbolism (be it a squirrel that jumped through the entire text, or a skull carried by a Danish prince) also once again emphasizes the artistic idea, which you have no doubt already understood.

Text analysis is not the easiest thing. In order to comprehensively study and understand a complex literary text or a philosophical treatise (we omit scientific, sectoral texts), even the most careful reading is not always enough. You need the right tools. Such tools are hermeneutics and semiotics. Hermeneutics is the art of interpreting texts, both ancient manuscripts and complex philosophical treatises. What can we borrow from this science on a simple, philistine level, forgive us Gadamer and Ricoeur, - the method of "getting used to", try to identify yourself with the characters, transfer yourself to the situation. Although it is difficult, it requires some preparation, but it is a very effective way. Find information about the author, about the era, make a brief of historical events, a political map of the world - this will help you calculate the correct meanings.

Semiotics is the science of signs. From the point of view of semiotics, culture is the world of sign systems. How can this help? At the most primitive level, the phrase encountered and very typical for an American detective: "he showed his thumb or middle finger" - without understanding the interpretation of signs, can mislead the reader. A deeper level of semantic analysis, Yu.M. Lotman, - understanding the relationship between signs, the culture of interpretation, characteristic of a particular era, country, environment. In other words, we need to understand "who" tells us - the position of the author in society, the obligations that he had to society, for example, often in modern texts, refer to Aristotle as the founder of the ideas of democracy, herald of freedom and equality, that's all partly true, but when we read this, we should always remember that he was also one of the ardent apologists for slavery, when he spoke about a man, it should be understood that this is only an adult Hellenic man, all the rest were not even people according to the great Aristotle. Yaroslav the Wise, who many years later became acquainted with the works of Aristotle, laying the foundations for our understanding of truth and justice, in the eyes of his teacher would be nothing more than a barbarian, an animal.

The second illustrative example of semantic relationships is an old experiment with which culturologists often surprise their audiences in Russia. If you ask the audience to shout the first noun that comes to their mind after what you said, and say "cat", most people will shout "mouse" - in Russia this clear relationship can always be traced, as well as the fact that the fox is cunning, and the bear is stupid, but armed with this semantic apparatus, trying to understand the tales of the Ancient East, America, you will most likely encounter misunderstanding.

Let's summarize the above. To understand the text, you need to: have information about the author, historical era, culture, language (especially if you are reading a work in translation and can only guess about the true nature of the original meaning), try to let it all through yourself, get used to the resulting image, so you may get a little closer to the original meaning or idea.

But there is another approach, which says that the text is created by the reader. There are as many versions of each piece as there are insatiable pairs of eyes that have skimmed over it. If you follow this approach, then it does not matter at all what the author was trying to say, what is important is what you heard. The interpreter generates a new text, new meanings, a new sign system, perhaps this is the reason for evolution))

Text is a very complex phenomenon. There is no single, final, correct analysis of a literary work. You can do analysis all your life, from very different points of view, getting more and more new results. In addition, the main keys to understanding a work lie not inside it, but outside it - in the context of its creation, in culture, historical era, social processes, the personal fate of the author, etc. It is these two facts that are not visible in the approach to literature that many of us are familiar with thanks to the Soviet secondary school, where literary criticism to a large extent served ideological and political goals. From there, with a high probability, the very formulation of the question of "complex analysis" comes.

In science, there are concepts "object", "subject" and "subject" of research, without the definition of which any analysis will float in a boundless (literally) space. Without going into details and definitions, I will give several possible options.

For the object of study (what we are considering), we can take the original text of the work, but with no less success (albeit with a different set of possibilities for analysis), we could use its oral forms, or the totality of the material incarnations of this text from the moment it appeared, or a set of different forms of presentation of a given text in a certain era, or reflection and reproduction of a given text in various forms of culture over a certain period.

For the subject (what we study) - the psychology of the author or era; some psychological aspects in a historical perspective; the structure of the work; variants of messages that it conveys to various recipients of different eras without involving a special analysis and ways of interpreting from different positions; some ideological, historical, historiographic, linguistic, literary, psychological, social, semiotic, aesthetic, cultural aspects in various contexts, etc.

And finally, the subject is the person who conducts the analysis. The most obvious is from the standpoint of what science he approaches the study of the text. Is he a philologist within the framework of this analysis? Historian? Historiographer? Semiotic? Culturologist? Psychologist? Costume designer? Playwright? etc. What specific questions from his field does he study in this analysis? In addition, his own culture, language, history of his people and state, life experience, level of training in various issues, interests, motives. All of these can lead to very different conclusions when analyzed. For example, some works, even those belonging to one's own culture, are very difficult to understand without going through certain events, choices, situations in one's own life. Well, or, I suppose, a phenomenon familiar to you, when, after 10 years, you return to reading the same book, you suddenly perceive it in a completely different way.

Now another example to illustrate the infinity of the concept of "analysis of a literary work." Take a text about human life in the ancient Near East, written by a Dutch author in the 16th century, translated in the 19th century. into Russian by a Russian translator, and read by you in the 21st century. These are four very differently organized cultural positions in interaction! Each of which has all that huge number of aspects, examples of which are listed above! And if from the standpoint of modern anthropology or paleontology this text may not be of interest, then, for example, from the point of view of historiography or cultural studies, it is a real treasure trove! The humanities are myriads of mirror-spotlights directed at each other and repeatedly reflecting each other.

If we do not take highly specialized views and dwell on some everyday understanding of the work (which can also be very complex, diverse, change over time: this is just another point of view that is not diminished at all), then it is worth briefly familiarizing yourself with the era in which the author lived , way of life, the structure of society, social processes at that time, the personal history of the author; and also to know your language and history well, to have more of your own acquaintances with various people and accomplishments in your own life.

It all depends on who is analyzing. At this stage of its development, the science of literary criticism has already accumulated vast experience, which cannot be forgotten when analyzing works. For example, let's take a philologist who gave 20 years of his life to this field. He will never be able to just do a complex analysis, as you put it, because, in his opinion, a complex analysis must necessarily include the search for hidden meanings, allusions, associations, and so on. Secondly, it all depends on the author and the work you are analyzing. If this is Dostoevsky or Bulgakov, then it is simply stupid to refuse to search for "hidden meanings", because the authors themselves wanted the readers to look for these hidden meanings. But if it comes to your mind to analyze Daria Dontsova, then the search for hidden meanings and associations clearly speaks of paranoia :)

In a small addition to other literate answers:

A deep analysis of the text, in my opinion, should always be carried out not from the position of the reader, and not even from the position of the characters in the book, but from the position of the author of the work. Thus, it is not analyzed why the character X did Y, but why the author made such a plot move at this place in this work, why the author used such a word in this sentence, what author's task this character embodies, and so on. In fact, you need to try to literally look into the head of the author and try to understand what he was thinking in the process of writing each page.

However, without direct confirmation of your ideas from the author, it is extremely difficult to do this, and thus a huge number of crazy theories are born that "blue curtains actually symbolize the loneliness of the author."

Never believe words, take into account only concrete facts.

Everything that is said and written is necessarily intended to conceal the truth. Hiding the truth is one of the most important motives of any human activity, including verbal. This motive, often along with others, is ALWAYS present in the author of any text. In most cases, the author wants to hide information not only from you, but also from himself - that is, his unconscious performs uncontrolled censorship of the provisions he formulates.

Never take note of the information contained in any text. Thought spoken is a lie.
The main source of information in any text are reservations, errors and omissions of the author. Always pay attention to them and try to interpret them on the basis of elements and properties of contexts known to you that are relevant to the subject under discussion.

Compare sources. Pay attention to all logical contradictions within texts and between texts from different sources. Try to interpret contradictions on the basis of elements and properties of contexts known to you that are relevant to the subject under discussion.

Mastering any text or video, always keep in mind the question of who benefits from the publication of the stated facts and their proposed interpretation. How close are these interests to yours?

When analyzing the arguments of partners, always try to classify the arguments on the basis of "who benefits from it", according to the nature of the interests behind them. Feel free to move from the analysis of the arguments to the discussion of these interests themselves. Only after their clarification return to the analysis of the actual argumentation.

During the discussion, reflect on your attitude to the process. Avoid identifying your argumentation and your personality. Avoid fixations on defended positions. All the time try to catch the line beyond which the position turns into an idee fix, and its upholding begins to be perceived as self-affirmation. Try not to cross this line.

Do not believe that truth is born in disputes. In disputes, only hostility towards each other is born. Avoid turning the discussion into an argument.

Discussion and dispute differ in the nature of the objectives of the parties. The purpose of the dispute is to protect your interests and obtain the maximum benefit. The purpose of the discussion is to clarify positions. The dispute is led by opponents, the discussion is led by partners.

There is no absolute truth. In the discussion, we are not looking for the truth, but clarifying the positions - both our own and those of our partners. Such clarification is useful for the purposes of developing adequate behavioral strategies and increasing adaptability to the surrounding information environment.
Or do not write or read at all, for misunderstood is worse than ignorance.

To analyze means to make a decision using your own. The whole process of making a correct and considered decision can be divided into three steps. First, collect as much information as possible. Then it needs to be carefully analyzed and based on the conclusions drawn, a final decision should be made.

How analysis helps solve problems

It is worth noting the importance of the stage. And in this matter it is better to use your own experience, since other people's advice will not help you, but rather, on the contrary, they will interfere. Therefore, listen less to those who are not interested in solving your issue. Some people do not need to be explained what it means to analyze, it is given to them by nature. But if you are deprived of this skill, then you need to train your ability to analyze and develop. You can achieve results in any field of knowledge, but for this you will have to make some effort.

How to analyze correctly - simple training

You need to start training with simple exercises. For example, you should read a short text and try to determine which part of it is the most important. To do this, you need to draw up a plan for the main events that are described in the text.

This exercise will help you learn to isolate the most important information from the mass of information received. This will be enough to achieve success in almost any field of activity. Just remember, over-zealousness in this exercise will not do you any good. A large amount of unnecessary information will not help you learn to analyze in any way. It's just

Analysis in problem solving

Solving physical and mathematical problems will also help you learn how to correctly analyze the information received. In the exact sciences, to find the answer, you first need to analyze the given conditions. Only in this case you will understand, Since it is not so easy to analyze, it is worth while doing this exercise to try to structure the steps of the solution in a certain sequence.

Practical application of analysis

To process the information received, you need to have such a character trait as perseverance. If the proposed exercises do not seem difficult to you, then you can try to put the analysis into practice. Please note that it is better to test your strength in those situations that do not personally concern you. Otherwise, you will not be able to subjectively analyze, it will be a decision made under the influence of emotional excitement. That is, it will not be 100% correct.

The most objective attitude to the situation will help you learn to control your emotions, which will be useful for you to develop analytical thinking. It is recommended to start with everyday life situations that you can easily explain. For example, try to find the reasons why this or that situation happened, or to explain the behavior of people. Gradually increasing the level of complexity of the analytical tasks being solved, you will learn how to find the right way out of almost any situation.