Explain your understanding of the difference between summary and analysis. Summarizing a text and analyzing a text are two completely different processes from each other. Writing a summary of a story is easy because it does not require any critical thinking like analysis. Summary is defined as the brief retelling of the facts of a story. We all know the summary is the short restating of the plot, the author's ideas, the characters, etc. The summary is what a story is about while an analysis is what the reader personally thinks the story and certain parts of the story actually means. No one is going to argue with a summary.
A literary analysis is an argument for a personal interpretation of the text. An Interpretation needs to be backed up with evident or a quote from the story being analyzed. An analysis
is not the facts it is more of an opinion about what the whole story means. A reader’s
analysis of the reading could be wrong while a summary cannot be wrong. Analysis
is breaking down the text into pieces or elements to examine how it affects the meaning of
the whole text.
(Image from http://kamranrifat.wordpress.com/2011/07/06/four-elements-the-story-of-our-creation-2/)
Hi Jordan,
ReplyDeleteGreat description of the difference between summary and analysis. I for one think I can explain the difference but I hope it translates into my papers. Thank you for your insight!
Rebekah