Questions to Ask When Analyzing a Text
For a high school or college student handed a speech, an essay, a story or a single passage and told to analyze it, and for the teacher writing that task. The six groups follow a close reading or rhetorical analysis from start to finish: a first read, the writer's situation (author, audience, purpose and context), structure, language, then argument, evidence and what is left out, and last the questions that turn a page of notes into a thesis. Most work on fiction and nonfiction alike; a few are plainly for arguments, and the two meant only for stories begin 'In a story'.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
First read
What does the text say, in two or three sentences of your own, with the page turned over?
Why ask it
If you cannot do it, read again before analyzing anything, because an analysis built on a misreading collapses at the first quotation. Keep this summary to what the text says and hold back what you think of it until the later groups.
What kind of text is this, and what do readers expect from that kind?
Why ask it
A speech, an editorial, a memoir and a short story each make a different promise about truth, voice and how openly they may argue. Name the genre, then mark where this text keeps a convention and where it breaks one, since a break is rarely an accident.
What is the assignment asking you to do with this text?
Why ask it
Underline the verb in the prompt. 'Analyze how' wants the writer's methods, 'evaluate' wants a judgment of how well they work, and 'compare' wants two texts held side by side. Courses use these verbs differently, so ask your teacher when the wording is unclear.
If the text is an answer, what was the question?
Why ask it
An essay usually joins a dispute that was already running, and a story often circles a question it never states. Write yours with a question mark: 'immigration' is a topic, while 'who gets to call a place home?' is something a text can answer. Your later notes can then be tested against it.
What does the title lead you to expect, and does the text deliver it?
Why ask it
Go back to the title once you know how the text ends. One that the text complicates, mocks or contradicts hands you an opening for an essay, while one that simply labels the content can be left alone.
Where did you laugh, bristle or lose interest, and what on the page caused it?
Why ask it
A reaction is evidence of how the text works on a reader, but only once it is pinned to a line. If you cannot pin it anywhere, it is probably a reaction to the topic and not to the writing, which is worth knowing before you start.
Which passage did you have to read twice?
Why ask it
Difficulty often marks the place where the writer is doing the most: a long sentence, a jump in time, a claim wrapped in qualifications. Look up any word or reference you did not know, then put a mark in the margin and bring the Language questions back to it instead of building your analysis from the easy parts.
Situation
Who is the writer, and what is their stake in the subject?
Why ask it
Collect only the facts that change how a line reads: the writer's job or role, what they stood to gain or lose, what they had argued before. A stake is not proof of dishonesty, so use it as a reason to look harder at what gets emphasized. Stop at three facts, because a full biography is a way of avoiding the text.
Who is telling this: the author, a narrator or a character, and how much do they know?
Why ask it
In fiction the narrator is a made thing and may know less, or be less honest, than the author. In nonfiction the 'I' is still a selection from a whole person, chosen for the occasion. Until you can show the voice is the author's, call it 'the narrator' or 'the speaker' in your essay.
Who is the intended audience, and what does the text assume they already know or believe?
Why ask it
Hunt for the names that go unexplained, the jokes that need no setup and whoever 'you' turns out to be. If the best you can say is 'the general public', keep looking, because almost no text is written for everyone.
What is the writer's purpose: what should that audience think, feel or do by the last line?
Why ask it
Use a verb sharper than 'inform' or 'entertain': reassure, shame, recruit, warn, unsettle. For a story, swap 'purpose' for the effect the text seems built to produce, and be ready to point at the part that produces it.
What was going on when this was written that its first readers did not need explained?
Why ask it
A date and a place often explain a reference, a fear or a silence that looks odd now. Look up only what the text points to, and say in your essay which line the background helps you read.
What made the writer write this then, and not a year sooner or later?
Why ask it
Some event, quarrel or deadline usually sits behind a piece of nonfiction, and naming it tells you what the text is replying to. Your course may call this the exigence or the occasion. If nothing obvious prompted it, as with much fiction, say so and move on.
Where did this first appear, and what did that setting allow or forbid?
Why ask it
A speech is heard once at the speaker's pace, a newspaper column has a word limit, a letter has one reader. Features that look like style, such as heavy repetition or very short paragraphs, are often answers to the medium.
Which other texts, events or sayings does this one quote or echo?
Why ask it
Scripture, a founding document, a fairy tale, a rival's slogan: a borrowed phrase brings the weight of its source with it. Find the original and check whether the writer uses it faithfully, bends it or turns it against the people who usually quote it. A reference you had to look up also tells you something about who the first audience was.
How does the writer want the reader to see them?
Why ask it
Find the lines where the writer shows credentials, admits a doubt, claims to be an ordinary person or sides with the reader against someone else. Rhetoric courses call this ethos, and it is often easiest to spot early on, before the text has asked the reader for anything.
Are you the reader this was written for, and what changes if you are not?
Why ask it
A text aimed at someone else can leave you cold or hit you harder than it was meant to. Keep the two readings apart in your notes: how it was built to land on its first audience, and how it lands on you now.
Structure
How does the text open, and what does that opening set up?
Why ask it
An opening can start with a scene, a question, a concession or a flat claim, and each one puts the reader in a different seat. Note what the first paragraph promises, then check at the end whether the promise was kept, delayed or quietly dropped.
Where would you draw lines to divide the text into parts, and what job does each part do?
Why ask it
Label each part with a verb such as introduces, concedes, illustrates, complicates or turns. A column of verbs down the margin is a map of the writer's moves, and making one is the fastest way to stop summarizing content.
Where does the text shift in subject, tone, time or speaker?
Why ask it
Mark every place where your one-word description of what is going on has to change: the anecdote stops and the argument starts, the past gives way to the present, anger cools into advice. Whatever follows the biggest shift is usually what the writer cares about most, so start your close reading there if time is short.
Why are the parts in this order, and what would change if two of them swapped places?
Why ask it
Try the swap in your head. If the strongest evidence comes last, the writer is building toward it, and if a story is told out of sequence, something is being withheld from you on purpose. Your answer is a claim about effect, which is what an analysis paragraph needs.
What gets the most space, and what is passed over in a sentence?
Why ask it
Count lines if you have to. Space is a measure of emphasis, and a large event handled in a single clause is as deliberate as a small one given a page. The mismatches between importance and length are the ones to write about.
In a story, where does the telling slow to a scene and where does it skip ahead?
Why ask it
Slowed time shows which moments the text wants you to live through, and a skipped stretch shows what it has decided you can do without. This one is for narrative, fiction or memoir, and can be left out for an argument.
How does the text end, and how far has it traveled from its first line?
Why ask it
An ending can circle back to the opening, widen out to a bigger subject, issue a call or refuse to settle. Name which, then ask what the last sentence says that would have made no sense as the first. That difference is the work the middle did.
Language
Which word choices stand out, and what does each carry that a neutral word would not?
Why ask it
'Slender', 'thin' and 'scrawny' describe one body and three attitudes. For each word you pick, ask where else it normally turns up, since 'harvesting' data or 'flooding' a market drags a whole scene in with it. Two or three words with the heaviest baggage are enough to write about.
What is the tone, and which three phrases would you quote to prove it?
Why ask it
One adjective such as 'serious' is too loose to argue from. Reach for a pair, like 'amused but wary' or 'formal and grieving', then find the phrases that earn each half. If you cannot find three, the tone word is wrong.
What attitude does the writer take toward the subject, and is it the same one they take toward the reader?
Why ask it
A writer can be furious about a subject and gentle with the audience, or respectful of the subject and impatient with the reader. Separating the two keeps you from flattening a text into one mood, and a gap between them is worth a paragraph.
What comparisons does the writer make, and what do they borrow from the thing compared?
Why ask it
List the metaphors, similes and analogies and note the field each comes from: war, illness, family, machinery, weather. A cluster from one field is a pattern you can argue from. Say what the comparison adds and also what it hides, since every comparison leaves something out.
How are the sentences built, and where does the pattern break?
Why ask it
Check length, where the main point falls, and whether the sentences pile up or balance. A short sentence after several long ones is a spotlight. Read the passage aloud if you can, because the ear catches a change of rhythm before the eye does.
What is repeated, and what does the repetition make you notice?
Why ask it
A repeated word, phrase or sentence opening can hammer a point, soothe, or show a mind stuck on something. Count the returns and look at what sits beside each one. A phrase that opens three paragraphs in a row is holding the structure up as well as making a sound.
Which concrete details did the writer choose to include, and what do they have in common?
Why ask it
Out of everything that could have been described, these made the cut. Group them by sense or by mood. In fiction the details usually build a setting or a character without comment, and in nonfiction a vivid detail is often doing the work of an argument.
Who are 'we', 'you' and 'they' in this text?
Why ask it
Pronouns draw the line between insiders and outsiders. Track whether 'we' includes the reader, when it first appears, and who gets left as 'they'. This pays off most in speeches, editorials and any text that wants the reader on its side.
How formal is the language, and whom does that level include or keep out?
Why ask it
Slang, technical terms, legal phrasing and plain talk each assume a reader. Note any place where the register changes, for instance a formal essay that drops into a blunt phrase, because the change is usually timed to a point the writer wants felt.
Where does the writer say less than they mean, more than they mean, or the opposite?
Why ask it
Understatement, exaggeration and irony all rely on the reader catching a gap between the words and the meaning. Quote the line and state both sides of the gap. If you cannot say what signals that the line is not literal, treat it as literal.
Argument
What is the central claim or theme, and where does the text come closest to stating it?
Why ask it
For an argument, find the sentence you would quote as the thesis, or note that the writer never states one outright. For a story, write the theme as a full sentence about the subject, not a single word such as 'loss'. Either way, tie it to a line.
What does the writer use as proof: numbers, stories, experts, examples or shared values?
Why ask it
Tally each kind in the margin and the mix becomes your finding. A text that runs on stories and one that runs on numbers are making different bets about what will move the same audience. Notice too which kind is saved for the point that is hardest to accept.
Where does the text appeal to feeling, where to reasoning and where to the writer's standing?
Why ask it
These are the appeals often taught as pathos, logos and ethos. Labeling them is only the start, so add what each one is meant to do to this audience at this point in the text. A paragraph that only names the appeal will read as a list.
Which beliefs does the text rely on without ever defending them?
Why ask it
Look for claims with no support at all, and for words such as 'obviously' and 'of course'. An unargued assumption shows who the text was written for, and it is often the weakest joint if your task is to evaluate.
Does the text deal with an opposing view, and how fairly does it describe that view?
Why ask it
Find where the objection sits and how much room it gets: a full paragraph in the opponent's best form, a one-line caricature, or nothing. A concession followed by 'but' is a structural move worth quoting, and its placement tells you how much of a threat the writer thought the objection was.
What is left out: a voice, a fact, a consequence or a stretch of time?
Why ask it
List what a reader who knew the subject would expect to find and cannot: the cost of the proposal, the years between two scenes, the person everyone discusses who is never quoted. Argue only from gaps the text itself makes visible, and not from everything a writer could conceivably have covered.
In a story, who ends up rewarded and who ends up paying, and what does that say about what the text values?
Why ask it
Outcomes are as close as a story comes to making an argument, so list who gains, who loses and who is forgiven. Keep the narrator's opinion separate from the outcome of the plot, since a story can let its narrator admire someone it then ruins.
Where does the reasoning, or the story's own logic, fail to hold together?
Why ask it
A leap from one example to a general rule, a term that changes meaning midway, a character acting against everything established: note the spot and decide whether it is a flaw or a deliberate tension. Rhetorical analysis usually asks how the text persuades, so check the prompt before you spend a paragraph on whether it is right.
How well does the text work on the audience it was written for?
Why ask it
This is a judgment, and it belongs near the end, after you have described the methods. Base it on the fit between the choices and the readers you identified under Situation, and avoid claiming to know how real people responded unless you have a source that says.
Thesis
Looking over your notes, which choices keep turning up?
Why ask it
Circle anything that appears under more than one group of questions, such as a military metaphor that also shapes the structure. Two or three recurring choices are enough for an essay, and they are stronger than ten unrelated observations.
In one sentence, what does the writer do, how do they do it, and why?
Why ask it
That sentence is a draft thesis. If the 'why' comes out empty, you have a list of devices and need to go back to the purpose question under Situation. If the 'how' is empty, you have a summary and need the Structure and Language groups.
What is the opposite of your claim, and could a careful reader hold it?
Why ask it
Write the reverse out as a full sentence. If nobody could defend it from the page, your claim is a fact or a summary and needs to take a risk: say which choice matters most, or what the text does that it seems not to intend. If the reverse turns out to be easy to defend, you have found the counterargument your essay has to answer.
Which three or four quotations carry your case, and what does each one show?
Why ask it
Choose short ones, a phrase or a sentence, and write one line beside each saying what it proves. A quotation you cannot gloss in a line is decoration. Check that they come from the beginning, middle and end, or be ready to explain why your reading rests on one section.
What in the text does not fit your reading?
Why ask it
Go back to the passage you had to read twice and to any stretch you left unmarked, since that is where the misfit tends to hide. Then choose: explain it, or narrow your claim with a phrase like 'until the final section' so there is room for it. An essay that names its own awkward passage is harder to knock down than one that hopes nobody checks.
What does your analysis show that a summary of the text would not?
Why ask it
This is the 'so what', and it goes in your conclusion. One or two sentences on why the writer's choices matter, for this text's audience or for how similar texts get read, is enough. Skip the sweeping statement about society or human nature.
How to analyze a text without retelling it
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Setting up a close reading
Number the text before you mark it
Number the paragraphs of an essay, or every fifth line of a passage, before you write a single note. Each observation then has an address you can cite, and a pattern such as three illness metaphors in paragraphs two, five and nine shows up as a spread across the text instead of a vague impression.
Annotate what the writer does
A margin note that says 'talks about his childhood' is a summary. One that says 'switches to a personal story to win trust' is analysis already. Aim for a verb in every note: concedes, exaggerates, delays, contrasts, lists.
Fiction and nonfiction use the list differently
For an essay, a speech or an opinion column, spend most of your time on Situation and Argument, since the text exists to move a particular audience. For a story, a novel extract or a memoir, lean on Structure and Language, and read 'purpose' as the effect the text is built to produce. Drop the appeals and proof questions for a story, and the two 'In a story' questions for an argument.
A passage or a whole work
With a passage of a page or two you can answer nearly everything, down to single words. With a whole book, answer the Situation and Structure groups for the work, then choose two or three short passages and put the Language questions to those alone.
Under timed conditions
In an exam there is no time for the whole list. Take one question from each group, in order, and give most of your planning minutes to the shift, the tone and the draft thesis sentence. Check your own course's guidance on how long to plan, because the rules differ from one exam to another.
From margin notes to an essay
Two columns: says and does
Rule a page down the middle. On the left, write what each part of the text says, and on the right, what that part does to the reader. The essay is written out of the right-hand column, and the left one is there to keep you accurate.
Choice, effect, purpose
A workable thesis names all three. For example: 'By opening with her own failure and holding the statistics back until the final third, the writer earns a skeptical audience's trust before asking it to accept an uncomfortable conclusion.' Someone could argue with that sentence, and it tells the reader what each paragraph will cover.
Organize by move, not by page order
Walking through the text from first line to last invites summary. Group your paragraphs by what the writer is doing instead: one on how trust is built, one on how the opposing view is handled, one on the ending. If your teacher asks for a chronological walk-through, follow that and keep each paragraph tied to an effect.
Quote little, explain more
Embed a phrase inside your own sentence instead of dropping in a block. Then say what the words do and why that matters for the audience, and give that explanation more room than the quotation took. A paragraph that ends on a quotation has left its work unfinished.
Habits that flatten an analysis
Summary in a costume
'The author says', 'then she explains' and 'next he describes' are the signs. Replace each with a verb of method and add an effect: 'she delays the explanation, which keeps the reader guessing along with the narrator'.
Terms doing the work of ideas
Cross the technical term out of your sentence and see what is left. 'The writer uses anaphora' leaves nothing, while 'four sentences in a row open with we cannot, so the refusals pile up like a verdict' stands without the label. Put the term back only where it saves words.
Claiming to know what the author intended
You have the text, not the writer's mind. Phrases like 'the passage suggests', 'the effect is' and 'the narrator presents' keep you on what you can show. Bring in the writer's stated aims only when a source records them, and cite it.
Arguing with the text
Whether you agree with the writer is a separate task from showing how the writing works. Unless the prompt asks for your position, keep your opinion of the topic out and put your judgment into how well the methods fit the audience.
Too much from one word
A single adjective cannot carry a claim about the whole text. Before you build on a detail, find it a partner elsewhere on the page. Two or three instances make a pattern, and one makes a guess.
For teachers setting the task
Write the prompt from the list
Pick the two or three questions your chosen text answers best and build the task from them, so the prompt names a method and not only a topic. 'Analyze how the speaker's use of we changes across the speech' gives students somewhere to start, where 'analyze the speech' sends many of them to summary.
Model one answer out loud
Before students work alone, take one question, such as the one on shifts, and think aloud through a paragraph on the board, false starts included. Students tend to copy the form of what they are shown, so show a note that ends in an effect and not in a label.
One page, two prompts
Give half the class a prompt on structure and the other half one on language, both for the same page, then have them trade papers. Students see that an analysis is a selection, and that two sound essays on one text can share hardly a quotation.
Collect the marked-up copy
Ask for the annotated text along with the draft. Rich notes under a thin essay point to a problem of selection and order, while a clean page under a fluent essay often means the student wrote from memory of the content. The two need different feedback.