RESEARCH WRITING SERIES

5. Writing Analytically
Worksheet 1
TASKS
1. Paraphrasing as a form of analysis
Choose one of the following excerpts and paraphrase it twice. Try to ensure that the
second paraphrase is as different as possible to the first one. Reflect on how this
process has deepened your understanding of the original text.

A. “Unless disciplinary conventions dictate otherwise, analyse as you quote or paraphrase

a source, rather than summarising everything first and leaving your analysis for the end. A
good conversation does not consist of long monologues alternating among speakers.
Participants exchange views, query, and modify what other speakers have said. Similarly, when
you orchestrate conversations with and among your sources, you need to integrate your
analysis into your presentation of them.” (Rosenwasser & Stephen, 2009, p.221)
B. “Another reason that quoting and paraphrasing are important is that your analysis of
a source nearly always benefits from attention to the way the source represents its position.
Although focusing on the manner of presentation matters more with some sources than
with others – more with a poem or a scholarly article in political science than with a paper in
the natural sciences – the information is never wholly separable from how it is expressed.”
(Rosenwasser & Stephen, 2009, p.220)

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2. Identifying strands
Read the following excerpt and identify strands. Number each word/phrase of the strand
with the same number. Then, write a summary of the excerpt. (See the final page of this
handout for guide to suggested strands.)

“The social climate created by hyper-reality with its constant commercial inducements to
consume, to gratify the self, contributes to an egocentric culture….We maintain that this
postmodern egocentrism holds serious cognitive consequences. Egocentrism (as opposed to
connectedness) reduces our awareness of anything outside our own immediate experience.
In our self-centredness we tend to reduce everything to an individual perspective which
ultimately causes us to miss meanings of significance. Many would argue that this self-
absorption leads the way to an introspective self-knowledge that will move us to higher levels
of experience, new dimensions of cognition. While self-knowledge is extremely important,
egocentrism tends to reduce our ability to critique the construction of our own consciousness
– we cannot get outside selves to recognize the social forces that have shaped us.”
(Kincheloe, J. 1993. Toward a critical politics of teacher thinking: mapping the postmodern.
London: Bergin & Garvey. P.131.)
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3. ’10-on-1’ analysis
Identify one representative example from a topic in your research and perform a ’10-on-1’
analysis. Based on the following diagram, sketch out a rough map of the analysis and then
convert this into sentences and paragraph(s).
 Sketch the ’10-on-1’ map here

Write the ’10-on-1’ analysis sentences here:

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4. Analytical writing task

Analytical writing task: read the following excerpt and write an analytical response of two paragraphs.

In the first paragraph, paraphrase and summarise the main claims and patterns. In the second
paragraph, discuss the implications of these claims and patterns, and generate at least two questions
for further consideration of the topic.

Procedure:

(i) Read the text without stopping to get a general understanding.

(ii) Read again and identify and underline the key words/main ideas.
(iii) Look for patterns (of repetition, similarity, difference, contradiction, anomaly, etc.);
(iv) Identify patterns of binary opposition.
(v) Comment about the meanings/importance of these patterns.
(vi) Suggest some implications of these, and generate further questions for future research on the
topic.

Does the Truth Matter in Science? (Excerpt: 670 words)

(Professor Peter Lipton. University of Cambridge)

Lipton, P. (2005). “Does the Truth Matter in Science?” Arts & Humanities in Higher Education. Vol 4(2) 173-183.

Popper’s big idea is that the only good evidence is negative evidence, and this is based on a logical
point. What would be positive evidence for the hypothesis, say, that all swans are white? It would be
white swans. And the negative evidence? Swans that are not white. (Things other than swans, whatever
their colour, seem neither here nor there.) Popper’s logical point is that while no amount of positive
evidence ever proves a hypothesis, since there may always be a purple swan hiding in someone’s closet,
negative evidence disproves a hypothesis, since even if every future swan turns out to be white, if you
have observed one that is black then it is false that all swans are white. One counter-example means it
is false that all swans are white, whereas no number of white swans means it is true that all swans are
white.

This simple and fundamental asymmetry is the basis of Popper’s entire philosophy of science, because
it is the basis of his big idea that only negative evidence counts. According to Popper, positive evidence
does not really tell scientists anything, whereas at least negative evidence tells them that their hypothesis
is wrong, so they can reject it, replace it with another they hope to be true, test that one to destruction
too and look for yet another. This endless scientific project is well captured by Popper’s expression,
‘conjectures and refutations’.

Some practising scientists have found Popper’s emphasis on negative evidence helpful. Instead of
asking what evidence would support one’s pet hypothesis, it may be a good idea to ask what evidence
would get it into trouble, and then to see if such negative evidence is forthcoming. And if there is no
conceivable empirical result that would go against one’s hypothesis then, far from this being good news,
Popper would say that it shows that the hypothesis is not really scientific at all. Scientific hypotheses
should be empirical, making claims about things within the reach of observation and experiment, and
if they are empirical, then they will make falsifiable claims.

Popper accepts one part of the truth view but rejects another. He accepts that truth is the rational goal
of science, but he is, in spite of the upbeat tone of his prose, entirely sceptical about the possibility of
having any reason to believe that any scientific claim is true, or approximately true, or probably true.
Let me explain how he ends up with this remarkable combination. First the good news that science is a
rational activity with respect to the goal of truth. For Popper, the source of the rationality here is the
scientist’s ability sometimes to exercise a rational preference between competing hypotheses. For
suppose that hypothesis A has been refuted by negative evidence but hypothesis B has not been (not
yet, anyway). Relying exclusively on the power of negative evidence, what do we know with regards
to truth? Only that A is false and that B is either true or false. But if truth is our goal, then this is enough
for us to exercise a rational preference for B, since B, unlike A, may yet be true. This is a clever way to
turn negative results into positive preferences, but there is still the bad news about Popper’s philosophy.
By completely denying the probative force of positive evidence, Popper deprives scientists of any
reason they might have to say that any of their theories or the predictions they derive from them are
correct. This is at best a very equivocal endorsement of the truth view. If Popper is right, the truth does
matter as a goal of science, but not as an achievement, since there can never be any reason to suppose
that scientists are having any success in the truth business. This bears repeating because it is so difficult
to believe: on Popper’s view, scientists never have any reason whatever to believe that any of the
predictions from their best tested and most successful theories will turn out to be true.

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SUGGESTED ANSWERS FOR EXERCISE 2

“The social climate created by hyper-reality with its constant commercial inducements to
consume, to gratify the self, contributes to an egocentric culture….We maintain that this
postmodern egocentrism holds serious cognitive consequences. Egocentrism (as opposed to
connectedness) reduces our awareness of anything outside our own immediate experience.
In our self-centredness we tend to reduce everything to an individual perspective which
ultimately causes us to miss meanings of significance. Many would argue that this self-
absorption leads the way to an introspective self-knowledge that will move us to higher levels
of experience, new dimensions of cognition. While self-knowledge is extremely important,
egocentrism tends to reduce our ability to critique the construction of our own consciousness
– we cannot get outside ourselves to recognize the social forces that have shaped us.”
(Kincheloe, J. 1993. Toward a critical politics of teacher thinking: mapping the postmodern.
London: Bergin & Garvey. P.131.)