Learning Outcomes

In this chapter we will:

• Introduce the basic principles of a textual analysis.
• Examine an essay looking for the author’s complex argument and gather a list of evidence from the text that best reflects that author’s argument.
• Identify a central concept that we feel best explains the core of the author’s complex argument
• Focus on the specific evidence that we feel best enables us to analyze the author’s complex argument.
• Make an initial exploration into a potential thesis that proposes a critical examination of the author’s complex argument.