ANALYSIS SKILL BUILDING

The SAT Essay is not a book report: it requires you to analyze the argument of the source text. You need not only to understand what the author has said—you must also articulate why the author has used certain evidence, reasoning and stylistic approaches to make his or her argument. The following charts display some of the major methods that an author can use to persuade his or her audience:

               Evidence

Type of Evidence	What is it?	Example
Statistics	Information from scientific studies are popular polls, based on observation and presented using numbers.	“According to a recent study of how teachers allocate their time in classroom management, approximately 15 percent of students in the class monopolize most of a teacher’ s time as far as class discipline, while the other 85 percent is more compliant.”
Authoritative Observation and Opinion	The author cites credible sources to give support to an argument.	“According to the president of the American Association for retired persons, retired people are more interested in continuing to work part-time than they have been in the past. ”
Anecdote	The author uses personal stories to convey observations about a topic. Usually there are directly from the author’ s perspective, but the author could retell anecdotes from other people.	“The early start time for high school is a major problem for students. When I was of high school age, I found it exceedingly difficult to fall asleep before midnight, despite my best efforts to go to bed around 10 PM. When the alarm clock woke me up at 6 AM, I was exhausted and certainly not in the best frame of mind to learn.”
Historical Allusion	The author makes reference to historical information. This could take the form of citing facts, referring to common historical knowledge, or making interpretations.	“It is well known that a major consequence of the U. S civil war was the end of slavery. How can it be that slavery still exists in our country to this day?”
Current events and Media	This can go beyond mere quotations from authoritative sources and refer to newsworthy events with which the reader will likely be familiar.	“The tightening of security for the upcoming Olympic games is a necessary evil in today’ s society. In order to have secure gatherings, we must sacrifice some of our personal privacy and freedoms.”

 

              Reasoning

Type of Reasoning	What is it?	Example
Contrast	Looking at a given situation and demonstrating how it is different from another situation.	“Requiring people to vote is in no way like requiring people to observe the speed limit. If people do not vote, it will not directly lead to the potential property damage and loss of life that a speeding motorist could cause.”
Reciprocity	Appealing to the idea of justice and fairness by arguing that obligations should be mutual.	“If society refuses to make the necessary investments in early childhood education, why would undeserved young children feel an obligation as adults to help fund the retirements and medical care of those who ignored them in their time of need?”
Consistency	Using the idea that a good intellectual position cannot be contradictory.	“People are completely opposed to testing medical experimental medicines and cosmetics on their own pets; yet, these same people seem to have no trouble purchasing medicines and cosmetics that have been tested on other animals, even though ones that don’ t live with them. It seems that “out of sight, out of mind” is all too true when it comes to animal testing.”
Cause and Effect	Showing how one event will directly lead to another. This can be done on a small scale with examples or on a large scale in the essay as a whole.	“Once the federal government increases the automotive mileage requirements for new vehicles, car manufacturers will have no choice but to create ways that car performance can be preserved without harming the environment. ”
Comparison and Analogy	Drawing parallels between different situations.	“Modern-day educators who dismiss the pedagogical value of comic books are like the bitter skeptics in the 1880s who argued that novel writing would cause social upheaval”
Rhetorical Question	Asking a question to the readers without expecting an answer in order to emphasize a point.	“Is n’ t everything fair in love and war?” “Don’ t all parents want what is best for their children?”

              Style and Persuasion

Type of Persuasion	What is it?	Example
Sensory language	Using language that appeals to the five senses, particularly sight, to illustrate an idea.	“Imagine a subway system free of litter, where you can sit without first having to clean your seat, and where you can inhale without feeling like you are in a restroom.”
Emotional Appeal	Appealing to the reader’ s sense of love, duty, fear, greed, pride and many more potential feelings to make a point.	“Sure- we could allocate less money to space exploration. But do we really want to be known as the generation that stopped dreaming of the heavens because we were too busy worrying about our pocketbooks?”
Attack	Showing why the views with which the author disagrees are unsound.	“I cannot help but notice that many of the same people who oppose giving women the opportunity to break through the ‘glass ceiling’ into management positions in major corporations also believe that women should not have the opportunity to work in the first place. ”
Humor	Using jokes, irony or sarcasm to engage the reader.	“An end to social prejudice will happen on the day that you can walk into a high school cafeteria and find nobody sitting in cliques. ”
Formal language	Establishing the author’ s authority by using scholarly or sophisticated language.
Informal language	The author’ s using more approachable language to relate to his or her readers.
Inclusive/Exclusive language	Encouraging the reader to identify with (inclusive) or want to separate from (exclusive) particular ideas.	“There are those of us who believe that if we work hard, we can achieve our dreams; and then there are some people who believe that the only way to get an advantage is to take advantage of others.”

Practice

To become comfortable analyzing the arguments of an author, you need to be able to identify how the author is making his or her arguments. The examples that follow can all be labelled as at least one of the type of argument methodologies in the tables above. Few examples have been given on the topic of whether or not teenagers should be able to sleep in Later. Label the type of methodology next to the example.

EXAMPLES

1)      Can you imagine the danger if sleepy teenagers were allowed to drive their cars during rush hour?

2)      A lack of sleep among teenagers may account for the increased preponderance of insomnia and narcolepsy due to a lack of uninterrupted REM dream states.

3)      What could possibly better determine how much sleep a body needs than the body itself?

4)      Some countries like the U.S look at napping as a waste of time, while others fully embrace the afternoon siesta.

5)      Depriving teenagers of sleep is like depriving a car of oil changes and maintenance- without the opportunity to recover, both will fall apart.

6)      There are those who believe that unless people are completely busy every second, they are wasting their time. We know that without adequate rest, time spent being busy will simply be time spent being unproductive.

7)      Imagine if teenagers could force adults to get up at a mandatory hour every single day, no matter the unique needs of the adults in question. Just as adults are able to choose their jobs and lifestyles based on their body clocks, teenagers should have the same freedom to structure their schedules in accordance with their bodily rhythms.

8)      The U.S Surgeon General recently stated that a later start to the school day could have a marked positive impact on student learning outcomes.

9)      Young people are asked to make healthy choices when it comes to drugs, sex and nutrition. Yet when it comes to sleep, parents often encourage decidedly unhealthy habits.

10)   Imagine yourself as a troubled teenager, burdened throughout the day with adults telling you how to behave. Your one refuge is your bed, where your soft pillow comforts your weary head at the end of a long, long day.

11)   Once, When I took the SAT, I stayed up late partying the night before the test. My score was atrocious. The next time I took the test, I got a good night’ s sleep every day of the week before test day. Unsurprisingly, my score increased by over 200 points.

12)   If you forget to wear your pajamas, next day you will probably go bananas.

13)   Those opposed to adequate sleep may not realize the sleep deprivation is a method used by torturers to produce confessions.

14)   According to the Centers of Disease Control, approximately 43% of young adult ages 18-25 have reported involuntarily falling asleep during the day within the past month.

15)   If students are able to sleep as much as their bodies truly need, they will be able to achieve their full academic potential since they will be able to devote their full attention to their studies. If students can achieve their full academic potential, the country will have a far stronger workforce in the decades to come.

16)   A noted Frenchman once said, “Some people talk in their sleep. Lecturers talk while other people sleep”.

17)     Young people today have many more potential distractions that keep them from sleeping well than those from past generations. Fifty years ago, there was no texting, tweeting or messaging.

ANSWER KEY

1.       Emotional appeal

2.       Formal Language, authoritative observation, or causes and effect

3.       Rhetorical question

4.       Contrast

5.       Comparison and analogy

6.       Inclusive/Exclusive language

7.       Reciprocity or consistency

8.       Authoritative observation and opinion

9.       Consistency or comparison

10.   Sensory language

11.   Anecdote

12.   Informal language

13.   Attacks or emotional appeal

14.   Statistics

15.   Cause and effect

16.   Humor

17.   Current events

18.   Historical allusion