Summary Vs. AnalysisSummary Vs. AnalysisBy Elizabeth London

First..First..What is a Summary?What is a Summary?

What is a Summary?

A summary is basically just an explanation of what is happening in a scene of a book, or a book overall.

When you summarize you are not looking at the details, but rather the overall things that are going on.

Summarizing is thinking about the details in a broader scale rather than the details, as details.

Ex. In the Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe a summary would be thus: In this book there is a group of children, all siblings, who find a magical world in a wardrobe. They found this wardrobe because they were in the country side during WWII. When they found this wardrobe they went on a magical adventure to save the world, Narnia, from the snow queen. They were aided by the king lion, Aslan, who came along side and gave them abilities they would not have found the strength on their own to use. They won the battle and became kings and queens of Narnia, fulfilling their prophesied future and lived happily ever after. At the end of the book they were forced back into the real world, back to their original age, but really were only gone for an hour or two.

So...So...What is an analysis?What is an analysis?

What is an Analysis?

An analysis is looking at the details further than the broad spectrum.

When you analyze, you look for imagery or a theme that would be underlying in the scene you are analyzing.

Analyzing is taking a piece of something and picking it apart to its bare bones to find the reason behind it.

A lot of the time, you are displaying an idea that may not be the way every one thinks about that piece, but that is the point of analyzing - to find out why.

Ex. In Chronicles of Narnia (the same one talked about before) you could look at Aslan, allegorically, as Jesus. Aslan is a picture of Jesus in the real world. He came into the world and basically saved it. With Aslan around things were better. He was perfect, as was Jesus in real life. When Aslan sacrifices himself for Edmund that is just like Jesus sacrificing himself for the sinners of the world (as Edmund depicts all humans, as sinners). He rises again, just as Jesus did, and comes in and wins the battle. Underlying theme in this allegorical comparison is that Jesus came to save the lost, and so did Aslan in this book.

OK...OK...The difference?The difference?

The Difference?

The difference between these two is what you are looking at. In a summary, like I have said, you are looking at the broad spectrum. In an analysis, you are looking at a specific detail and creating an idea based on that.

In a summary, you do not look for themes or underlying messages. In an analysis, you do not look at the broad spectrum, because it would be really hard to detail it that way.

Overall...Overall...

Overall...

Overall, a summary has its place, and an analysis has its place. They both have their purposes and they are both very different. You can not interchange the two. When you summarize you do just that - you summarize a piece of text, basically shortening it into a telling length. When you analyze you take something and make an idea out of it that isn’t plainly seen.

I hope that this all helps you better understand summary and analysis! Thank you for clicking through these slides with me!

Thanks!!!!! Thanks!!!!! Elizabeth London