English 102 /Tenenbaum
Analysis: Expanding the “E,” or “Explanation” part of your paragraphs
Overview: Each paragraph of your paper will begin with a topic sentence (P) which makes a
particular point in support of the essay’s thesis. To illustrate this specific point, each paragraph
will present quotations, paraphrases, or brief summaries from the text (I). The bulk of the
paragraph will be made of your analysis, your discussion, your explanation (E) of this quotation
(or paraphrase or summary). It is this part of the paragraph that shows the depth and
comprehensiveness of your thinking and understanding. This part of the paragraph is often
underdeveloped; let’s work on developing it.
Purposes of the “E,” or “Explanation” part of your paragraph:
 To unpack the meaning of your illustration (your quotation, paraphrase, or brief
summary)—to analyze and interpret it;
 To show how the illustration is connected to the “P,” or “Point” of your paragraph;
 To show how the illustration and the point of the paragraph are connected to the overall
thesis of the paper;
To help you make more discoveries and extend your interpretation—the more you work
on this aspect of your paragraphs, the more you will find you have to say, and the more
connections you’ll make with other aspects of the text.
Some steps for developing your “E,” or “Explanation:
1. If your Illustration is a quotation, make sure you know all the words in it.
2. Consider also the connotations of every word or image in your Illustration. What
emotional or symbolic implication might each word or image have? What are
associations a reader—you—can make with each word or image?
3. Sometimes you can find more connotative meaning by looking up even the words you
already know.
4. Look at the Illustration through the lens of several of the threads you’ve identified.
For example a quotation might be interpreted as being about food as a kind of
communication; you could perhaps interpret the same quotation as saying something
about gender roles or cultural differences or personal identity.
5. Look at the writing choices the writer made in constructing this passage: How are the
sentences structured? What are the sounds of the words? If the passage is descriptive,
does the description favor one sense over another? Is the moment conveyed my
means of in dialogue? By means of narrative? From what point of view is this
moment told—from the point of view, for example, of the young Diana, or from the
point of view of the adult writer, Abu-Jaber, as she looks back? Connect all these
writer’s choices with meaning: how do these choice affect the meaning of the
Illustration?
6. How does the Illustration connect to other moments anywhere else in the book? Is
this Illustration part of some overall pattern of meaning within the thread or theme or
binary that you are examining? Is it part of the pattern of another thread or theme or
binary?
(over)
7. What other interpretations of this Illustration might be possible? Why do you think
your interpretation is the right one in this context (the context of your paper, your
paragraph, your thesis)? In what context, in the light of what other thread, theme, or
binary might a different interpretation make sense?
8. How does the Illustration connect to the specific point you’re trying to make in the
topic sentence of the paragraph?
a. At an obvious level
b. At a less obvious level
Readers of your paper will not need the obvious pointed out to them. Your
Explanation must point out what might not be obvious. In other words, because this is
your paper, your interpretation, what special insights do you have about the
illustration?
9. How does the illustration add to or complicate or even disrupt your understanding of
your essay’s overall thesis?
The steps above will help you get some ideas for things to say; ultimately, however, the process
of deepening your understanding and getting beyond the obvious is mysterious. I will tell you,
though, that it takes time and attention. The more time you spend staring at the text, thinking
about it, looking at many different aspects of it, the more likely you are to have ideas about it.
The steps above are meant to give you ways of slowing down and staring at the text—creating
the conditions under which ideas will begin to come.
With this much to talk about, it can be hard to keep a paragraph organized. Sometimes you might
have to put a mini-reminder of the “P,” or “Point,” in the middle of the paragraph. Or, if you
have a lot of analysis of a single passage, you might have to break it into two paragraphs, with
the second paragraph continuing on from the first, using a conjunction such as “In addition,” or
“Not only…but also…”