Primary Source Analysis

The podcast will be 80 Days: An Exploration Podcast S02E01: Singapore

STEP 1: Primary Source Analysis

To begin this assignment, you must consider the course theme and how your interests fit into that idea. You need to think of a single primary source that will hold your interest and sustain a long research project. After choosing a primary source, your task will be to write a focused, critical analysis of that work.

Below you will find a list of objectives. Be sure to follow the directions outlined in Completing the Assignment carefully.

Objectives:

Produce a focused analysis, two to three pages in length, of the primary source you have chosen that fits within the scope of our course theme. The primary source must be a podcast. This gives you a very wide range of choices. It is a good idea to have a brief discussion with your instructor (via email or in person) about ideas for primary sources if you feel stuck or overwhelmed by options.

Finish the analysis with a paragraph that includes one or two research questions that will help guide you toward developing a working thesis and finding secondary source materials.

Create an analysis that will serve as the basis for your research, secondary source assignment, and your final research paper.

Getting Started:

Make sure you understand the meaning of analysis. Consider it your job to attempt to define and explain what you see in your primary source. Do not just answer the question “What is here?” Think and write about why and how the primary source uses particular rhetorical details or strategies.

Remember that this analysis should not be a list. Instead, focus on the most important aspects of your primary source and begin to interpret it by ascribing meaning to the details. This means you need to pick the most important rhetorical details which lead to a specific meaning or interpretation of your source instead of including every detail you can pick out from the source.

Completing the Assignment:

Start by identifying basic information about the source. What is it? Where did it come from? Who made it?

Use the Five Analytical Moves to generate ideas. Brainstorm by describing the source in detail, breaking it down into its significant parts, talking about the patterns and connections between those parts, and, most importantly, making explicit the possible implicit meanings of what you see.

Think about rhetoric and the rhetorical appeals.

When you begin your analysis, remember to be specific; if the source is literary, examine the text line-by-line, teasing out the meanings and implications. You should not discuss everything you pick up on within your analysis, but rather a few very specific details you can explain analytically in order to come to a concrete statement of meaning for the whole.

At the close of your analysis, end with one or two “research questions” (questions that arise from observations about the source) that you will use to begin thinking more deeply about your topic and to help you find materials for the upcoming Annotated Bibliography and Secondary Source Integration. These research questions should directly relate to your analytic claims and your statement of meaning.

You should not:

Start with an argument in mind. Analysis needs to be open, so do not settle on any argument before completing your analysis. Only after going through the analysis process should you focus in on a statement of meaning for your primary source.

Include too much summary. Summary and analysis are different. Be sure that any summary of the primary source appears only in the opening context paragraph.

Use any outside source other than your primary source. This paper is about your analysis, so you should not include anything but your primary source and your original thoughts/analysis of this primary source.