The Elements of Writing Proficiency
Analyze and Evaluate the key ideas and or arguments in the multiple sources.
If you can effectively summarize, identify key terms, and define them, it will increase your ability to analyze and evaluate the arguments in the readings. After you have analyzed and evaluated the arguments in the readings, you can start to develop a thesis of your own. However, before you can make a reasonable claim of your own, you need to analyze and evaluate the claims that others have made.
Analysis: Critical thinkers often move back and forth between two equally effective ways of considering an issue, entity, or problem: by looking at the whole object in its context; and by looking at how it works, or what it is made from, in other words, by looking at its parts. Moving between understanding something as a "whole" and understanding how when, where, and why its "parts" work is a typical critical thinking strategy.
Note: When a person analyzes a problem it is always from a certain point of view or perspective. The reading sets often present contending or at least different perspectives on a problem. Analysis often starts when a reader identifies with or against the perspective of a writer. If you identify with a perspective of a particular author in the reading set, then you can use it to "frame" your analysis of the other readings. Remember, however, that resisting or embracing an idea in the readings should be done as a way of demonstrating your position, and advancing your perspective on the issue.
Evaluation: Another important habit of mind is asking questions about the relationship between the parts of an argument. Do they make sense? Are there problems in the how an author presents evidence, in the reasoning or in the values of an author? Can you distinguish between facts or factual claims and opinions of an author? Are the counter-claims that one author makes in response to another author, and are those counter-claims reasonable? Is there a flaw in an author's analysis of the evidence, or in the conclusions that are drawn by an author? Is an author asking the right questions, or observing the most relevant aspects of the problem?