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• Textual Analysis | Guide, 3 Approaches & Examples

Textual Analysis | Guide, 3 Approaches & Examples

Published on November 8, 2019 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on June 22, 2023.

Textual analysis is a broad term for various research methods used to describe, interpret and understand texts. All kinds of information can be gleaned from a text – from its literal meaning to the subtext, symbolism, assumptions, and values it reveals.

The methods used to conduct textual analysis depend on the field and the aims of the research. It often aims to connect the text to a broader social, political, cultural, or artistic context. Relatedly, it’s good to be careful of confirmation bias when conducting these sorts of analyses, grounding your observations in clear and plausible ways.

Table of contents

What is a text, textual analysis in cultural and media studies, textual analysis in the social sciences, textual analysis in literary studies, other interesting articles.

The term “text” is broader than it seems. A text can be a piece of writing, such as a book, an email, or a transcribed conversation. But in this context, a text can also be any object whose meaning and significance you want to interpret in depth: a film, an image, an artifact, even a place.

The methods you use to analyze a text will vary according to the type of object and the purpose of your analysis:

• Analysis of a short story might focus on the imagery, narrative perspective and structure of the text.
• To analyze a film, not only the dialogue but also the cinematography and use of sound could be relevant to the analysis.
• A building might be analyzed in terms of its architectural features and how it is navigated by visitors.
• You could analyze the rules of a game and what kind of behaviour they are designed to encourage in players.

While textual analysis is most commonly applied to written language, bear in mind how broad the term “text” is and how varied the methods involved can be.

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In the fields of cultural studies and media studies, textual analysis is a key component of research. Researchers in these fields take media and cultural objects – for example, music videos, social media content, billboard advertising – and treat them as texts to be analyzed.

Usually working within a particular theoretical framework (for example, using postcolonial theory, media theory, or semiotics), researchers seek to connect elements of their texts with issues in contemporary politics and culture. They might analyze many different aspects of the text:

• Word choice
• Design elements
• Location of the text
• Target audience
• Relationship with other texts

Textual analysis in this context is usually creative and qualitative in its approach. Researchers seek to illuminate something about the underlying politics or social context of the cultural object they’re investigating.

In the social sciences, textual analysis is often applied to texts such as interview transcripts and surveys , as well as to various types of media. Social scientists use textual data to draw empirical conclusions about social relations.

Textual analysis in the social sciences sometimes takes a more quantitative approach , where the features of texts are measured numerically. For example, a researcher might investigate how often certain words are repeated in social media posts, or which colors appear most prominently in advertisements for products targeted at different demographics.

Some common methods of analyzing texts in the social sciences include content analysis , thematic analysis , and discourse analysis .

Textual analysis is the most important method in literary studies. Almost all work in this field involves in-depth analysis of texts – in this context, usually novels, poems, stories or plays.

Because it deals with literary writing, this type of textual analysis places greater emphasis on the deliberately constructed elements of a text: for example, rhyme and meter in a poem, or narrative perspective in a novel. Researchers aim to understand and explain how these elements contribute to the text’s meaning.

However, literary analysis doesn’t just involve discovering the author’s intended meaning. It often also explores potentially unintended connections between different texts, asks what a text reveals about the context in which it was written, or seeks to analyze a classic text in a new and unexpected way.

Some well-known examples of literary analysis show the variety of approaches that can be taken:

• Eve Kosofky Sedgwick’s book Between Men analyzes Victorian literature in light of more contemporary perspectives on gender and sexuality.
• Roland Barthes’ S/Z provides an in-depth structural analysis of a short story by Balzac.
• Harold Bloom’s The Anxiety of Influence applies his own “influence theory” to an analysis of various classic poets.

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Textual Analysis: Definition, Types & 10 Examples

Textual analysis is a research methodology that involves exploring written text as empirical data. Scholars explore both the content and structure of texts, and attempt to discern key themes and statistics emergent from them.

This method of research is used in various academic disciplines, including cultural studies, literature, bilical studies, anthropology , sociology, and others (Dearing, 2022; McKee, 2003).

This method of analysis involves breaking down a text into its constituent parts for close reading and making inferences about its context, underlying themes, and the intentions of its author.

Textual Analysis Definition

Alan McKee is one of the preeminent scholars of textual analysis. He provides a clear and approachable definition in his book Textual Analysis: A Beginner’s Guide (2003) where he writes:

“When we perform textual analysis on a text we make an educated guess at some of the most likely interpretations that might be made of the text […] in order to try and obtain a sense of the ways in which, in particular cultures at particular times, people make sense of the world around them.”

A key insight worth extracting from this definition is that textual analysis can reveal what cultural groups value, how they create meaning, and how they interpret reality.

This is invaluable in situations where scholars are seeking to more deeply understand cultural groups and civilizations – both past and present (Metoyer et al., 2018).

As such, it may be beneficial for a range of different types of studies, such as:

• Studies of Historical Texts: A study of how certain concepts are framed, described, and approached in historical texts, such as the Bible.
• Studies of Industry Reports: A study of how industry reports frame and discuss concepts such as environmental and social responsibility.
• Studies of Literature: A study of how a particular text or group of texts within a genre define and frame concepts. For example, you could explore how great American literature mythologizes the concept of the ‘The American Dream’.
• Studies of Speeches: A study of how certain politicians position national identities in their appeals for votes.
• Studies of Newspapers: A study of the biases within newspapers toward or against certain groups of people.
• Etc. (For more, see: Dearing, 2022)

McKee uses the term ‘textual analysis’ to also refer to text types that are not just written, but multimodal. For a dive into the analysis of multimodal texts, I recommend my article on content analysis , where I explore the study of texts like television advertisements and movies in detail.

Features of a Textual Analysis

When conducting a textual analysis, you’ll need to consider a range of factors within the text that are worthy of close examination to infer meaning. Features worthy of considering include:

• Content: What is being said or conveyed in the text, including explicit and implicit meanings, themes, or ideas.
• Context: When and where the text was created, the culture and society it reflects, and the circumstances surrounding its creation and distribution.
• Audience: Who the text is intended for, how it’s received, and the effect it has on its audience.
• Authorship: Who created the text, their background and perspectives, and how these might influence the text.
• Form and structure: The layout, sequence, and organization of the text and how these elements contribute to its meanings (Metoyer et al., 2018).

Textual Analysis Coding Methods

The above features may be examined through quantitative or qualitative research designs , or a mixed-methods angle.

1. Quantitative Approaches

You could analyze several of the above features, namely, content, form, and structure, from a quantitative perspective using computational linguistics and natural language processing (NLP) analysis.

From this approach, you would use algorithms to extract useful information or insights about frequency of word and phrase usage, etc. This can include techniques like sentiment analysis, topic modeling, named entity recognition, and more.

2. Qualitative Approaches

In many ways, textual analysis lends itself best to qualitative analysis. When identifying words and phrases, you’re also going to want to look at the surrounding context and possibly cultural interpretations of what is going on (Mayring, 2015).

Generally, humans are far more perceptive at teasing out these contextual factors than machines (although, AI is giving us a run for our money).

One qualitative approach to textual analysis that I regularly use is inductive coding, a step-by-step methodology that can help you extract themes from texts. If you’re interested in using this step-by-step method, read my guide on inductive coding here .

See more Qualitative Research Approaches Here

Textual Analysis Examples

Title: “Discourses on Gender, Patriarchy and Resolution 1325: A Textual Analysis of UN Documents”  Author: Nadine Puechguirbal Year: 2010 APA Citation: Puechguirbal, N. (2010). Discourses on Gender, Patriarchy and Resolution 1325: A Textual Analysis of UN Documents, International Peacekeeping, 17 (2): 172-187. doi: 10.1080/13533311003625068

Summary: The article discusses the language used in UN documents related to peace operations and analyzes how it perpetuates stereotypical portrayals of women as vulnerable individuals. The author argues that this language removes women’s agency and keeps them in a subordinate position as victims, instead of recognizing them as active participants and agents of change in post-conflict environments. Despite the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, which aims to address the role of women in peace and security, the author suggests that the UN’s male-dominated power structure remains unchallenged, and gender mainstreaming is often presented as a non-political activity.

Title: “Racism and the Media: A Textual Analysis”  Author: Kassia E. Kulaszewicz Year: 2015 APA Citation: Kulaszewicz, K. E. (2015). Racism and the Media: A Textual Analysis . Dissertation. Retrieved from: https://sophia.stkate.edu/msw_papers/477

Summary: This study delves into the significant role media plays in fostering explicit racial bias. Using Bandura’s Learning Theory, it investigates how media content influences our beliefs through ‘observational learning’. Conducting a textual analysis, it finds differences in representation of black and white people, stereotyping of black people, and ostensibly micro-aggressions toward black people. The research highlights how media often criminalizes Black men, portraying them as violent, while justifying or supporting the actions of White officers, regardless of their potential criminality. The study concludes that news media likely continues to reinforce racism, whether consciously or unconsciously.

Title: “On the metaphorical nature of intellectual capital: a textual analysis” Author: Daniel Andriessen Year: 2006 APA Citation: Andriessen, D. (2006). On the metaphorical nature of intellectual capital: a textual analysis. Journal of Intellectual capital , 7 (1), 93-110.

Summary: This article delves into the metaphorical underpinnings of intellectual capital (IC) and knowledge management, examining how knowledge is conceptualized through metaphors. The researchers employed a textual analysis methodology, scrutinizing key texts in the field to identify prevalent metaphors. They found that over 95% of statements about knowledge are metaphor-based, with “knowledge as a resource” and “knowledge as capital” being the most dominant. This study demonstrates how textual analysis helps us to understand current understandings and ways of speaking about a topic.

Title: “Race in Rhetoric: A Textual Analysis of Barack Obama’s Campaign Discourse Regarding His Race” Author: Andrea Dawn Andrews Year: 2011 APA Citation: Andrew, A. D. (2011) Race in Rhetoric: A Textual Analysis of Barack Obama’s Campaign Discourse Regarding His Race. Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection. 120 . https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/ugtheses/120

This undergraduate honors thesis is a textual analysis of Barack Obama’s speeches that explores how Obama frames the concept of race. The student’s capstone project found that Obama tended to frame racial inequality as something that could be overcome, and that this was a positive and uplifting project. Here, the student breaks-down times when Obama utilizes the concept of race in his speeches, and examines the surrounding content to see the connotations associated with race and race-relations embedded in the text. Here, we see a decidedly qualitative approach to textual analysis which can deliver contextualized and in-depth insights.

Sub-Types of Textual Analysis

While above I have focused on a generalized textual analysis approach, a range of sub-types and offshoots have emerged that focus on specific concepts, often within their own specific theoretical paradigms. Each are outlined below, and where I’ve got a guide, I’ve linked to it in blue:

• Content Analysis : Content analysis is similar to textual analysis, and I would consider it a type of textual analysis, where it’s got a broader understanding of the term ‘text’. In this type, a text is any type of ‘content’, and could be multimodal in nature, such as television advertisements, movies, posters, and so forth. Content analysis can be both qualitative and quantitative, depending on whether it focuses more on the meaning of the content or the frequency of certain words or concepts (Chung & Pennebaker, 2018).
• Discourse Analysis : Emergent specifically from critical and postmodern/ poststructural theories, discourse analysis focuses closely on the use of language within a social context, with the goal of revealing how repeated framing of terms and concepts has the effect of shaping how cultures understand social categories. It considers how texts interact with and shape social norms, power dynamics, ideologies, etc. For example, it might examine how gender is socially constructed as a distinct social category through Disney films. It may also be called ‘critical discourse analysis’.
• Narrative Analysis: This approach is used for analyzing stories and narratives within text. It looks at elements like plot, characters, themes, and the sequence of events to understand how narratives construct meaning.
• Frame Analysis: This approach looks at how events, ideas, and themes are presented or “framed” within a text. It explores how these frames can shape our understanding of the information being presented. While similar to discourse analysis, a frame analysis tends to be less associated with the loaded concept of ‘discourse’ that exists specifically within postmodern paradigms (Smith, 2017).
• Semiotic Analysis: This approach studies signs and symbols, both visual and textual, and could be a good compliment to a content analysis, as it provides the language and understandings necessary to describe how signs make meaning in cultural contexts that we might find with the fields of semantics and pragmatics . It’s based on the theory of semiotics, which is concerned with how meaning is created and communicated through signs and symbols.
• Computational Textual Analysis: In the context of data science or artificial intelligence, this type of analysis involves using algorithms to process large amounts of text. Techniques can include topic modeling, sentiment analysis, word frequency analysis, and others. While being extremely useful for a quantitative analysis of a large dataset of text, it falls short in its ability to provide deep contextualized understandings of words-in-context.

Each of these methods has its strengths and weaknesses, and the choice of method depends on the research question, the type of text being analyzed, and the broader context of the research.

See More Examples of Analysis Here

Strengths and Weaknesses of Textual Analysis

When writing your methodology for your textual analysis, make sure to define not only what textual analysis is, but (if applicable) the type of textual analysis, the features of the text you’re analyzing, and the ways you will code the data. It’s also worth actively reflecting on the potential weaknesses of a textual analysis approach, but also explaining why, despite those weaknesses, you believe this to be the most appropriate methodology for your study.

Chung, C. K., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2018). Textual analysis. In  Measurement in social psychology  (pp. 153-173). Routledge.

Dearing, V. A. (2022).  Manual of textual analysis . Univ of California Press.

McKee, A. (2003). Textual analysis: A beginner’s guide.  Textual analysis , 1-160.

Mayring, P. (2015). Qualitative content analysis: Theoretical background and procedures.  Approaches to qualitative research in mathematics education: Examples of methodology and methods , 365-380. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9181-6_13

Metoyer, R., Zhi, Q., Janczuk, B., & Scheirer, W. (2018, March). Coupling story to visualization: Using textual analysis as a bridge between data and interpretation. In  23rd International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces  (pp. 503-507). doi: https://doi.org/10.1145/3172944.3173007

Smith, J. A. (2017). Textual analysis.  The international encyclopedia of communication research methods , 1-7.

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Collaboration, information literacy, writing process, textual analysis – how to engage in textual analysis.

• © 2023 by Jennifer Janechek - IBM Quantum

As a reader, a developing writer, and an informed student and citizen, you need to be able to locate, understand, and critically analyze others’ purposes in communicating information. Being able to identify and articulate the meaning of other writers’ arguments and theses enables you to engage in intelligent, meaningful, and critical knowledge exchanges. Ultimately, regardless of the discipline you choose to participate in,  textual analysis —the summary, contextualization, and interpretation of a writer’s effective or ineffective delivery of their perspective on a topic, statement of thesis, and development of an argument—will be an invaluable skill. Your ability to critically engage in knowledge exchanges—through the analysis of others’ communication—is integral to your success as a student and as a citizen.

Step 1: What Is The Thesis?

In order to learn how to better recognize a thesis in a written text, let’s consider the following argument:

So far, [Google+] does seem better than Facebook, though I’m still a rookie and don’t know how to do even some basic things.

It’s better in design terms, and also much better with its “circles” allowing you to target posts to various groups.

Example: following that high school reunion, the overwhelming majority of my Facebook friends list (which I’m barely rebuilding after my rejoin) are people from my own hometown. None of these people are going to care too much when my new book comes out from Edinburgh. Likewise, not too many of you would care to hear inside jokes about our old high school teachers, or whatever it is we banter about.

Another example: people I know only from exchanging a couple of professional emails with them ask to be Facebook friends. I’ve never met these people and have no idea what they’re really like, even if they seem nice enough on email. Do I really want to add them to my friends list on the same level as my closest friends, brothers, valued colleagues, etc.? Not yet. But then there’s the risk of offending people if you don’t add them. On Google+ you can just drop them in the “acquaintances” circle, and they’ll never know how they’re classified.

But they won’t be getting any highly treasured personal information there, which is exactly the restriction you probably want for someone you’ve never met before.

I also don’t like too many family members on my Facebook friends list, because frankly they don’t need to know everything I’m doing or chatting about with people. But on Google+ this problem will be easily manageable. (Harman)

The first sentence, “[Google+] does seem better than Facebook” (Harman), doesn’t communicate the writer’s position on the topic; it is merely an observation . A position, also called a “claim,” often includes the conjunction “because,” providing a reason why the writer’s observation is unique, meaningful, and critical.https://www.youtube.com/embed/rwSFfnlwtjY?rel=0&feature=youtu.beTherefore, if the writer’s sentence, “[Google+] does seem better than Facebook” (Harman), is simply an observation, then in order to identify the writer’s position, we must find the answer to “because, why?” One such answer can be found in the author’s rhetorical question/answer, “Do I really want to add them to my friends list on the same level as my closest friends, brothers, valued colleagues, etc.? Not yet” (Harman). The writer’s “because, why?” could be “because Google+ allows me to manage old, new, and potential friends and acquaintances using separate circles, so that I’m targeting posts to various, separate groups.” Therefore, the writer’s thesis—their position—could be something like, “Google+ is better than Facebook because its design enables me to manage my friends using separate circles, so that I’m targeting posts to various, separate groups instead of posting the same information for everyone I’ve added to my network.”

In addition to communicating a position on a particular topic, a writer’s thesis outlines what aspects of the topic they will address. Outlining intentions within a thesis is not only acceptable, but also one of a writer’s primary obligations, since the thesis relates their general argument. In a sense, you could think of the thesis as a responsibility to answer the question, “What will you/won’t you be claiming and why?”

To explain this further, let’s consider another example. If someone were to ask you what change you want to see in the world, you probably wouldn’t readily answer “world peace,” even though you (and many others) may want that. Why wouldn’t you answer that way? Because such an answer is far too broad and ambiguous to be logically argued. Although world peace may be your goal, for logic’s sake, you would be better off articulating your answer as “a peaceful solution to the violence currently occurring on the border of southern Texas and Mexico,” or something similarly specific. The distinction between the two answers should be clear: the first answer, “world peace,” is broad, ambiguous, and not a fully developed claim (there wouldn’t be many, if any, people who would disagree with this statement); the second answer is narrower, more specific, and a fully developed claim. It confines the argument to a particular example of violence, but still allows you to address what you want, “world peace,” on a smaller, more manageable, and more logical scale.

Since a writer’s thesis functions as an outline of what they will address in an argument, it is often organized in the same manner as the argument itself. Let’s return to the argument about Google+ for an example. If the author stated their position as suggested—“Google+ is better than Facebook because its design enables me to manage my friends using separate circles, so that I’m targeting posts to various, separate groups instead of posting the same information I’ve added to my network”—we would expect them to first address the similarities and differences between the designs of Google+ and Facebook, and then the reasons why they believe Google+ is a more effective way of sharing information. The organization of their thesis should reflect the overall order of their argument. Such a well-organized thesis builds the foundation for a cohesive and persuasive argument.

Textual Analysis: How is the Argument Structured?

“Textual analysis” is the term writers use to describe a reader’s written explanation of a text. The reader’s textual analysis ought to include a summary of the author’s topic, an analysis or explanation of how the author’s perspective relates to the ongoing conversation about that particular topic, an interpretation of the effectiveness of the author’s argument and thesis , and references to specific components of the text that support his or her analysis or explanation.

An effective argument generally consists of the following components:

• A thesis. Communicates the writer’s position on a particular topic.
• Acknowledgement of opposition. Explains existing objections to the writer’s position.
• Clearly defined premises outlining reasoning. Details the logic of the writer’s position.
• Evidence of validating premises. Proves the writer’s thorough research of the topic.
• A conclusion convincing the audience of the argument’s soundness/persuasiveness. Argues the writer’s position is relevant, logical, and thoroughly researched and communicated.

An effective argument also is specifically concerned with the components involved in researching, framing, and communicating evidence:

• The credibility and breadth of the writer’s research
• The techniques (like rhetorical appeals) used to communicate the evidence (see “The Rhetorical Appeals”)
• The relevance of the evidence as it reflects the concerns and interests of the author’s targeted audience

To identify and analyze a writer’s argument, you must critically read and understand the text in question. Focus and take notes as you read, highlighting what you believe are key words or important phrases. Once you are confident in your general understanding of the text, you’ll need to explain the author’s argument in a condensed summary. One way of accomplishing this is to ask yourself the following questions:

• What topic has the author written about? (Explain in as few words as possible.)
• What is the author’s point of view concerning their topic?
• What has the author written about the opposing point of view? (Where does it appear as though the author is “giving credit” to the opposition?)
• Does the author offer proof (either in reference to another published source or from personal experience) supporting their stance on the topic?
• As a reader, would you say that the argument is persuasive? Can you think of ways to strengthen the argument? Using which evidence or techniques?

Your articulation of the author’s argument will most likely derive from your answers to these questions. Let’s reconsider the argument about Google+ and answer the reflection questions listed above:

The author’s topic is two social networks—Google+ and Facebook.

The author is “for” the new social network Google+.

The author makes a loose allusion to the opposing point of view in the explanation, “I’m still a rookie and don’t know how to do even some basic things” (Harman). (The author alludes to his inexperience and, therefore, the potential for the opposing argument to have more merit.)

Yes, the author offers proof from personal experience, particularly through their first example: “following that high school reunion, the overwhelming majority of my Facebook friends list (which I’m barely rebuilding after my rejoin) are people from my hometown” (Harman). In their second example, they cite that “[o]n Google+ you can just drop [individuals] in the ‘acquaintances’ circle, and they’ll never even know how they’re classified” (Harman) in order to offer even more credible proof, based on the way Google+ operates instead of personal experience.

Yes, I would say that this argument is persuasive, although if I wanted to make it even stronger, I would include more detailed information about the opposing point of view. A balanced argument—one that fairly and thoroughly articulates both sides—is often more respected and better received because it proves to the audience that the writer has thoroughly researched the topic prior to making a judgment in favor of one perspective or another.

Works Cited

Harman, Graham. Object-Oriented Philosophy. WordPress, n.d. Web. 15 May 2012.

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16.3 Glance at Genre: Print or Textual Analysis

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Define key terms and organizational patterns of textual analysis.
• Explain how genre conventions are shaped by purpose, culture, and expectation.

As a genre —or literary category in which works feature similar forms, styles, or subject matter—textual analysis is less of a genre in itself and more of an exploration and interpretation of other genres. That is, textual analysis is explanatory and interpretive. When you receive an assignment to analyze a text, you focus on the elements that give it meaning. Usually your instructor will assign a specific writing task: to analyze and explain certain aspects of a text, to compare or contrast certain elements within a single text or in two or more texts, or to relate certain text elements to historical context or current events (as student writer Gwyn Garrison has done in the Annotated Student Sample ). These writing tasks thus explore genre characteristics of fiction, drama, poetry, literary nonfiction, film, and other forms of literary language.

When you write a textual analysis, ask yourself questions such as these:

• In what ways can this text be read?
• What are some different ways of reading it?
• Which reading makes the most sense to me?
• Which passages in the text support this reading?
• Whom does my analysis need to convince? (Who is my audience?)

Textual Analysis and Interpretive Communities

How you read and analyze a text depends on who you are. Who you are depends on the influences that have shaped you, or the communities to which you belong. Everyone belongs to various communities: families, social and economic groups (e.g., students or teachers, middle or working class), organizations (e.g., Democratic or Republican Party, Masons, Habitat for Humanity), geographic locales (e.g., rural or urban, north or south), and institutions (e.g., school, church, fraternity). Your membership in one or more communities may determine how you view and respond to the world. The communities that influence you most are called interpretive communities ; they influence the meaning you make of the world. People who belong to the same community may well have similar assumptions and therefore are likely to analyze texts in similar ways.

Before writing an interpretive or textual analysis essay, it is helpful to ask, Who am I when writing this piece? Be aware of your age, gender, race, ethnic identity, economic class, geographic location, educational level, or political or religious persuasion. Ask to what extent and for what purpose any of these identities emerges in your writing. Readers will examine the biases you may bring to your work, understanding that everyone views the world—and, consequently, texts—from their own vantage point.

College is, of course, a large interpretive community. The various smaller communities that exist within it are called disciplines: English, history, biology, business, art, and so on. Established ways of interpreting texts exist within disciplines. Often when you write a textual analysis, you will do so from the perspective of a traditional academic interpretive community or from the perspective of one who challenges that community.

Whether you deliberately identify yourself and any biases you might bring with you in your essay depends on the assignment you are given. Some assignments ask you to remove your personal perspective as much as possible from your writing, others ask that you acknowledge and explain it, and others fall somewhere in between.

Conventions of Textual Analysis

When asked to analyze or interpret a literary work, whether fiction or nonfiction, you will likely focus on some of these literary elements to explain how an author uses them to make meaning.

• Alliteration: literary device consisting of repetition of initial consonant sounds. (“Away from the steamy sidewalk, the children sat in a circle.”)
• Analysis: close examination and explanation of a text, supported by reasoning and evidence.
• Antagonist: character or force opposing the main character (protagonist) in a story.
• Climax: moment of emotional or intellectual intensity or a point in the plot when one opposing force overcomes another and the conflict is resolved.
• Epiphany: flash of intuitive understanding by the narrator or a character in a story.
• Figurative language: language that suggests special meanings or effects. Similes and metaphors are examples of figurative, rather than literal, language. (“She stands like a tree, solid and rooted.”)
• Imagery: language that appeals to one (or more) of the five senses. (“The cicadas hummed nonstop all day, but never loud enough to dull the roar of the leaf blowers.)
• Metaphor: direct comparison between two unlike things. (“She is a sly fox in her undercover work for the government.”)
• Narrator: someone who tells a story. A character narrator is a part of the story, whereas an omniscient narrator tells a story about others.
• Persona: mask to disguise or cover the author’s real self when presenting a story or other literary work.
• Plot: sequence of events in a story or play.
• Point of view: vantage point from which a story or event is perceived and told. The most frequently used points of view are first person and third person. In first person, the narrator is a character or observer in the story (fiction) or the author of it (nonfiction). In third person, the narrator has no part in the story other than telling it.
• Protagonist: main character or hero in a story.
• Rhyme: repetition of sounds, usually at the ends of lines in poems, but also occurring at other intervals in a line.
• Rhythm: rise and fall of stressed sounds within sentences, paragraphs, and stanzas.
• Simile: indirect comparison of unlike things using the word as or like . (“When he does undercover work, he is as sly as a fox.”)
• Symbol: object that represents itself and something else at the same time. A red rose is both a rose of a certain color and the suggestion of something romantic.
• Theme: meaning or thesis of a literary text.

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A Quick Guide to Textual Analysis – Definition & Steps

Published by Alvin Nicolas at August 16th, 2021 , Revised On August 29, 2023

Textual analysis is the method of analysing and understanding the text. It includes the close reading of fictional texts, images symbols, and all forms of written literary texts. A researcher needs to look keenly at the text to identify the writer’s context and its message.

What is a Text? 

• A text can be anything from which you can extract any meaning or information.
• A text can be a written book, records, journals, newspapers, magazines, ornaments, objects, emails, or transcribed conversations.
• It also includes analysing events, places, videos, images, or movies to get in-depth knowledge about its creation and purpose.

Why do we Call it a Text?

You might be thinking, why don’t we call it a book, video, or magazine? Why do we call it a  text ?

The word  text means the post-structuralist approach to thinking about the development of meaning.

The Purpose of Textual Analysis

The purpose of your textual analysis depends on the object of your analysis, such as:

• Analysis of a video or movie may aim to determine the target audience, dialogues, cinematography, visual and sound effects, and the message conveyed through his work.
• Analysis of texts and short stories focus on the language, narrative, choice of words, imagery, perception of the writer, and organisation of the text.
• You can analyse a monument based on its architectural history, stories related to it, and visitors’ navigation.
• You can analyse images in terms of the photographer’s creativity, use of a camera, sense of selecting locations, skills of capturing images, etc.
• You can analyse paintings in terms of their artistic level, use of colours, perception of the painters, the message hidden in the image, etc.

Confused between qualitative and quantitative methods of data analysis? No idea what discourse and content analysis are?

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• Whether you want a full dissertation written or need help forming a dissertation proposal, we can help you with both.
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Textual Analysis of Cultural and Media Studies

A researcher uses videos, social media content, newspapers, maps, buildings, advertisements, and images. Textual analysis plays a key role in the fields of cultural and media studies. A researcher aims to analyse, interpret, and analyse the controversial issues and messages embedded within the text and tries to connect them with other texts or events.

These kinds of texts are analysed from the following aspects:

• Content of the texts
• Language and word choice
• Elements of creativity
• Target audience
• Association with other texts or events

It focuses primarily on the creative and qualitative approach of the text. A researcher identifies the context and hidden message of the text.

Textual Analysis in the Social Sciences

It includes the textual analysis of the interview transcripts and surveys, and other media, including TV programs, chats, social media content. It takes a quantitative approach to measure the characteristics and organisation of the text. You can measure the text’s repetitions, types of colours displayed, tone of the speakers, etc.

Content analysis ,  thematic analysis , and  discourse analysis are the most frequent ways to analyse these texts.

Literary Text Analysis

The literary text analysis is breaking a text’s structure and content into smaller parts to seek in-depth understanding. A researcher It includes stories, poetry, plays, novels, plays, and books.

Also read about: Correlational research , a comprehensive guide on its types with examples

It focuses on identifying:

• The association between various individual texts.
• The similarities between the concepts of the two separate texts.
• The relationship between the texts and political, social, aesthetic, economic, or religious contexts.

Frequently Asked Questions

How to describe textual analysis.

Textual analysis examines written, visual, or spoken material to uncover layers of meaning, themes, and patterns. It dissects language, structure, and context to reveal how elements convey messages, ideologies, and cultural insights, often contributing to a deeper understanding of the content’s significance.

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• Super Search Webpage Where to start your research.
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• Why is it important?
• Explanation & Example
• Different Types of Analysis Essays

Text analysis and writing analysis texts are important skills to develop as they allow individuals to critically engage with written material, understand underlying themes and arguments, and communicate their own ideas in a clear and effective manner. These skills are essential in academic and professional settings, as well as in everyday life, as they enable individuals to evaluate information and make informed decisions.

What is Text Analysis?

Text analysis is the process of examining and interpreting a written or spoken text to understand its meaning, structure, and context. It involves breaking down the text into its constituent parts, such as words, phrases, and sentences, and analyzing how they work together to convey a particular message or idea.

Text analysis can be used to explore a wide range of textual material, including literature, poetry, speeches, and news articles, and it is often employed in academic research, literary criticism, and media analysis. By analyzing texts, we can gain deeper insights into their meanings, uncover hidden messages and themes, and better understand the social and cultural contexts in which they were produced.

What is an Analysis Essay?

An analysis essay is a type of essay that requires the writer to analyze and interpret a particular text or topic. The goal of an analysis essay is to break down the text or topic into smaller parts and examine each part carefully. This allows the writer to make connections between different parts of the text or topic and develop a more comprehensive understanding of it.

In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses the first-person point of view and vivid descriptions of the protagonist’s surroundings to convey the protagonist’s psychological deterioration. By limiting the reader’s understanding of the story’s events to the protagonist’s perspective, Gilman creates a sense of claustrophobia and paranoia, mirroring the protagonist’s own feelings. Additionally, the use of sensory language, such as the “smooch of rain,” and descriptions of the “yellow wallpaper” and its “sprawling flamboyant patterns,” further emphasize the protagonist’s sensory and emotional experience. Through these techniques, Gilman effectively communicates the protagonist’s descent into madness and the effects of societal oppression on women’s mental health.

There are several different types of analysis essays, including:

Literary Analysis Essays: These essays examine a work of literature and analyze various literary devices such as character development, plot, theme, and symbolism.

Rhetorical Analysis Essays: These essays examine how authors use language and rhetoric to persuade their audience, focusing on the author's tone, word choice, and use of rhetorical devices.

Film Analysis Essays: These essays analyze a film's themes, characters, and visual elements, such as cinematography and sound.

Visual Analysis Essays: These essays analyze visual art, such as paintings or sculptures, and explore how the artwork's elements work together to create meaning.

Historical Analysis Essays: These essays analyze historical events or documents and examine their causes, effects, and implications.

Comparative Analysis Essays: These essays compare and contrast two or more works, focusing on similarities and differences between them.

Process Analysis Essays: These essays explain how to do something or how something works, providing a step-by-step analysis of a process.

Analyzing Texts

• General Tips
• How to Analyze
• What to Analyze

When writing an essay, it's essential to analyze your topic thoroughly. Here are some suggestions for analyzing your topic:

Read carefully: Start by reading your text or prompt carefully. Make sure you understand the key points and what the text or prompt is asking you to do.

Analyze the text or topic thoroughly: Analyze the text or topic thoroughly by breaking it down into smaller parts and examining each part carefully. This will help you make connections between different parts of the text or topic and develop a more comprehensive understanding of it.

Identify key concepts: Identify the key concepts, themes, and ideas in the text or prompt. This will help you focus your analysis.

Take notes: Take notes on important details and concepts as you read. This will help you remember what you've read and organize your thoughts.

Consider different perspectives: Consider different perspectives and interpretations of the text or prompt. This can help you create a more well-rounded analysis.

Use evidence: Use evidence from the text or outside sources to support your analysis. This can help you make your argument stronger and more convincing.

Formulate your thesis statement: Based on your analysis of the essay, formulate your thesis statement. This should be a clear and concise statement that summarizes your main argument.

Use clear and concise language: Use clear and concise language to communicate your ideas effectively. Avoid using overly complicated language that may confuse your reader.

Revise and edit: Revise and edit your essay carefully to ensure that it is clear, concise, and free of errors.

• Understanding the assignment: Make sure you fully understand the assignment and the purpose of the analysis. This will help you focus your analysis and ensure that you are meeting the requirements of the assignment.

Read the essay multiple times: Reading the essay multiple times will help you to identify the author's main argument, key points, and supporting evidence.

Take notes: As you read the essay, take notes on key points, quotes, and examples. This will help you to organize your thoughts and identify patterns in the author's argument.

Take breaks: It's important to take breaks while reading academic essays to avoid burnout. Take a break every 20-30 minutes and do something completely different, like going for a walk or listening to music. This can help you to stay refreshed and engaged.

Highlight or underline key points: As you read, highlight or underline key points, arguments, and evidence that stand out to you. This will help you to remember and analyze important information later.

Ask questions: Ask yourself questions as you read to help you engage critically with the text. What is the author's argument? What evidence do they use to support their claims? What are the strengths and weaknesses of their argument?

Engage in active reading: Instead of passively reading, engage in active reading by asking questions, making connections to other readings or personal experiences, and reflecting on what you've read.

Find a discussion partner: Find someone to discuss the essay with, whether it's a classmate, a friend, or a teacher. Discussing the essay can help you to process and analyze the information more deeply, and can also help you to stay engaged.

• Identify the author's purpose and audience: Consider why the author wrote the essay and who their intended audience is. This will help you to better understand the author's perspective and the purpose of their argument.

Analyze the structure of the essay: Consider how the essay is structured and how this supports the author's argument. Look for patterns in the organization of ideas and the use of transitions.

Evaluate the author's use of evidence: Evaluate the author's use of evidence and how it supports their argument. Consider whether the evidence is credible, relevant, and sufficient to support the author's claims.

Consider the author's tone and style: Consider the author's tone and style and how it contributes to their argument. Look for patterns in the use of language, imagery, and rhetorical devices.

Consider the context : Consider the context in which the essay was written, such as the author's background, the time period, and any societal or cultural factors that may have influenced their perspective.

Evaluate the evidence: Evaluate the evidence presented in the essay and consider whether it is sufficient to support the author's argument. Look for any biases or assumptions that may be present in the evidence.

Consider alternative viewpoints: Consider alternative viewpoints and arguments that may challenge the author's perspective. This can help you to engage critically with the text and develop a more well-rounded understanding of the topic.

• Last Updated: Jun 21, 2023 1:01 PM
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Textual Analysis – Definition, Approaches & Fields

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Textual communication surrounds a large part of the methodology used by researchers to analyze and interpret texts by studying their style, content, structure, purpose, and underlying meaning. Besides analyzing the text, textual analysis gives us a better and more detailed idea of how people communicate and represent their experiences and perspectives through writing. This article will outline the different approaches to textual analysis and in what fields of study it is commonly used.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

• 1 Textual Analysis – In a Nutshell
• 2 Definition: Textual analysis
• 3 What are the approaches to textual analysis?
• 4 Different fields of textual analysis

Textual Analysis – In a Nutshell

• Text can be defined simply as any instance of language in any medium that makes sense to someone who knows the language, e.g., newspaper articles and transcripts of spoken interviews and observations.
• The purpose of textual analysis is to describe the functions, content, and structure of messages contained in a text.
• This type of analysis is used in different fields, including literary studies (where it is most common), social sciences, and cultural and media studies.

Definition: Textual analysis

Textual analysis is a broad term that entails various research methods, which allow to analyze, describe, and interpret the characteristics of a recorded message. There are four main approaches typically used in academic writing. Nevertheless, textual analysis is also used in other fields, such as in cultural and media studies, social sciences, and literary studies.

An example of textual analysis is brand monitoring to determine social opinion on your brand in various contexts.

What are the approaches to textual analysis?

There are four main approaches to textual analysis, which are listed and discussed  below:

1. Rhetorical criticism

Rhetorical criticism is the systematic method of describing, analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating the persuasive force of messages within texts. At its core, rhetorical criticism is simply analyzing the use of rhetoric.

The process of rhetorical criticism has four steps :

• Select the text to study
• Choose the type of rhetorical criticism
• Analyze the chosen text using the chosen method
• Write a critical essay

The process of rhetorical criticism serves essential functions , including:

• Helping in understanding the historical, cultural, and social contexts
• Researchers can use it to evaluate society as a form of social criticism
• Helps illuminate the purpose of persuasive messages
• Teaching people what makes effective persuasion and how persuasion works

2. Content analysis

Content analysis is the analysis of specific message characteristics in a piece of text. It is usually considered unobtrusive since the analyzed texts already exist and are not being produced on request.

Content analysis can be both qualitative and quantitative, as described below:

• Quantitative – A systematic step-by-step procedure used to test hypotheses and answer research questions
• Qualitative – An approach that is more interested in the meanings of messages than the frequency of the occurrence of message variables.

The goals of content analysis include:

• Understanding the intentions of groups and individuals
• Identifying bias and propaganda
• Finding connections in how concepts are communicated
• Identifying communication differences in different contexts

3. Interaction analysis

Interaction analysis is the process of evaluating processes, determining the data requirements of each, and generating a matrix of what data is used by what process.

An interaction analysis involves two general tasks:

• Obtain a sample of interaction : When gathering a sample, the researchers’ choices affect the quality and type of data collected. Their choices determine if the interaction will be natural or structured, whether the location will be in a laboratory or another area, and the exact methods used to collect data.
• Analyzing the sample : Specific analysis of the collected samples will depend on the researchers’ goals and the form of the collected data.

4. Performance Studies

Performance studies is an approach that uses performance as the lens to study the world. There are six primary steps to undertaking a performance study:

Different fields of textual analysis

Textual analysis is a critical component of research in various fields of study, as discussed below.

Textual analysis in cultural and media studies

Researchers in cultural and media studies take media and cultural objects and treat them as texts to be analyzed.

• Media content
• Music videos
• Social media content.

Researchers in this field usually seek to connect contemporary culture and politics with text elements. In this context, the analysis is usually qualitative and creative. The different aspects of a text that a researcher may analyze include:

• The relationship with other relevant texts
• The design elements
• The word choice
• The location of the text
• The intended audience

Textual analysis in social sciences

Textual analysis in the social sciences is usually applied to texts like surveys, interview transcripts, and different media types to draw conclusions about social relations.

In this field, textual analysis usually takes a more quantitative approach, where certain text features’ frequency is measured numerically.

A researcher may investigate which words in a particular language are used most commonly, or which colors feature most in different advertisements aimed at different demographics.

Common methods of analyzing text in this field include discourse analysis, content analysis , and thematic analysis .

Textual analysis in literary studies

One of the most common uses of textual analysis is found in literary studies. Almost all works in this field – poems, plays, stories, novels – involve a comprehensive analysis. As this field deals with literary texts, a greater emphasis is usually placed on deliberately constructed elements such as the narrator’s voice and the rhyming scheme. In understanding these elements, the researcher lends more meaning to the text.

Textual analysis in this field also explores what the text reveals from the perspective through which the text was written, and finds new and unexpected ways to analyze classic pieces of text.

How do you write a textual analysis?

To write this analysis, the writer should analyze the structure, characters, setting, citations of a text, and central idea and themes. Consider the what, who, why, and where of the text you are analyzing.

What are the common approaches to textual analysis?

There are four primary textual analysis approaches:

• Rhetorical criticism
• Content analysis
• Interaction analysis
• Performance studies

What are the key features of textual analysis?

The key features of a textual analysis essay include:

• The summary and context of a text
• A statement of intent
• An explanation of the text’s continuing relevance

Why do we need to analyze texts?

The analysis helps extract a deeper meaning from a specific text and discover different perspectives in context.

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Sat / act prep online guides and tips, 5 steps to write a great analytical essay.

General Education

Do you need to write an analytical essay for school? What sets this kind of essay apart from other types, and what must you include when you write your own analytical essay? In this guide, we break down the process of writing an analytical essay by explaining the key factors your essay needs to have, providing you with an outline to help you structure your essay, and analyzing a complete analytical essay example so you can see what a finished essay looks like.

What Is an Analytical Essay?

Before you begin writing an analytical essay, you must know what this type of essay is and what it includes. Analytical essays analyze something, often (but not always) a piece of writing or a film.

An analytical essay is more than just a synopsis of the issue though; in this type of essay you need to go beyond surface-level analysis and look at what the key arguments/points of this issue are and why. If you’re writing an analytical essay about a piece of writing, you’ll look into how the text was written and why the author chose to write it that way. Instead of summarizing, an analytical essay typically takes a narrower focus and looks at areas such as major themes in the work, how the author constructed and supported their argument, how the essay used literary devices to enhance its messages, etc.

While you certainly want people to agree with what you’ve written, unlike with persuasive and argumentative essays, your main purpose when writing an analytical essay isn’t to try to convert readers to your side of the issue. Therefore, you won’t be using strong persuasive language like you would in those essay types. Rather, your goal is to have enough analysis and examples that the strength of your argument is clear to readers.

Besides typical essay components like an introduction and conclusion, a good analytical essay will include:

• A thesis that states your main argument
• Analysis that relates back to your thesis and supports it
• Examples to support your analysis and allow a more in-depth look at the issue

In the rest of this article, we’ll explain how to include each of these in your analytical essay.

How to Structure Your Analytical Essay

Analytical essays are structured similarly to many other essays you’ve written, with an introduction (including a thesis), several body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Below is an outline you can follow when structuring your essay, and in the next section we go into more detail on how to write an analytical essay.

Introduction

Your introduction will begin with some sort of attention-grabbing sentence to get your audience interested, then you’ll give a few sentences setting up the topic so that readers have some context, and you’ll end with your thesis statement. Your introduction will include:

• Brief background information explaining the issue/text
• Your thesis

Body Paragraphs

Your analytical essay will typically have three or four body paragraphs, each covering a different point of analysis. Begin each body paragraph with a sentence that sets up the main point you’ll be discussing. Then you’ll give some analysis on that point, backing it up with evidence to support your claim. Continue analyzing and giving evidence for your analysis until you’re out of strong points for the topic. At the end of each body paragraph, you may choose to have a transition sentence that sets up what the next paragraph will be about, but this isn’t required. Body paragraphs will include:

• Introductory sentence explaining what you’ll cover in the paragraph (sort of like a mini-thesis)
• Analysis point
• Evidence (either passages from the text or data/facts) that supports the analysis
• (Repeat analysis and evidence until you run out of examples)

You won’t be making any new points in your conclusion; at this point you’re just reiterating key points you’ve already made and wrapping things up. Begin by rephrasing your thesis and summarizing the main points you made in the essay. Someone who reads just your conclusion should be able to come away with a basic idea of what your essay was about and how it was structured. After this, you may choose to make some final concluding thoughts, potentially by connecting your essay topic to larger issues to show why it’s important. A conclusion will include:

• Paraphrase of thesis
• Summary of key points of analysis
• Final concluding thought(s)

5 Steps for Writing an Analytical Essay

Follow these five tips to break down writing an analytical essay into manageable steps. By the end, you’ll have a fully-crafted analytical essay with both in-depth analysis and enough evidence to support your argument. All of these steps use the completed analytical essay in the next section as an example.

#1: Pick a Topic

You may have already had a topic assigned to you, and if that’s the case, you can skip this step. However, if you haven’t, or if the topic you’ve been assigned is broad enough that you still need to narrow it down, then you’ll need to decide on a topic for yourself. Choosing the right topic can mean the difference between an analytical essay that’s easy to research (and gets you a good grade) and one that takes hours just to find a few decent points to analyze

Before you decide on an analytical essay topic, do a bit of research to make sure you have enough examples to support your analysis. If you choose a topic that’s too narrow, you’ll struggle to find enough to write about.

For example, say your teacher assigns you to write an analytical essay about the theme in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath of exposing injustices against migrants. For it to be an analytical essay, you can’t just recount the injustices characters in the book faced; that’s only a summary and doesn’t include analysis. You need to choose a topic that allows you to analyze the theme. One of the best ways to explore a theme is to analyze how the author made his/her argument. One example here is that Steinbeck used literary devices in the intercalary chapters (short chapters that didn’t relate to the plot or contain the main characters of the book) to show what life was like for migrants as a whole during the Dust Bowl.

You could write about how Steinbeck used literary devices throughout the whole book, but, in the essay below, I chose to just focus on the intercalary chapters since they gave me enough examples. Having a narrower focus will nearly always result in a tighter and more convincing essay (and can make compiling examples less overwhelming).

#2: Write a Thesis Statement

Your thesis statement is the most important sentence of your essay; a reader should be able to read just your thesis and understand what the entire essay is about and what you’ll be analyzing. When you begin writing, remember that each sentence in your analytical essay should relate back to your thesis

In the analytical essay example below, the thesis is the final sentence of the first paragraph (the traditional spot for it). The thesis is: “In The Grapes of Wrath’s intercalary chapters, John Steinbeck employs a variety of literary devices and stylistic choices to better expose the injustices committed against migrants in the 1930s.” So what will this essay analyze? How Steinbeck used literary devices in the intercalary chapters to show how rough migrants could have it. Crystal clear.

#3: Do Research to Find Your Main Points

This is where you determine the bulk of your analysis--the information that makes your essay an analytical essay. My preferred method is to list every idea that I can think of, then research each of those and use the three or four strongest ones for your essay. Weaker points may be those that don’t relate back to the thesis, that you don’t have much analysis to discuss, or that you can’t find good examples for. A good rule of thumb is to have one body paragraph per main point

This essay has four main points, each of which analyzes a different literary device Steinbeck uses to better illustrate how difficult life was for migrants during the Dust Bowl. The four literary devices and their impact on the book are:

• Lack of individual names in intercalary chapters to illustrate the scope of the problem
• Parallels to the Bible to induce sympathy for the migrants
• Non-showy, often grammatically-incorrect language so the migrants are more realistic and relatable to readers
• Nature-related metaphors to affect the mood of the writing and reflect the plight of the migrants

#4: Find Excerpts or Evidence to Support Your Analysis

Now that you have your main points, you need to back them up. If you’re writing a paper about a text or film, use passages/clips from it as your main source of evidence. If you’re writing about something else, your evidence can come from a variety of sources, such as surveys, experiments, quotes from knowledgeable sources etc. Any evidence that would work for a regular research paper works here.

In this example, I quoted multiple passages from The Grapes of Wrath  in each paragraph to support my argument. You should be able to back up every claim you make with evidence in order to have a strong essay.

#5: Put It All Together

Now it's time to begin writing your essay, if you haven’t already. Create an introductory paragraph that ends with the thesis, make a body paragraph for each of your main points, including both analysis and evidence to back up your claims, and wrap it all up with a conclusion that recaps your thesis and main points and potentially explains the big picture importance of the topic.

Analytical Essay Example + Analysis

So that you can see for yourself what a completed analytical essay looks like, here’s an essay I wrote back in my high school days. It’s followed by analysis of how I structured my essay, what its strengths are, and how it could be improved.

One way Steinbeck illustrates the connections all migrant people possessed and the struggles they faced is by refraining from using specific titles and names in his intercalary chapters. While The Grapes of Wrath focuses on the Joad family, the intercalary chapters show that all migrants share the same struggles and triumphs as the Joads. No individual names are used in these chapters; instead the people are referred to as part of a group. Steinbeck writes, “Frantic men pounded on the doors of the doctors; and the doctors were busy.  And sad men left word at country stores for the coroner to send a car,” (555). By using generic terms, Steinbeck shows how the migrants are all linked because they have gone through the same experiences. The grievances committed against one family were committed against thousands of other families; the abuse extends far beyond what the Joads experienced. The Grapes of Wrath frequently refers to the importance of coming together; how, when people connect with others their power and influence multiplies immensely. Throughout the novel, the goal of the migrants, the key to their triumph, has been to unite. While their plans are repeatedly frustrated by the government and police, Steinbeck’s intercalary chapters provide a way for the migrants to relate to one another because they have encountered the same experiences. Hundreds of thousands of migrants fled to the promised land of California, but Steinbeck was aware that numbers alone were impersonal and lacked the passion he desired to spread. Steinbeck created the intercalary chapters to show the massive numbers of people suffering, and he created the Joad family to evoke compassion from readers.  Because readers come to sympathize with the Joads, they become more sensitive to the struggles of migrants in general. However, John Steinbeck frequently made clear that the Joads were not an isolated incident; they were not unique. Their struggles and triumphs were part of something greater. Refraining from specific names in his intercalary chapters allows Steinbeck to show the vastness of the atrocities committed against migrants.

Steinbeck also creates significant parallels to the Bible in his intercalary chapters in order to enhance his writing and characters. By using simple sentences and stylized writing, Steinbeck evokes Biblical passages. The migrants despair, “No work till spring. No work,” (556).  Short, direct sentences help to better convey the desperateness of the migrants’ situation. Throughout his novel, John Steinbeck makes connections to the Bible through his characters and storyline. Jim Casy’s allusions to Christ and the cycle of drought and flooding are clear biblical references.  By choosing to relate The Grapes of Wrath to the Bible, Steinbeck’s characters become greater than themselves. Starving migrants become more than destitute vagrants; they are now the chosen people escaping to the promised land. When a forgotten man dies alone and unnoticed, it becomes a tragedy. Steinbeck writes, “If [the migrants] were shot at, they did not run, but splashed sullenly away; and if they were hit, they sank tiredly in the mud,” (556). Injustices committed against the migrants become greater because they are seen as children of God through Steinbeck’s choice of language. Referencing the Bible strengthens Steinbeck’s novel and purpose: to create understanding for the dispossessed.  It is easy for people to feel disdain for shabby vagabonds, but connecting them to such a fundamental aspect of Christianity induces sympathy from readers who might have otherwise disregarded the migrants as so many other people did.

The simple, uneducated dialogue Steinbeck employs also helps to create a more honest and meaningful representation of the migrants, and it makes the migrants more relatable to readers. Steinbeck chooses to accurately represent the language of the migrants in order to more clearly illustrate their lives and make them seem more like real paper than just characters in a book. The migrants lament, “They ain’t gonna be no kinda work for three months,” (555). There are multiple grammatical errors in that single sentence, but it vividly conveys the despair the migrants felt better than a technically perfect sentence would. The Grapes of Wrath is intended to show the severe difficulties facing the migrants so Steinbeck employs a clear, pragmatic style of writing.  Steinbeck shows the harsh, truthful realities of the migrants’ lives and he would be hypocritical if he chose to give the migrants a more refined voice and not portray them with all their shortcomings. The depiction of the migrants as imperfect through their language also makes them easier to relate to. Steinbeck’s primary audience was the middle class, the less affluent of society. Repeatedly in The Grapes of Wrath , the wealthy make it obvious that they scorn the plight of the migrants. The wealthy, not bad luck or natural disasters, were the prominent cause of the suffering of migrant families such as the Joads. Thus, Steinbeck turns to the less prosperous for support in his novel. When referring to the superior living conditions barnyard animals have, the migrants remark, “Them’s horses-we’re men,” (556).  The perfect simplicity of this quote expresses the absurdness of the migrants’ situation better than any flowery expression could.

In The Grapes of Wrath , John Steinbeck uses metaphors, particularly about nature, in order to illustrate the mood and the overall plight of migrants. Throughout most of the book, the land is described as dusty, barren, and dead. Towards the end, however; floods come and the landscape begins to change. At the end of chapter twenty-nine, Steinbeck describes a hill after the floods saying, “Tiny points of grass came through the earth, and in a few days the hills were pale green with the beginning year,” (556). This description offers a stark contrast from the earlier passages which were filled with despair and destruction. Steinbeck’s tone from the beginning of the chapter changes drastically. Early in the chapter, Steinbeck had used heavy imagery in order to convey the destruction caused by the rain, “The streams and the little rivers edged up to the bank sides and worked at willows and tree roots, bent the willows deep in the current, cut out the roots of cottonwoods and brought down the trees,” (553). However, at the end of the chapter the rain has caused new life to grow in California. The new grass becomes a metaphor representing hope. When the migrants are at a loss over how they will survive the winter, the grass offers reassurance. The story of the migrants in the intercalary chapters parallels that of the Joads. At the end of the novel, the family is breaking apart and has been forced to flee their home. However, both the book and final intercalary chapter end on a hopeful note after so much suffering has occurred. The grass metaphor strengthens Steinbeck’s message because it offers a tangible example of hope. Through his language Steinbeck’s themes become apparent at the end of the novel. Steinbeck affirms that persistence, even when problems appear insurmountable, leads to success. These metaphors help to strengthen Steinbeck’s themes in The Grapes of Wrath because they provide a more memorable way to recall important messages.

John Steinbeck’s language choices help to intensify his writing in his intercalary chapters and allow him to more clearly show how difficult life for migrants could be. Refraining from using specific names and terms allows Steinbeck to show that many thousands of migrants suffered through the same wrongs. Imitating the style of the Bible strengthens Steinbeck’s characters and connects them to the Bible, perhaps the most famous book in history. When Steinbeck writes in the imperfect dialogue of the migrants, he creates a more accurate portrayal and makes the migrants easier to relate to for a less affluent audience. Metaphors, particularly relating to nature, strengthen the themes in The Grapes of Wrath by enhancing the mood Steinbeck wants readers to feel at different points in the book. Overall, the intercalary chapters that Steinbeck includes improve his novel by making it more memorable and reinforcing the themes Steinbeck embraces throughout the novel. Exemplary stylistic devices further persuade readers of John Steinbeck’s personal beliefs. Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath to bring to light cruelties against migrants, and by using literary devices effectively, he continuously reminds readers of his purpose. Steinbeck’s impressive language choices in his intercalary chapters advance the entire novel and help to create a classic work of literature that people still are able to relate to today. 

This essay sticks pretty closely to the standard analytical essay outline. It starts with an introduction, where I chose to use a quote to start off the essay. (This became my favorite way to start essays in high school because, if I wasn’t sure what to say, I could outsource the work and find a quote that related to what I’d be writing about.) The quote in this essay doesn’t relate to the themes I’m discussing quite as much as it could, but it’s still a slightly different way to start an essay and can intrigue readers. I then give a bit of background on The Grapes of Wrath and its themes before ending the intro paragraph with my thesis: that Steinbeck used literary devices in intercalary chapters to show how rough migrants had it.

Each of my four body paragraphs is formatted in roughly the same way: an intro sentence that explains what I’ll be discussing, analysis of that main point, and at least two quotes from the book as evidence.

My conclusion restates my thesis, summarizes each of four points I discussed in my body paragraphs, and ends the essay by briefly discussing how Steinbeck’s writing helped introduce a world of readers to the injustices migrants experienced during the dust bowl.

What does this analytical essay example do well? For starters, it contains everything that a strong analytical essay should, and it makes that easy to find. The thesis clearly lays out what the essay will be about, the first sentence of each of the body paragraph introduces the topic it’ll cover, and the conclusion neatly recaps all the main points. Within each of the body paragraphs, there’s analysis along with multiple excerpts from the book in order to add legitimacy to my points.

Additionally, the essay does a good job of taking an in-depth look at the issue introduced in the thesis. Four ways Steinbeck used literary devices are discussed, and for each of the examples are given and analysis is provided so readers can understand why Steinbeck included those devices and how they helped shaped how readers viewed migrants and their plight.

Where could this essay be improved? I believe the weakest body paragraph is the third one, the one that discusses how Steinbeck used plain, grammatically incorrect language to both accurately depict the migrants and make them more relatable to readers. The paragraph tries to touch on both of those reasons and ends up being somewhat unfocused as a result. It would have been better for it to focus on just one of those reasons (likely how it made the migrants more relatable) in order to be clearer and more effective. It’s a good example of how adding more ideas to an essay often doesn’t make it better if they don’t work with the rest of what you’re writing. This essay also could explain the excerpts that are included more and how they relate to the points being made. Sometimes they’re just dropped in the essay with the expectation that the readers will make the connection between the example and the analysis. This is perhaps especially true in the second body paragraph, the one that discusses similarities to Biblical passages. Additional analysis of the quotes would have strengthened it.

Summary: How to Write an Analytical Essay

What is an analytical essay? A critical analytical essay analyzes a topic, often a text or film. The analysis paper uses evidence to support the argument, such as excerpts from the piece of writing. All analytical papers include a thesis, analysis of the topic, and evidence to support that analysis.

When developing an analytical essay outline and writing your essay, follow these five steps:

Reading analytical essay examples can also give you a better sense of how to structure your essay and what to include in it.

What's Next?

Learning about different writing styles in school? There are four main writing styles, and it's important to understand each of them. Learn about them in our guide to writing styles , complete with examples.

Writing a research paper for school but not sure what to write about? Our guide to research paper topics has over 100 topics in ten categories so you can be sure to find the perfect topic for you.

Literary devices can both be used to enhance your writing and communication. Check out this list of 31 literary devices to learn more !

Christine graduated from Michigan State University with degrees in Environmental Biology and Geography and received her Master's from Duke University. In high school she scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT and was named a National Merit Finalist. She has taught English and biology in several countries.

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The Practical Guide to Textual Analysis

• Getting Started
• How Does It Work?
• Use Cases & Applications

Textual analysis is the process of gathering and examining qualitative data to understand what it’s about.

But making sense of qualitative information is a major challenge. Whether analyzing data in business or performing academic research, manually reading, analyzing, and tagging text is no longer effective – it’s time-consuming, results are often inaccurate, and the process far from scalable.

Fortunately, developments in the sub-fields of Artificial Intelligence (AI) like machine learning and natural language processing (NLP) are creating unprecedented opportunities to process and analyze large collections of text data.

Thanks to algorithms trained with machine learning it is possible to perform a myriad of tasks that involve analyzing text, like topic classification (automatically tagging texts by topic), feature extraction (identifying specific characteristics in a text) and sentiment analysis (recognizing the emotions that underlie a given text).

Below, we’ll dive into textual analysis with machine learning, what it is and how it works, and reveal its most important applications in business and academic research:

Getting started with textual analysis

• What is textual analysis?
• Difference between textual analysis and content analysis?
• What is computer-assisted textual analysis?
• Methods and techniques
• Why is it important?

How does textual analysis work?

• Text classification
• Text extraction

Use cases and applications

• Customer service
• Customer feedback
• Academic research

Let’s start with the basics!

Getting Started With Textual Analysis

What is textual analysis.

While similar to text analysis , textual analysis is mainly used in academic research to analyze content related to media and communication studies, popular culture, sociology, and philosophy.

In this case, the purpose of textual analysis is to understand the cultural and ideological aspects that underlie a text and how they are connected with the particular context in which the text has been produced. In short, textual analysis consists of describing the characteristics of a text and making interpretations to answer specific questions.

One of the challenges of textual analysis resides in how to turn complex, large-scale data into manageable information. Computer-assisted textual analysis can be instrumental at this point, as it allows you to perform certain tasks automatically (without having to read all the data) and makes it simple to observe patterns and get unexpected insights. For example, you could perform automated textual analysis on a large set of data and easily tag all the information according to a series of previously defined categories. You could also use it to extract specific pieces of data, like names, countries, emails, or any other features.

Companies are using computer-assisted textual analysis to make sense of unstructured business data , and find relevant insights that lead to data-driven decisions. It’s being used to automate everyday tasks like ticket tagging and routing, improving productivity, and saving valuable time.

Difference Between Textual Analysis and Content Analysis?

When we talk about textual analysis we refer to a data-gathering process for analyzing text data. This qualitative methodology examines the structure, content, and meaning of a text, and how it relates to the historical and cultural context in which it was produced. To do so, textual analysis combines knowledge from different disciplines, like linguistics and semiotics.

Content analysis can be considered a subcategory of textual analysis, which intends to systematically analyze text, by coding the elements of the text to get quantitative insights. By coding text (that is, establishing different categories for the analysis), content analysis makes it possible to examine large sets of data and make replicable and valid inferences.

Sitting at the intersection between qualitative and quantitative approaches, content analysis has proved to be very useful to study a wide array of text data ― from newspaper articles to social media messages ― within many different fields, that range from academic research to organizational or business studies.

What is Computer-Assisted Textual Analysis?

Computer-assisted textual analysis involves using a software, digital platform, or computational tools to perform tasks related to text analysis automatically.

The developments in machine learning make it possible to create algorithms that can be trained with examples and learn a series of tasks, from identifying topics on a given text to extracting relevant information from an extensive collection of data. Natural Language Processing (NLP), another sub-field of AI, helps machines process unstructured data and transform it into manageable information that’s ready to analyze.

Automated textual analysis enables you to analyze large amounts of data that would require a significant amount of time and resources if done manually. Not only is automated textual analysis fast and straightforward, but it’s also scalable and provides consistent results.

Let’s look at an example. During the US elections 2016, we used MonkeyLearn to analyze millions of tweets referring to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton . A text classification model allowed us to tag each Tweet into the two predefined categories: Trump and Hillary. The results showed that, on an average day, Donald Trump was getting around 450,000 Twitter mentions while Hillary Clinton was only getting about 250,000. And that was just the tip of the iceberg! What was really interesting was the nuances of those mentions: were they favorable or unfavorable? By performing sentiment analysis , we were able to discover the feelings behind those messages and gain some interesting insights about the polarity of those opinions.

For example, this is how Trump’s Tweets looked like when counted by sentiment:

And this graphic shows the same for Hillary Clinton:

There are many methods and techniques for automated textual analysis. In the following section, we’ll take a closer look at each of them so that you have a better idea of what you can do with computer-assisted textual analysis.

Textual Analysis Methods & Techniques

• Word frequency

Collocation

Concordance, basic methods, word frequency.

Word frequency helps you find the most recurrent terms or expressions within a set of data. Counting the times a word is mentioned in a group of texts can lead you to interesting insights, for example, when analyzing customer feedback responses. If the terms ‘hard to use’ or ‘complex’ often appear in comments about your product, it may indicate you need to make UI/UX adjustments.

By ‘collocation’ we mean a sequence of words that frequently occur together. Collocations are usually bigrams (a pair of words) and trigrams (a combination of three words). ‘Average salary’ , ‘global market’ , ‘close a deal’ , ‘make an appointment’ , ‘attend a meeting’ are examples of collocations related to business.

In textual analysis, identifying collocations is useful to understand the semantic structure of a text. Counting bigrams and trigrams as one word improves the accuracy of the analysis.

Human language is ambiguous: depending on the context, the same word can mean different things. Concordance is used to identify instances in which a word or a series of words appear, to understand its exact meaning. For example, here are a few sentences from product reviews containing the word ‘time’:

Advanced Methods

Text classification.

Text classification is the process of assigning tags or categories to unstructured data based on its content.

When we talk about unstructured data we refer to all sorts of text-based information that is unorganized, and therefore complex to sort and manage. For businesses, unstructured data may include emails, social media posts, chats, online reviews, support tickets, among many others. Text classification ― one of the essential tasks of Natural Language Processing (NLP) ― makes it possible to analyze text in a simple and cost-efficient way, organizing the data according to topic, urgency, sentiment or intent. We’ll take a closer look at each of these applications below:

Topic Analysis consists of assigning predefined tags to an extensive collection of text data, based on its topics or themes. Let’s say you want to analyze a series of product reviews to understand what aspects of your product are being discussed, and a review reads ‘the customer service is very responsive, they are always ready to help’ . This piece of feedback will be tagged under the topic ‘Customer Service’ .

Sentiment Analysis , also known as ‘opinion mining’, is the automated process of understanding the attributes of an opinion, that is, the emotions that underlie a text (e.g. positive, negative, and neutral). Sentiment analysis provides exciting opportunities in all kinds of fields. In business, you can use it to analyze customer feedback, social media posts, emails, support tickets, and chats. For instance, you could analyze support tickets to identify angry customers and solve their issues as a priority. You may also combine topic analysis with sentiment analysis (it is called aspect-based sentiment analysis ) to identify the topics being discussed about your product, and also, how people are reacting towards those topics. For example, take the product review we mentioned earlier for topic analysis: ‘the customer service is very responsive, they are always ready to help’ . This statement would be classified as both Positive and Customer Service .

Language detection : this allows you to classify a text based on its language. It’s particularly useful for routing purposes. For example, if you get a support ticket in Spanish, it could be automatically routed to a Spanish-speaking customer support team.

Intent detection : text classifiers can also be used to recognize the intent of a given text. What is the purpose behind a specific message? This can be helpful if you need to analyze customer support conversations or the results of a sales email campaign. For example, you could analyze email responses and classify your prospects based on their level of interest in your product.

Text Extraction

Text extraction is a textual analysis technique which consists of extracting specific terms or expressions from a collection of text data. Unlike text classification, the result is not a predefined tag but a piece of information that is already present in the text. For example, if you have a large collection of emails to analyze, you could easily pull out specific information such as email addresses, company names or any keyword that you need to retrieve. In some cases, you can combine text classification and text extraction in the same analysis.

The most useful text extraction tasks include:

Named-entity recognition : used to extract the names of companies , people , or organizations from a set of data.

Keyword extraction : allows you to extract the most relevant terms within a text. You can use keyword extraction to index data to be searched, create tags clouds, summarize the content of a text, among many other things.

Feature extraction : used to identify specific characteristics within a text. For example, if you are analyzing a series of product descriptions, you could create customized extractors to retrieve information like brand, model, color, etc .

Why is Textual Analysis Important?

Every day, we create a colossal amount of digital data. In fact, in the last two years alone we generated 90% percent of all the data in the world . That includes social media messages, emails, Google searches, and every other source of online data.

At the same time, books, media libraries, reports, and other types of databases are now available in digital format, providing researchers of all disciplines opportunities that didn’t exist before.

But the problem is that most of this data is unstructured. Since it doesn’t follow any organizational criteria, unstructured text is hard to search, manage, and examine. In this scenario, automated textual analysis tools are essential, as they help make sense of text data and find meaningful insights in a sea of information.

Text analysis enables businesses to go through massive collections of data with minimum human effort, saving precious time and resources, and allowing people to focus on areas where they can add more value. Here are some of the advantages of automated textual analysis:

Scalability

You can analyze as much data as you need in just seconds. Not only will you save valuable time, but you’ll also make your teams much more productive.

Real-time analysis

For businesses, it is key to detect angry customers on time or be warned of a potential PR crisis. By creating customized machine learning models for text analysis, you can easily monitor chats, reviews, social media channels, support tickets and all sorts of crucial data sources in real time, so you’re ready to take action when needed.

Academic researchers, especially in the political science field , may find real-time analysis with machine learning particularly useful to analyze polls, Twitter data, and election results.

Consistent criteria

Routine manual tasks (like tagging incoming tickets or processing customer feedback, for example) often end up being tedious and time-consuming. There are more chances of making mistakes and the criteria applied within team members often turns out to be inconsistent and subjective. Machine learning algorithms, on the other hand, learn from previous examples and always use the same criteria to analyze data .

How does Textual Analysis Work?

Computer-assisted textual analysis makes it easy to analyze large collections of text data and find meaningful information. Thanks to machine learning, it is possible to create models that learn from examples and can be trained to classify or extract relevant data.

But how easy is to get started with textual analysis?

As with most things related to artificial intelligence (AI), automated text analysis is perceived as a complex tool, only accessible to those with programming skills. Fortunately, that’s no longer the case. AI platforms like MonkeyLearn are actually very simple to use and don’t require any previous machine learning expertise. First-time users can try different pre-trained text analysis models right away, and use them for specific purposes even if they don’t have coding skills or have never studied machine learning.

However, if you want to take full advantage of textual analysis and create your own customized models, you should understand how it works.

There are two steps you need to follow before running an automated analysis: data gathering and data preparation. Here, we’ll explain them more in detail:

Data gathering : when we think of a topic we want to analyze, we should first make sure that we can obtain the data we need. Let’s say you want to analyze all the customer support tickets your company has received over a designated period of time. You should be able to export that information from your software and create a CSV or an Excel file. The data can be either internal (that is, data that’s only available to your business, like emails, support tickets, chats, spreadsheets, surveys, databases, etc) or external (like review sites, social media, news outlets or other websites).

Data preparation : before performing automated text analysis it’s necessary to prepare the data that you are going to use. This is done by applying a series of Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques. Tokenization , parsing , lemmatization , stemming and stopword removal are just a few of them.

Once these steps are complete, you will be all set up for the data analysis itself. In this section, we’ll refer to how the most common textual analysis methods work: text classification and text extraction.

Text classification is the process of assigning tags to a collection of data based on its content.

When done manually, text categorization is a time-consuming task that often leads to mistakes and inaccuracies. By doing this automatically, it is possible to obtain very good results while spending less time and resources. Automatic text classification consists of three main approaches: rule-based, machine learning and hybrid.

Rule-based systems

Rule-based systems follow an ‘if-then’ (condition-action) structure based on linguistic rules. Basically, rules are human-made associations between a linguistic pattern on a text and a predefined tag. These linguistic patterns often refer to morphological, syntactic, lexical, semantic, or phonological aspects.

For instance, this could be a rule to classify a series of laptop descriptions:

( Lenovo | Sony | Hewlett Packard | Apple ) → Brand

In this case, when the text classification model detects any of those words within a text (the ‘if’ portion), it will assign the predefined tag ‘brand’ to them (the ‘then’ portion).

One of the main advantages of rule-based systems is that they are easy to understand by humans. On the downside, creating complex systems is quite tricky, because you need to have good knowledge of linguistics and of the topics present in the text that you want to analyze. Besides, adding new rules can be tough as it requires several tests, making rule-based systems hard to scale.

Machine learning-based systems

Machine learning-based systems are trained to make predictions based on examples. This means that a person needs to provide representative and consistent samples and assign the expected tags manually so that the system learns to make its own predictions from those past observations. The collection of manually tagged data is called training data .

But how does machine learning actually work?

Suppose you are training a machine learning-based classifier. The system needs to transform the training data into something it can understand: in this case, vectors (an array of numbers with encoded data). Vectors contain a set of relevant features from the given text, and use them to learn and make predictions on future data.

One of the most common methods for text vectorization is called bag of words and consists of counting how many times a particular word (from a predetermined list of words) appears in the text you want to analyze.

So, the text is transformed into vectors and fed into a machine learning algorithm along with its expected tags, creating a text classification model:

After being trained, the model can make predictions over unseen data:

Machine learning algorithms

The most common algorithms used in text classification are Naive Bayes family of algorithms (NB), Support Vector Machines (SVM), and deep learning algorithms .

Naive Bayes family of algorithms (NB) is a probabilistic algorithm that uses Bayes’ theorem to calculate the probability of each tag for a given text. It then provides the tag with the highest likelihood of occurrence. This algorithm provides good results as long as the training data is scarce.

Support Vector Machines (SVM) is a machine learning algorithm that divides vectors into two different groups within a three-dimensional space. In one group, you have vectors that belong to a given tag, and in the other group vectors that don’t belong to that tag. Using this algorithm requires more coding skills, but the results are better than the ones with Naive Bayes.

Deep learning algorithms try to emulate the way the human brain thinks. They use millions of training examples and generate very rich representations of texts, leading to much more accurate predictions than other machine learning algorithms. The downside is that they need vast amounts of training data to provide accurate results and require intensive coding.

Hybrid systems

These systems combine rule-based systems and machine learning-based systems to obtain more accurate predictions.

There are different parameters to evaluate the performance of a text classifier: accuracy , precision , recall , and F1 score .

You can measure how your text classifier works by comparing it to a fixed testing set (that is, a group of data that already includes its expected tags) or by using cross-validation, a process that divides your training data into two groups – one used to train the model, and the other used to test the results.

Let’s go into more detail about each of these parameters:

Accuracy : this is the number of correct predictions that the text classifier makes divided by the total number of predictions. However, accuracy alone is not the best parameter to analyze the performance of a text classifier. When the number of examples is imbalanced (for example, a lot of the data belongs to one of the categories) you may experience an accuracy paradox , that is, a model with high accuracy, but one that’s not necessarily able to make accurate predictions for all tags. In this case, it’s better to look at precision and recall, and F1 score.

Precision : this metric indicates the number of correct predictions for a given tag, divided by the total number of correct and incorrect predictions for that tag. In this case, a high precision level indicates there were less false positives. For some tasks ― like sending automated email responses ― you will need text classification models with a high level of precision, that will only deliver an answer when it’s highly likely that the recipient belongs to a given tag.

Recall : it shows the number of correct predictions for a given tag, over the number of predictions that should have been predicted as belonging to that tag. High recall metrics indicate there were less false negatives and, if routing support tickets for example, it means that tickets will be sent to the right teams.

F1 score : this metric considers both precision and recall results, and provides an idea of how well your text classifier is working. It allows you to see how accurate is your model for all the tags you’re using.

Cross-validation

Cross-validation is a method used to measure the accuracy of a text classifier model. It consists of splitting the training dataset into a number of equal-length subsets, in a random way. For instance, let’s imagine you have four subsets and each of them contains 25% of your training data.

All of those subsets except one are used to train the text classifier. Then, the classifier is used to make predictions over the remaining subset. After this, you need to compile all the metrics we mentioned before (accuracy, precision, recall, and F1 score), and start the process all over again, until all the subsets have been used for testing. Finally, all the results are compiled to obtain the average performance of each metric.

Text extraction is the process of identifying specific pieces of text from unstructured data. This is very useful for a variety of purposes, from extracting company names from a Linkedin dataset to pulling out prices on product descriptions.

Text extraction allows to automatically visualize where the relevant terms or expressions are, without needing to read or scan all the text by yourself. And that is particularly relevant when you have massive databases, which would otherwise take ages to analyze manually.

There are different approaches to text extraction. Here, we’ll refer to the most commonly used and reliable:

Regular expressions

Regular expressions are similar to rules for text classification models. They can be defined as a series of characters that define a pattern.

Every time the text extractor detects a coincidence with a pattern, it assigns the corresponding tag.

This approach allows you to create text extractors quickly and with good results, as long as you find the right patterns for the data you want to analyze. However, as it gets more complex, it can be hard to manage and scale.

Conditional Random Fields

Conditional Random Fields (CRF) is a statistical approach used for text extraction with machine learning. It identifies different patterns by assigning a weight to each of the word sequences within a text. CRF’s also allow you to create additional parameters related to the patterns, based on syntactic or semantic information.

This approach creates more complex and richer patterns than regular expressions and can encode a large volume of information. However, if you want to train the text extractor properly, you will need to have in-depth NLP and computing knowledge.

You can use the same performance metrics that we mentioned for text classification (accuracy, precision, recall, and F1 score), although these metrics only consider exact matches as positive results, leaving partial matches aside.

If you want partial matches to be included in the results, you should use a performance metric called ROUGE (Recall-Oriented Understudy for Gisting Evaluation). This group of metrics measures lengths and numbers of sequences to make a match between the source text and the extraction performed by the model.

The parameters used to compare these two texts need to be defined manually. You may define ROUGE-n metrics (n is the length of the units you want to measure) or ROUGE-L metrics (to compare the longest common sentence).

Use Cases and Applications

Automated textual analysis is the process of obtaining meaningful information out of raw data. Considering unstructured data is getting closer to 80% of the existing information in the digital world , it’s easy to understand why this brings outstanding opportunities for businesses, organizations, and academic researchers.

For companies, it is now possible to obtain real-time insights on how their users feel about their products and make better business decisions based on data. Shifting to a data-driven approach is one of the main challenges of businesses today.

Textual analysis has many exciting applications across different areas of a company, like customer service, marketing, product, or sales. By allowing the automation of specific tasks that used to be manual, textual analysis is helping teams become more productive and efficient, and allowing them to focus on areas where they can add real value.

In the academic research field, computer-assisted textual analysis (and mainly, machine learning-based models) are expanding the horizons of investigation, by providing new ways of processing, classifying, and obtaining relevant data.

In this section, we’ll describe the most significant applications related to customer service, customer feedback, and academic research.

Customer Service

It’s not all about having an amazing product or investing a lot of money on advertising. What really tips the balance when it comes to business success is to provide high-quality customer service. Stats claim that 70% of the customer journey is defined by how people feel they are being treated .

So, how can textual analysis help companies deliver a better customer service experience?

Automatically tag support tickets

Every time a customer sends a request, comment, or complain, there’s a new support ticket to be processed. Customer support teams need to categorize every incoming message based on its content, a routine task that can be boring, time-consuming, and inconsistent if done manually.

Textual analysis with machine learning allows you automatically identify the topic of each support ticket and tag it accordingly. How does it work?

• First, a person defines a set of categories and trains a classifier model by applying the appropriate tags to a number of representative samples.
• The model analyzes the words and expressions used in each ticket. For example: ‘I’m having problems when paying with my credit card’ , and it compares it with previous examples.
• Finally, it automatically tags the ticket according to its content. In this case, the ticket would be tagged as Payment Issues .

Automatically route and triage support tickets

Once support tickets are tagged, they need to be routed to the appropriate team in charge to deal with that issue. Machine learning enables teams to send a ticket to the right person in real-time , based on the ticket’s topic, language or complexity. For example, a ticket previously tagged as Payment Issues will be automatically routed to the Billing Area .

Detect the urgency of a ticket

A simple task, like being able to prioritize tickets based on their urgency, can have a substantial positive impact on your customer service. By analyzing the content of each ticket, a textual analysis model can let you assess which of them are more critical and prioritize accordingly . For instance, a ticket containing the words or expressions ‘as soon as possible’ or ‘immediately’ would be automatically classified as Urgent .

Get insights from ticket analytics

The performance of customer service teams is usually measured by KPI’s, like first response time, the average time of resolution, and customer satisfaction (CSAT).

Textual analysis algorithms can be used to analyze the different interactions between customers and the customer service area, like chats, support tickets, emails, and customer satisfaction surveys.

You can use aspect-based sentiment analysis to understand the main topics discussed by your customers and how they are feeling about those topics. For example, you may have a lot of mentions referring to the topic ‘UI/UX’ . But, are all those customers’ opinions positive, negative, or neutral? This type of analysis can provide a more accurate perspective of what they think about your product and get a deeper understanding the overall customer satisfaction.

Customer Feedback

Listening to the Voice of Customer (VoC) is critical to understand the customers’ expectations, experience and opinion about your brand. Two of the most common tools to monitor and examine customer feedback are customer surveys and product reviews.

By analyzing customer feedback data, companies can detect topics for improvement, spot product flaws, get a better understanding of your customer’s needs and measure their level of satisfaction, among many other things.

But how do you process and analyze tons of reviews or thousands of customer surveys? Here are some ideas of how you can use textual analysis algorithms to analyze different kinds of customer feedback:

Analyze NPS Responses

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is the most popular tool to measure customer satisfaction. The first part of the survey involves giving the brand a score from 0 to 10 based on the question: 'How likely is it that you would recommend [brand] to a friend or colleague?' . The results allow you to classify your customers as promoters , passives , and detractors .

Then, there’s a follow-up question, inquiring about the reasons for your previous score. These open-ended responses often provide the most insightful information about your company. At the same time, it’s the most complex data to process. Yes, you could read and tag each of the responses manually, but what if there are thousands of them?

Textual analysis with machine learning enables you to detect the main topics that your customers are referring to, and even extract the most relevant keywords related to those topics . To make the most of your data, you could also perform sentiment analysis and find out if your customers are talking about a given topic positively or negatively.

Analyze Customer Surveys

Besides NPS, textual analysis algorithms can help you analyze all sorts of customer surveys. Using a text classification model to tag your responses can make you save a lot of valuable time and resources while allowing you to obtain consistent results.

Analyze Product Reviews

Product reviews are a significant factor when buying a product. Prospective buyers read at least 10 reviews before feeling they can trust a local business and that’s just one of the (many) reasons why you should keep a close eye on what people are saying about your brand online.

Analyzing product reviews can give you an idea of what people love and hate the most about your product and service. It can provide useful insights and opportunities for improvement. And it can show you what to do to get one step ahead of your competition.

The truth is that going through pages and pages of product reviews is not a very exciting task. Categorizing all those opinions can take teams hours and in the end, it becomes an expensive and unproductive process. That’s why automated textual analysis is a game-changer.

Imagine you want to analyze a set of product reviews from your SaaS company in G2 Crowd. A textual analysis model will allow you to tag g each review based on topic, like Ease of Use , Price , UI/UX , Integrations . You could also run a sentiment analysis to discover how your customers feel about those topics: do they think the price is suitable or too expensive? Do they find it too complex or easy to use?

Thanks to textual analysis algorithms, you can get powerful information to help you make data-driven decisions, and empower your teams to be more productive by reducing manual tasks to a minimum.

Academic Research

What if you were able to sift through tons of papers and journals, and discover data that is relevant to your research in just seconds? Just imagine if you could easily classify years of news articles and extract meaningful keywords from them, or analyze thousands of tweets after a significant political change .

Even though machine learning applications in business and science seem to be more frequent, social science research is also benefiting from ML to perform tasks related to the academic world.

Social science researchers need to deal with vast volumes of unstructured data. Therefore, one of the major opportunities provided by computer-assisted textual analysis is being able to classify data, extract relevant information, or identify different groups in extensive collections of data.

Another application of textual analysis with machine learning is supporting the coding process . Coding is one of the early steps of any qualitative textual analysis. It involves a detailed examination of what you want to analyze to become familiar with the data. When done manually, this task can be very time consuming and often inaccurate or inconsistent. Fortunately, machine learning algorithms (like text classifier models) can help you do this in very little time and allow you to scale up the coding process easily.

Finally, using machine learning algorithms to scan large amounts of papers, databases, and journal articles can lead to new investigation hypotheses .

Final Words

In a world overloaded with data, textual analysis with machine learning is a powerful tool that enables you to make sense of unstructured information and find what’s relevant in just seconds.

With promising use cases across many fields from marketing to social science research, machine learning algorithms are far from being a niche technology only available for a few. Moreover, they are turning into user-friendly applications that are dominated by workers with little or no coding skills.

Thanks to text analysis models, teams are becoming more productive by being released from manual and routine tasks that used to take valuable time from them. At the same time, companies can make better decisions based on valuable, real-time insights obtained from data.

By now, you probably have an idea of what textual analysis is with machine learning and how you can use it to make your everyday tasks more efficient and straightforward. Ready to get started? MonkeyLearn makes it very simple to take your first steps. Just contact us and get a personalized demo from one of our experts!

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E238 Text Analysis Essay Example

Text Analysis Papers

For five of the six texts you read this semester, you will be expected to hand in a corresponding text analysis paper. A text analysis paper will focus upon an area of the work that you find interesting, significant, or feel merits discussion. A text analysis paper should be fairly formal, and should genuinely attempt to shed light on one or more aspects of the work. You may discuss the significance of character, plot, setting, symbol...whatever catches your fancy. Overall, I am looking for interesting and original insights concerning the reading assignment.

An ideal text analysis will be 2 pages in length, double-spaced, and typed. Your paper will explore a problem or point of interest created by a work of literature (this includes, but is not limited to, character motivation, thematic elements, contextual significance, culture, symbol, irony, etc.). Your ideas and insights will be based on information from the pages in the text we have read so far (outside research is encouraged, but not at all necessary), calling upon specific examples to illustrate the idea or issue you are exploring. Your grade will be based on the quality and depth of your insights, and on the use of specific textual evidence as support. Avoid the obvious. Take risks--Make it interesting! This is an issue that the class may be asked to discuss at a later date.

Possible starting places for your text analysis include an author's life, politics, the social context of the work, philosophical musings, how and why the work evokes a particular feeling in you, cultural relevance, or the components of the text such as the significance of setting, narrative voice, imagery, or symbolism. Or, perhaps you will read a critical approach to the text and use it as a springboard for your own ideas (the library database Contemporary Literary Criticism Select is often a nice starting place). Or, you may wish to explore the relationship between various elements of the text (How does setting influence character?). Or, perhaps you would like to build on an idea touched on in class discussion. As we move on into the later weeks of the course, you may even wish to direct your questions toward identifying patterns between texts, and asking what the significance of these patterns might be.

The Dos and Don'ts of Text Analysis Papers:

**Remember: Text analysis papers must be typed and submitted on time. They will be evaluated on the basis of focus, development, use of evidence, creativity, and level of insight. They will count as 30% of your final grade.

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Textual Analysis – Types, Examples and Guide

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Textual Analysis

Textual analysis is the process of examining a text in order to understand its meaning. It can be used to analyze any type of text, including literature , poetry, speeches, and scientific papers. Textual analysis involves analyzing the structure, content, and style of a text.

Textual analysis can be used to understand a text’s author, date, and audience. It can also reveal how a text was constructed and how it functions as a piece of communication.

Textual Analysis in Research

Textual analysis is a valuable tool in research because it allows researchers to examine and interpret text data in a systematic and rigorous way. Here are some ways that textual analysis can be used in research:

• To explore research questions: Textual analysis can be used to explore research questions in various fields, such as literature, media studies, and social sciences. It can provide insight into the meaning, interpretation, and communication patterns of text.
• To identify patterns and themes: Textual analysis can help identify patterns and themes within a set of text data, such as analyzing the representation of gender or race in media.
• To evaluate interventions: Textual analysis can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions, such as analyzing the language and messaging of public health campaigns.
• To inform policy and practice: Textual analysis can provide insights that inform policy and practice, such as analyzing legal documents to inform policy decisions.
• To analyze historical data: Textual analysis can be used to analyze historical data, such as letters, diaries, and newspapers, to provide insights into historical events and social contexts.

Textual Analysis in Cultural and Media Studies

Textual analysis is a key tool in cultural and media studies as it enables researchers to analyze the meanings, representations, and discourses present in cultural and media texts. Here are some ways that textual analysis is used in cultural and media studies:

• To analyze representation: Textual analysis can be used to analyze the representation of different social groups, such as gender, race, and sexuality, in media and cultural texts. This analysis can provide insights into how these groups are constructed and represented in society.
• To analyze cultural meanings: Textual analysis can be used to analyze the cultural meanings and symbols present in media and cultural texts. This analysis can provide insights into how culture and society are constructed and understood.
• To analyze discourse: Textual analysis can be used to analyze the discourse present in cultural and media texts. This analysis can provide insights into how language is used to construct meaning and power relations.
• To analyze media content: Textual analysis can be used to analyze media content, such as news articles, TV shows, and films, to understand how they shape our understanding of the world around us.
• To analyze advertising : Textual analysis can be used to analyze advertising campaigns to understand how they construct meanings, identities, and desires.

Textual Analysis in the Social Sciences

Textual analysis is a valuable tool in the social sciences as it enables researchers to analyze and interpret text data in a systematic and rigorous way. Here are some ways that textual analysis is used in the social sciences:

• To analyze interview data: Textual analysis can be used to analyze interview data, such as transcribed interviews, to identify patterns and themes in the data.
• To analyze survey responses: Textual analysis can be used to analyze survey responses to identify patterns and themes in the data.
• To analyze social media data: Textual analysis can be used to analyze social media data, such as tweets and Facebook posts, to identify patterns and themes in the data.
• To analyze policy documents: Textual analysis can be used to analyze policy documents, such as government reports and legislation, to identify discourses and power relations present in the policy.
• To analyze historical data: Textual analysis can be used to analyze historical data, such as letters and diaries, to provide insights into historical events and social contexts.

Textual Analysis in Literary Studies

Textual analysis is a key tool in literary studies as it enables researchers to analyze and interpret literary texts in a systematic and rigorous way. Here are some ways that textual analysis is used in literary studies:

• To analyze narrative structure: Textual analysis can be used to analyze the narrative structure of a literary text, such as identifying the plot, character development, and point of view.
• To analyze language and style: Textual analysis can be used to analyze the language and style used in a literary text, such as identifying figurative language, symbolism, and rhetorical devices.
• To analyze themes and motifs: Textual analysis can be used to analyze the themes and motifs present in a literary text, such as identifying recurring symbols, themes, and motifs.
• To analyze historical and cultural context: Textual analysis can be used to analyze the historical and cultural context of a literary text, such as identifying how the text reflects the social and political context of its time.
• To analyze intertextuality: Textual analysis can be used to analyze the intertextuality of a literary text, such as identifying how the text references or is influenced by other literary works.

Textual Analysis Methods

Textual analysis methods are techniques used to analyze and interpret various types of text, including written documents, audio and video recordings, and online content. These methods are commonly used in fields such as linguistics, communication studies, sociology, psychology, and literature.

Some common textual analysis methods include:

Content Analysis

This involves identifying patterns and themes within a set of text data. This method is often used to analyze media content or other types of written materials, such as policy documents or legal briefs.

Discourse Analysis

This involves examining how language is used to construct meaning in social contexts. This method is often used to analyze political speeches or other types of public discourse.

Critical Discourse Analysis

This involves examining how power and social relations are constructed through language use, particularly in political and social contexts.

Narrative Analysis

This involves examining the structure and content of stories or narratives within a set of text data. This method is often used to analyze literary texts or oral histories.

This involves analyzing the meaning of signs and symbols within a set of text data. This method is often used to analyze advertising or other types of visual media.

Text mining

This involves using computational techniques to extract patterns and insights from large sets of text data. This method is often used in fields such as marketing and social media analysis.

Close Reading

This involves a detailed and in-depth analysis of a particular text, focusing on the language, style, and literary techniques used by the author.

How to Conduct Textual Analysis

Here are some general steps to conduct textual analysis:

• Choose your research question: Define your research question and identify the text or set of texts that you want to analyze.
• F amiliarize yourself with the text: Read and re-read the text, paying close attention to its language, structure, and content. Take notes on key themes, patterns, and ideas that emerge.
• Choose your analytical approach: Select the appropriate analytical approach for your research question, such as close reading, thematic analysis, content analysis, or discourse analysis.
• Create a coding scheme: If you are conducting content analysis, create a coding scheme to categorize and analyze the content of the text. This may involve identifying specific words, themes, or ideas to code.
• Code the text: Apply your coding scheme to the text and systematically categorize the content based on the identified themes or patterns.
• Analyze the data: Once you have coded the text, analyze the data to identify key patterns, themes, or trends. Use appropriate software or tools to help with this process if needed.
• Draw conclusions: Draw conclusions based on your analysis and answer your research question. Present your findings and provide evidence to support your conclusions.
• R eflect on limitations and implications: Reflect on the limitations of your analysis, such as any biases or limitations of the selected method. Also, discuss the implications of your findings and their relevance to the broader research field.

When to use Textual Analysis

Textual analysis can be used in various research fields and contexts. Here are some situations when textual analysis can be useful:

• Understanding meaning and interpretation: Textual analysis can help understand the meaning and interpretation of text, such as literature, media, and social media.
• Analyzing communication patterns: Textual analysis can be used to analyze communication patterns in different contexts, such as political speeches, social media conversations, and legal documents.
• Exploring cultural and social contexts: Textual analysis can be used to explore cultural and social contexts, such as the representation of gender, race, and identity in media.
• Examining historical documents: Textual analysis can be used to examine historical documents, such as letters, diaries, and newspapers.
• Evaluating marketing and advertising campaigns: Textual analysis can be used to evaluate marketing and advertising campaigns, such as analyzing the language, symbols, and imagery used.

Examples of Textual Analysis

Here are a few examples:

• Media Analysis: Textual analysis is frequently used in media studies to examine how news outlets and social media platforms frame and present news stories. Researchers can use textual analysis to examine the language and images used in news articles, tweets, and other forms of media to identify patterns and biases.
• Customer Feedback Analysis: Textual analysis is often used by businesses to analyze customer feedback, such as online reviews or social media posts, to identify common themes and areas for improvement. This allows companies to make data-driven decisions and improve their products or services.
• Political Discourse Analysis: Textual analysis is commonly used in political science to analyze political speeches, debates, and other forms of political communication. Researchers can use this method to identify the language and rhetoric used by politicians, as well as the strategies they employ to appeal to different audiences.
• Literary Analysis: Textual analysis is a fundamental tool in literary criticism, allowing scholars to examine the language, structure, and themes of literary works. This can involve close reading of individual texts or analysis of larger literary movements.
• Sentiment Analysis: Textual analysis is used to analyze social media posts, customer feedback, or other sources of text data to determine the sentiment of the text. This can be useful for businesses or organizations to understand how their brand or product is perceived in the market.

Purpose of Textual Analysis

There are several specific purposes for using textual analysis, including:

• To identify and interpret patterns in language use: Textual analysis can help researchers identify patterns in language use, such as common themes, recurring phrases, and rhetorical devices. This can provide insights into the values and beliefs that underpin the text.
• To explore the cultural context of the text: Textual analysis can help researchers understand the cultural context in which the text was produced, including the historical, social, and political factors that shaped the language and messages.
• To examine the intended and unintended meanings of the text: Textual analysis can help researchers uncover both the intended and unintended meanings of the text, and to explore how the language is used to convey certain messages or values.
• To understand how texts create and reinforce social and cultural identities: Textual analysis can help researchers understand how texts contribute to the creation and reinforcement of social and cultural identities, such as gender, race, ethnicity, and nationality.

Applications of Textual Analysis

Here are some common applications of textual analysis:

Media Studies

Textual analysis is frequently used in media studies to analyze news articles, advertisements, and social media posts to identify patterns and biases in media representation.

Literary Criticism

Textual analysis is a fundamental tool in literary criticism, allowing scholars to examine the language, structure, and themes of literary works.

Political Science

Textual analysis is commonly used in political science to analyze political speeches, debates, and other forms of political communication.

Marketing and Consumer Research

Textual analysis is used to analyze customer feedback, such as online reviews or social media posts, to identify common themes and areas for improvement.

Healthcare Research

Textual analysis is used to analyze patient feedback and medical records to identify patterns in patient experiences and improve healthcare services.

Social Sciences

Textual analysis is used in various fields within social sciences, such as sociology, anthropology, and psychology, to analyze various forms of data, including interviews, field notes, and documents.

Linguistics

Textual analysis is used in linguistics to study language use and its relationship to social and cultural contexts.

Advantages of Textual Analysis

There are several advantages of textual analysis in research. Here are some of the key advantages:

• Systematic and objective: Textual analysis is a systematic and objective method of analyzing text data. It enables researchers to analyze text data in a consistent and rigorous way, minimizing the risk of bias or subjectivity.
• Versatile : Textual analysis can be used to analyze a wide range of text data, including interview transcripts, survey responses, social media data, policy documents, and literary texts.
• Efficient : Textual analysis can be a more efficient method of data analysis compared to manual coding or other methods of qualitative analysis. With the help of software tools, researchers can process large volumes of text data more quickly and accurately.
• Allows for in-depth analysis: Textual analysis enables researchers to conduct in-depth analysis of text data, uncovering patterns and themes that may not be visible through other methods of data analysis.
• Can provide rich insights: Textual analysis can provide rich and detailed insights into complex social phenomena. It can uncover subtle nuances in language use, reveal underlying meanings and discourses, and shed light on the ways in which social structures and power relations are constructed and maintained.

Limitations of Textual Analysis

While textual analysis can provide valuable insights into the ways in which language is used to convey meaning and create social and cultural identities, it also has several limitations. Some of these limitations include:

• Limited Scope : Textual analysis is only able to analyze the content of written or spoken language, and does not provide insights into non-verbal communication such as facial expressions or body language.
• Subjectivity: Textual analysis is subject to the biases and interpretations of the researcher, as well as the context in which the language was produced. Different researchers may interpret the same text in different ways, leading to inconsistencies in the findings.
• Time-consuming: Textual analysis can be a time-consuming process, particularly if the researcher is analyzing a large amount of text. This can be a limitation in situations where quick analysis is necessary.
• Lack of Generalizability: Textual analysis is often used in qualitative research, which means that its findings cannot be generalized to larger populations. This limits the ability to draw conclusions that are applicable to a wider range of contexts.
• Limited Accessibility: Textual analysis requires specialized skills and training, which may limit its accessibility to researchers who are not trained in this method.

About the author

Muhammad Hassan

Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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IN THIS ARTICLE

Introduction to textual analysis.

In the digital age where information is plentiful, Textual Analysis has emerged as a critical tool to decode the abundance of data surrounding us. It breaks down complexity and brings clarity to implicit meanings hidden within various forms of text, be it books, web articles, social media posts, client reviews, or script dialogues. The practice of Textual Analysis does more than just skim the surface; it dives deep into the content, dissects it, and uncovers valuable insights embedded within.

Textual Analysis encompasses not only the understanding of what is explicitly stated in the text but also the implicit messages that remain unstated. It offers a systematic approach to interpreting how language is used to communicate and convey unique cultural contexts and meanings.

Definition of Textual Analysis

Textual Analysis is a research method that involves closely and critically examining written, spoken, or visual messages. It refers to the process of deconstructing text and its underlying themes, messages, and symbols - to understand the intentions, motivations, and perspectives of its creators.

The goal of Textual Analysis is to go beyond a mere descriptive stance and explore the hidden structures and intricate relations within a text. It encompasses a holistic comprehension of the content, wherein the text is read, understood, and interpreted in context to its larger sociocultural, historical, or political framework.

Importance of Textual Analysis in Different Fields

In today's interconnected and diverse world, Textual Analysis holds a significant position across several fields due to its ability to decode the complexities within a text.

In social sciences, scholars use Textual Analysis to understand human behavior, societal trends, and cultural narratives. It enables them to draw conclusions based on the textual evidence available for study.

In business and marketing, Textual Analysis has become an invaluable tool. Firms extensively utilize it to analyze consumer feedback, understand their audience's preferences, manage reputation, and make informed decisions. It can also help businesses comprehend market trends, understand competitor strategies, and shape their products or services accordingly.

Similarly, in media and communication studies, Textual Analysis is employed extensively to study media content, audience reception, and the socio-political aspects of media representation. Media critics and analysts often utilize this method to understand the subtext in advertising, news, TV shows, films, and digital media narratives.

In literature, textual analysis allows critics to delve deep into the text in search of hidden meanings, themes, or symbols. It enables them to interpret the author's perspectives, historical contexts, or implicit messages conveyed through the text.

The applications and the importance of Textual Analysis extend far beyond these examples, making it an integral part of the research toolkit in many fields. Its ability to help us decode and understand the complex world of text makes it an indispensable method in our ever-changing, increasingly text-saturated world.

Understanding the Concept of Textual Analysis

Textual analysis is a multidimensional research method that provides tools for researchers to gain deep insights into various types of texts. The core of textual analysis lies in the interpretation, comprehension, and contextual understanding of the text. It focuses on understanding the formation of the text, the language used the delivery of information, the audience's interpretation, and the overall impact created by the text.

Textual analysis is not limited to written texts. It embraces multiple forms of communication including spoken words, images, symbols, and multimedia content. This versatility makes textual analysis a preferred method for diverse fields, from literary studies to communication research, from cultural studies to marketing strategists.

Process Involved in Textual Analysis

The process of textual analysis can be divided into several stages.

• Descriptive Stage : This involves a thorough reading and summarization of the text. Understanding the broader context, author's perspective, and intended audience form an integral part of this stage.
• Analytical Stage : Drawing inferences and interpreting meanings comes under this stage. The occurrences of specific terms, recurrent themes, and patterns are analyzed here.
• Interpretive Stage : Unraveling underlying meanings and implicit messages that the text represents, and understanding symbolism, metaphorical representations, and other linguistic nuances fall under this stage.
• Evaluative Stage : The text is judged against certain pre-set standards or criteria. Questions like how engaging or persuasive the text is, how well the argument is built, or how impactful the delivery was can be answered here.

What does Textual Analysis entail?

Textual analysis entails looking beyond the surface level of the text and diving into its deeper levels. It seeks to understand the creator's intention, the message delivered, the language and style used, the audience response, and the cultural and socio-political context in which the text exists.

Textual analysis also entails understanding the power dynamics and ideologies prevalent in the text. For instance, gender roles, racial stereotypes, socio-political biases, or cultural norms can also be revealed through a careful analysis of the text.

From a business context, textual analysis also involves tracking customer reviews, social media comments, and customer queries to recognize brand perception, customer sentiment, trending topics, and areas for product improvement.

In a nutshell, textual analysis entails capturing the essence of the text, separating the explicit from the implicit, the said from the unsaid, and uncovering the hidden layers of context and meaning contained within the text.

Approaches to Textual Analysis

Textual analysis is an umbrella term that is composed of various methodologies, each affording a different perspective and understanding of the text. Mainly, these approaches can be categorized into qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods.

The Qualitative Textual Analysis

Qualitative textual analysis, as the name suggests, focuses on the quality rather than the quantity of the information present in the text. This approach is more interpretative and subjective in nature. It attempts to explore the text’s meanings, themes, motifs, or symbols in depth.

The importance of qualitative textual analysis lies in its ability to capture the complexities and nuances of the text. It provides the researcher with in-depth knowledge and understanding of the content, its socio-cultural construction, its ideological nuances, and the impact it could have on the readers.

An example of qualitative textual analysis could be studying the speeches of a political leader. The analysis would decipher the use of language, rhetoric, recurrent themes, values promoted, ideological stances, and the potential influence on the target audience.

The Quantitative Textual Analysis

Quantitative textual analysis deals with the quantifiable elements of the text such as word frequency, length of sentences, repetition of certain phrases etc. This method employs statistical or computational tools to interpret large volumes of text and identify patterns, trends or associations.

The significance of quantitative textual analysis lies in its ability to manage huge sets of textual data and give empirical evidence to the findings. It offers a more objective and generalized understanding of the text.

An example of quantitative textual analysis could be a brand analyzing its customer reviews. The repetition of specific words or phrases, the mention of particular product features, positive or negative language patterns could be valuable for the brand to understand customer sentiment and improve their services.

The Mixed-Methods Approach in Textual Analysis

The mixed-methods approach is a combination of both qualitative and quantitative analyses. It aims to reconcile the depth of the qualitative analysis with the breadth of quantitative analysis.

This approach is critical as it provides a comprehensive understanding of the text by capturing both the explicit and implicit meanings, the countable and the abstract elements of the text.

For example, a mixed-methods approach in textual analysis might be applied in analyzing a novel. The quantitative analysis could explore the frequency of certain themes or symbols, while the qualitative analysis would delve into the interpretation and impact of these themes or symbols on the overall storyline, character development and reader's understanding.

Ultimately, the choice between qualitative, quantitative and mixed-methods approaches in textual analysis depends on the research questions, the nature of the text, and the researcher’s personal epistemological and methodological standpoint.

Practical Examples of Textual Analysis in Different Sectors

Textual analysis in marketing.

In the marketing domain, textual analysis provides valuable insights into consumer feelings and sentiments about products, brands, and services. Marketers analyze text data from various sources including customer reviews, social media posts, surveys, and feedbacks. This analysis helps ascertain the marketing virtues of a product or a brand, uncover new market opportunities, detect problems early, and improve user experiences. Determining the frequency of certain phrases, for example, can help detect emerging market trends or changing consumer preferences.

Textual Analysis in Literary Criticism

Textual analysis forms the bedrock of literary criticism, enabling critics to probe deeper into the text and unearth implicit meanings, themes, and symbols. It gives an in-depth understanding of the characters, motives, conflicts, author's style, and perspective. Textual analysis in literature can also reveal the sociopolitical and historical contexts that influenced the text.

Textual Analysis in News Media

In news media, textual analysis is used to investigate the framing of events, portrayal of personalities, ideologies reflected in the news reports, and its impact on public opinion. By analyzing the media text, researchers can identify trends, biases, and preferences in news reporting.

Case Studies of Successful Application of Textual Analysis

The benefits of textual analysis can be illustrated through numerous case studies across fields. In the business sector, for instance, there have been cases where companies used textual analysis of social media conversations to inform product development. Similarly, in academia, researchers utilized textual analysis to explore the feminist themes in Alice Munro's writings, revealing subtleties that were missed in straightforward readings.

Common Challenges and Misconceptions in Textual Analysis

While textual analysis offers rich insights, it is not without its challenges and misconceptions. One common challenge involves the handling of large volumes of data in quantitative textual analysis, which necessitates sophisticated tools and expertise. A common misconception about textual analysis is that it is purely objective. In reality, researchers' backgrounds and perspectives can inevitably influence their interpretations of the text.

Conclusion: The Future of Textual Analysis

The importance and relevance of textual analysis are set to grow in the future with the explosion of textual data in the digital age. As businesses, researchers, and policymakers strive to navigate this vast textual landscape, the techniques of textual analysis will continue to evolve. Organizations, scholars, and developers who can leverage these strategies will gain a critical edge in understanding and interpreting the world of text around us.

Keep reading

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Textual Analysis Techniques: approaches to text analysis

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beginner's guide to literary analysis

Understanding literature & how to write literary analysis.

Literary analysis is the foundation of every college and high school English class. Once you can comprehend written work and respond to it, the next step is to learn how to think critically and complexly about a work of literature in order to analyze its elements and establish ideas about its meaning.

If that sounds daunting, it shouldn’t. Literary analysis is really just a way of thinking creatively about what you read. The practice takes you beyond the storyline and into the motives behind it. 

While an author might have had a specific intention when they wrote their book, there’s still no right or wrong way to analyze a literary text—just your way. You can use literary theories, which act as “lenses” through which you can view a text. Or you can use your own creativity and critical thinking to identify a literary device or pattern in a text and weave that insight into your own argument about the text’s underlying meaning. 

Now, if that sounds fun, it should , because it is. Here, we’ll lay the groundwork for performing literary analysis, including when writing analytical essays, to help you read books like a critic. 

What Is Literary Analysis?

As the name suggests, literary analysis is an analysis of a work, whether that’s a novel, play, short story, or poem. Any analysis requires breaking the content into its component parts and then examining how those parts operate independently and as a whole. In literary analysis, those parts can be different devices and elements—such as plot, setting, themes, symbols, etcetera—as well as elements of style, like point of view or tone. 

When performing analysis, you consider some of these different elements of the text and then form an argument for why the author chose to use them. You can do so while reading and during class discussion, but it’s particularly important when writing essays. 

Literary analysis is notably distinct from summary. When you write a summary , you efficiently describe the work’s main ideas or plot points in order to establish an overview of the work. While you might use elements of summary when writing analysis, you should do so minimally. You can reference a plot line to make a point, but it should be done so quickly so you can focus on why that plot line matters . In summary (see what we did there?), a summary focuses on the “ what ” of a text, while analysis turns attention to the “ how ” and “ why .”

While literary analysis can be broad, covering themes across an entire work, it can also be very specific, and sometimes the best analysis is just that. Literary critics have written thousands of words about the meaning of an author’s single word choice; while you might not want to be quite that particular, there’s a lot to be said for digging deep in literary analysis, rather than wide. 

Although you’re forming your own argument about the work, it’s not your opinion . You should avoid passing judgment on the piece and instead objectively consider what the author intended, how they went about executing it, and whether or not they were successful in doing so. Literary criticism is similar to literary analysis, but it is different in that it does pass judgement on the work. Criticism can also consider literature more broadly, without focusing on a singular work. 

Once you understand what constitutes (and doesn’t constitute) literary analysis, it’s easy to identify it. Here are some examples of literary analysis and its oft-confused counterparts: 

Summary: In “The Fall of the House of Usher,” the narrator visits his friend Roderick Usher and witnesses his sister escape a horrible fate.  

Opinion: In “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Poe uses his great Gothic writing to establish a sense of spookiness that is enjoyable to read. 

Literary Analysis: “Throughout ‘The Fall of the House of Usher,’ Poe foreshadows the fate of Madeline by creating a sense of claustrophobia for the reader through symbols, such as in the narrator’s inability to leave and the labyrinthine nature of the house. 

In summary, literary analysis is:

• Breaking a work into its components
• Identifying what those components are and how they work in the text
• Developing an understanding of how they work together to achieve a goal 
• Not an opinion, but subjective 
• Not a summary, though summary can be used in passing 
• Best when it deeply, rather than broadly, analyzes a literary element

Literary Analysis and Other Works

As discussed above, literary analysis is often performed upon a single work—but it doesn’t have to be. It can also be performed across works to consider the interplay of two or more texts. Regardless of whether or not the works were written about the same thing, or even within the same time period, they can have an influence on one another or a connection that’s worth exploring. And reading two or more texts side by side can help you to develop insights through comparison and contrast.

For example, Paradise Lost is an epic poem written in the 17th century, based largely on biblical narratives written some 700 years before and which later influenced 19th century poet John Keats. The interplay of works can be obvious, as here, or entirely the inspiration of the analyst. As an example of the latter, you could compare and contrast the writing styles of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Edgar Allan Poe who, while contemporaries in terms of time, were vastly different in their content. 

Additionally, literary analysis can be performed between a work and its context. Authors are often speaking to the larger context of their times, be that social, political, religious, economic, or artistic. A valid and interesting form is to compare the author’s context to the work, which is done by identifying and analyzing elements that are used to make an argument about the writer’s time or experience. 

For example, you could write an essay about how Hemingway’s struggles with mental health and paranoia influenced his later work, or how his involvement in the Spanish Civil War influenced his early work. One approach focuses more on his personal experience, while the other turns to the context of his times—both are valid. 

Why Does Literary Analysis Matter? 

Sometimes an author wrote a work of literature strictly for entertainment’s sake, but more often than not, they meant something more. Whether that was a missive on world peace, commentary about femininity, or an allusion to their experience as an only child, the author probably wrote their work for a reason, and understanding that reason—or the many reasons—can actually make reading a lot more meaningful. 

Performing literary analysis as a form of study unquestionably makes you a better reader. It’s also likely that it will improve other skills, too, like critical thinking, creativity, debate, and reasoning. 

At its grandest and most idealistic, literary analysis even has the ability to make the world a better place. By reading and analyzing works of literature, you are able to more fully comprehend the perspectives of others. Cumulatively, you’ll broaden your own perspectives and contribute more effectively to the things that matter to you. 

Literary Terms to Know for Literary Analysis 

There are hundreds of literary devices you could consider during your literary analysis, but there are some key tools most writers utilize to achieve their purpose—and therefore you need to know in order to understand that purpose. These common devices include: 

• Characters: The people (or entities) who play roles in the work. The protagonist is the main character in the work. 
• Conflict: The conflict is the driving force behind the plot, the event that causes action in the narrative, usually on the part of the protagonist
• Context : The broader circumstances surrounding the work political and social climate in which it was written or the experience of the author. It can also refer to internal context, and the details presented by the narrator 
• Diction : The word choice used by the narrator or characters 
• Genre: A category of literature characterized by agreed upon similarities in the works, such as subject matter and tone
• Imagery : The descriptive or figurative language used to paint a picture in the reader’s mind so they can picture the story’s plot, characters, and setting 
• Metaphor: A figure of speech that uses comparison between two unlike objects for dramatic or poetic effect
• Narrator: The person who tells the story. Sometimes they are a character within the story, but sometimes they are omniscient and removed from the plot. 
• Plot : The storyline of the work
• Point of view: The perspective taken by the narrator, which skews the perspective of the reader 
• Setting : The time and place in which the story takes place. This can include elements like the time period, weather, time of year or day, and social or economic conditions 
• Symbol : An object, person, or place that represents an abstract idea that is greater than its literal meaning 
• Syntax : The structure of a sentence, either narration or dialogue, and the tone it implies
• Theme : A recurring subject or message within the work, often commentary on larger societal or cultural ideas
• Tone : The feeling, attitude, or mood the text presents

How to Perform Literary Analysis

Step 1: read the text thoroughly.

Literary analysis begins with the literature itself, which means performing a close reading of the text. As you read, you should focus on the work. That means putting away distractions (sorry, smartphone) and dedicating a period of time to the task at hand. 

It’s also important that you don’t skim or speed read. While those are helpful skills, they don’t apply to literary analysis—or at least not this stage. 

Step 2: Take Notes as You Read  

As you read the work, take notes about different literary elements and devices that stand out to you. Whether you highlight or underline in text, use sticky note tabs to mark pages and passages, or handwrite your thoughts in a notebook, you should capture your thoughts and the parts of the text to which they correspond. This—the act of noticing things about a literary work—is literary analysis. 

Step 3: Notice Patterns 

As you read the work, you’ll begin to notice patterns in the way the author deploys language, themes, and symbols to build their plot and characters. As you read and these patterns take shape, begin to consider what they could mean and how they might fit together. 

As you identify these patterns, as well as other elements that catch your interest, be sure to record them in your notes or text. Some examples include: 

• Circle or underline words or terms that you notice the author uses frequently, whether those are nouns (like “eyes” or “road”) or adjectives (like “yellow” or “lush”).
• Highlight phrases that give you the same kind of feeling. For example, if the narrator describes an “overcast sky,” a “dreary morning,” and a “dark, quiet room,” the words aren’t the same, but the feeling they impart and setting they develop are similar. 
• Underline quotes or prose that define a character’s personality or their role in the text.
• Use sticky tabs to color code different elements of the text, such as specific settings or a shift in the point of view. 

By noting these patterns, comprehensive symbols, metaphors, and ideas will begin to come into focus.  

Step 4: Consider the Work as a Whole, and Ask Questions

This is a step that you can do either as you read, or after you finish the text. The point is to begin to identify the aspects of the work that most interest you, and you could therefore analyze in writing or discussion. 

Questions you could ask yourself include: 

• What aspects of the text do I not understand?
• What parts of the narrative or writing struck me most?
• What patterns did I notice?
• What did the author accomplish really well?
• What did I find lacking?
• Did I notice any contradictions or anything that felt out of place?  
• What was the purpose of the minor characters?
• What tone did the author choose, and why? 

The answers to these and more questions will lead you to your arguments about the text. 

Step 5: Return to Your Notes and the Text for Evidence

As you identify the argument you want to make (especially if you’re preparing for an essay), return to your notes to see if you already have supporting evidence for your argument. That’s why it’s so important to take notes or mark passages as you read—you’ll thank yourself later!

If you’re preparing to write an essay, you’ll use these passages and ideas to bolster your argument—aka, your thesis. There will likely be multiple different passages you can use to strengthen multiple different aspects of your argument. Just be sure to cite the text correctly! 

If you’re preparing for class, your notes will also be invaluable. When your teacher or professor leads the conversation in the direction of your ideas or arguments, you’ll be able to not only proffer that idea but back it up with textual evidence. That’s an A+ in class participation. 

Step 6: Connect These Ideas Across the Narrative

Whether you’re in class or writing an essay, literary analysis isn’t complete until you’ve considered the way these ideas interact and contribute to the work as a whole. You can find and present evidence, but you still have to explain how those elements work together and make up your argument. 

How to Write a Literary Analysis Essay

When conducting literary analysis while reading a text or discussing it in class, you can pivot easily from one argument to another (or even switch sides if a classmate or teacher makes a compelling enough argument). 

But when writing literary analysis, your objective is to propose a specific, arguable thesis and convincingly defend it. In order to do so, you need to fortify your argument with evidence from the text (and perhaps secondary sources) and an authoritative tone. 

A successful literary analysis essay depends equally on a thoughtful thesis, supportive analysis, and presenting these elements masterfully. We’ll review how to accomplish these objectives below. 

Step 1: Read the Text. Maybe Read It Again. 

Constructing an astute analytical essay requires a thorough knowledge of the text. As you read, be sure to note any passages, quotes, or ideas that stand out. These could serve as the future foundation of your thesis statement. Noting these sections now will help you when you need to gather evidence. 

The more familiar you become with the text, the better (and easier!) your essay will be. Familiarity with the text allows you to speak (or in this case, write) to it confidently. If you only skim the book, your lack of rich understanding will be evident in your essay. Alternatively, if you read the text closely—especially if you read it more than once, or at least carefully revisit important passages—your own writing will be filled with insight that goes beyond a basic understanding of the storyline. 

Step 2: Brainstorm Potential Topics 

Because you took detailed notes while reading the text, you should have a list of potential topics at the ready. Take time to review your notes, highlighting any ideas or questions you had that feel interesting. You should also return to the text and look for any passages that stand out to you. 

When considering potential topics, you should prioritize ideas that you find interesting. It won’t only make the whole process of writing an essay more fun, your enthusiasm for the topic will probably improve the quality of your argument, and maybe even your writing. Just like it’s obvious when a topic interests you in a conversation, it’s obvious when a topic interests the writer of an essay (and even more obvious when it doesn’t). 

Your topic ideas should also be specific, unique, and arguable. A good way to think of topics is that they’re the answer to fairly specific questions. As you begin to brainstorm, first think of questions you have about the text. Questions might focus on the plot, such as: Why did the author choose to deviate from the projected storyline? Or why did a character’s role in the narrative shift? Questions might also consider the use of a literary device, such as: Why does the narrator frequently repeat a phrase or comment on a symbol? Or why did the author choose to switch points of view each chapter? 

Once you have a thesis question , you can begin brainstorming answers—aka, potential thesis statements . At this point, your answers can be fairly broad. Once you land on a question-statement combination that feels right, you’ll then look for evidence in the text that supports your answer (and helps you define and narrow your thesis statement). 

For example, after reading “ The Fall of the House of Usher ,” you might be wondering, Why are Roderick and Madeline twins?, Or even: Why does their relationship feel so creepy?” Maybe you noticed (and noted) that the narrator was surprised to find out they were twins, or perhaps you found that the narrator’s tone tended to shift and become more anxious when discussing the interactions of the twins.

Once you come up with your thesis question, you can identify a broad answer, which will become the basis for your thesis statement. In response to the questions above, your answer might be, “Poe emphasizes the close relationship of Roderick and Madeline to foreshadow that their deaths will be close, too.” 

Step 3: Gather Evidence 

Once you have your topic (or you’ve narrowed it down to two or three), return to the text (yes, again) to see what evidence you can find to support it. If you’re thinking of writing about the relationship between Roderick and Madeline in “The Fall of the House of Usher,” look for instances where they engaged in the text. 

This is when your knowledge of literary devices comes in clutch. Carefully study the language around each event in the text that might be relevant to your topic. How does Poe’s diction or syntax change during the interactions of the siblings? How does the setting reflect or contribute to their relationship? What imagery or symbols appear when Roderick and Madeline are together? 

By finding and studying evidence within the text, you’ll strengthen your topic argument—or, just as valuably, discount the topics that aren’t strong enough for analysis. 

Step 4: Consider Secondary Sources 

In addition to returning to the literary work you’re studying for evidence, you can also consider secondary sources that reference or speak to the work. These can be articles from journals you find on JSTOR, books that consider the work or its context, or articles your teacher shared in class. 

While you can use these secondary sources to further support your idea, you should not overuse them. Make sure your topic remains entirely differentiated from that presented in the source. 

Step 5: Write a Working Thesis Statement

Once you’ve gathered evidence and narrowed down your topic, you’re ready to refine that topic into a thesis statement. As you continue to outline and write your paper, this thesis statement will likely change slightly, but this initial draft will serve as the foundation of your essay. It’s like your north star: Everything you write in your essay is leading you back to your thesis. 

Writing a great thesis statement requires some real finesse. A successful thesis statement is: 

• Debatable : You shouldn’t simply summarize or make an obvious statement about the work. Instead, your thesis statement should take a stand on an issue or make a claim that is open to argument. You’ll spend your essay debating—and proving—your argument. 
• Demonstrable : You need to be able to prove, through evidence, that your thesis statement is true. That means you have to have passages from the text and correlative analysis ready to convince the reader that you’re right. 
• Specific : In most cases, successfully addressing a theme that encompasses a work in its entirety would require a book-length essay. Instead, identify a thesis statement that addresses specific elements of the work, such as a relationship between characters, a repeating symbol, a key setting, or even something really specific like the speaking style of a character. 

Example: By depicting the relationship between Roderick and Madeline to be stifling and almost otherworldly in its closeness, Poe foreshadows both Madeline’s fate and Roderick’s inability to choose a different fate for himself. 

Step 6: Write an Outline 

You have your thesis, you have your evidence—but how do you put them together? A great thesis statement (and therefore a great essay) will have multiple arguments supporting it, presenting different kinds of evidence that all contribute to the singular, main idea presented in your thesis. 

Review your evidence and identify these different arguments, then organize the evidence into categories based on the argument they support. These ideas and evidence will become the body paragraphs of your essay. 

For example, if you were writing about Roderick and Madeline as in the example above, you would pull evidence from the text, such as the narrator’s realization of their relationship as twins; examples where the narrator’s tone of voice shifts when discussing their relationship; imagery, like the sounds Roderick hears as Madeline tries to escape; and Poe’s tendency to use doubles and twins in his other writings to create the same spooky effect. All of these are separate strains of the same argument, and can be clearly organized into sections of an outline. 

Step 7: Write Your Introduction

Your introduction serves a few very important purposes that essentially set the scene for the reader: 

• Establish context. Sure, your reader has probably read the work. But you still want to remind them of the scene, characters, or elements you’ll be discussing. 
• Present your thesis statement. Your thesis statement is the backbone of your analytical paper. You need to present it clearly at the outset so that the reader understands what every argument you make is aimed at. 
• Offer a mini-outline. While you don’t want to show all your cards just yet, you do want to preview some of the evidence you’ll be using to support your thesis so that the reader has a roadmap of where they’re going. 

Step 8: Write Your Body Paragraphs

Thanks to steps one through seven, you’ve already set yourself up for success. You have clearly outlined arguments and evidence to support them. Now it’s time to translate those into authoritative and confident prose. 

When presenting each idea, begin with a topic sentence that encapsulates the argument you’re about to make (sort of like a mini-thesis statement). Then present your evidence and explanations of that evidence that contribute to that argument. Present enough material to prove your point, but don’t feel like you necessarily have to point out every single instance in the text where this element takes place. For example, if you’re highlighting a symbol that repeats throughout the narrative, choose two or three passages where it is used most effectively, rather than trying to squeeze in all ten times it appears. 

While you should have clearly defined arguments, the essay should still move logically and fluidly from one argument to the next. Try to avoid choppy paragraphs that feel disjointed; every idea and argument should feel connected to the last, and, as a group, connected to your thesis. A great way to connect the ideas from one paragraph to the next is with transition words and phrases, such as: 

• Furthermore 
• In addition
• On the other hand
• Conversely 

Step 9: Write Your Conclusion 

Your conclusion is more than a summary of your essay's parts, but it’s also not a place to present brand new ideas not already discussed in your essay. Instead, your conclusion should return to your thesis (without repeating it verbatim) and point to why this all matters. If writing about the siblings in “The Fall of the House of Usher,” for example, you could point out that the utilization of twins and doubles is a common literary element of Poe’s work that contributes to the definitive eeriness of Gothic literature. 

While you might speak to larger ideas in your conclusion, be wary of getting too macro. Your conclusion should still be supported by all of the ideas that preceded it. 

Step 10: Revise, Revise, Revise

Of course you should proofread your literary analysis essay before you turn it in. But you should also edit the content to make sure every piece of evidence and every explanation directly supports your thesis as effectively and efficiently as possible. 

Sometimes, this might mean actually adapting your thesis a bit to the rest of your essay. At other times, it means removing redundant examples or paraphrasing quotations. Make sure every sentence is valuable, and remove those that aren’t. 

Other Resources for Literary Analysis 

With these skills and suggestions, you’re well on your way to practicing and writing literary analysis. But if you don’t have a firm grasp on the concepts discussed above—such as literary devices or even the content of the text you’re analyzing—it will still feel difficult to produce insightful analysis. 

If you’d like to sharpen the tools in your literature toolbox, there are plenty of other resources to help you do so: 

• Check out our expansive library of Literary Devices . These could provide you with a deeper understanding of the basic devices discussed above or introduce you to new concepts sure to impress your professors ( anagnorisis , anyone?). 
• This Academic Citation Resource Guide ensures you properly cite any work you reference in your analytical essay. 
• Our English Homework Help Guide will point you to dozens of resources that can help you perform analysis, from critical reading strategies to poetry helpers. 
• This Grammar Education Resource Guide will direct you to plenty of resources to refine your grammar and writing (definitely important for getting an A+ on that paper). 

Of course, you should know the text inside and out before you begin writing your analysis. In order to develop a true understanding of the work, read through its corresponding SuperSummary study guide . Doing so will help you truly comprehend the plot, as well as provide some inspirational ideas for your analysis.

The Ultimate Guide to Analytical Essay Writing: How to Craft an A-Grade Paper?

25 January, 2021

17 minutes read

Author:  Kate Smith

An analytical essay is often considered the most challenging piece of writing. However, those who have dealt with it at least once are a step closer to calling themselves masters of essay writing. This type of paper requires plenty of analytical skills to carry out an in-depth analysis of the assigned topic. Yet, the main goal of an analytical essay is not only to demonstrate your ability to learn the basics of the theme.

You also need to think critically, analyze facts, express your standpoint, and clearly show a deep understanding of key concepts. In short, your main task as an author is to prove the validity of your views by coming up with strong arguments that do not beg any questions.

The given guide provides a full analytical essay definition, as well as specifies its features and structural aspects. The following information will help you properly start your paper, choose a relevant topic, and come up with compelling conclusions. 

What is an Analytical Essay?

An analytical essay is a piece of writing aimed to provide a thorough analysis of a definite phenomenon using persuasive arguments and supporting assertions. Analysis in the analytical essay writing process stands for a method of research that allows one to study specific features of an object. Analytical papers also have to do with analysis of a specific problem; that is consideration of the problem itself and identification of its key patterns. The subject matter of analysis can be a well-known or little-studied scientific phenomenon, artistic work, historical event, social problem, etc.

The content of an analytical essay will totally depend on the object that has been chosen for analysis. Thus, when shedding light on any kind of scientific work, an analytical essay can be devoted to the analysis of research credibility, its relevance, or the adequacy of conclusions. When considering a work of art, an essay writer can focus on the analysis of the author’s artistic techniques or issues raised in the book. For this reason, it is essential to accurately determine the topic and subject matter of your future analytical essay.

Steps to Take Before Writing

The preparational stage of analytical essay writing cannot be omitted. It lays the basis for the A-grade paper and should be carefully completed. If you don’t know how to start an analytical essay, read a few handy tips that will ensure a solid foundation for your paper.  

Define a subject matter

You first need to clearly understand the issue you will base your essay on. Since analytical essays imply an in-depth analysis of a specific problem, you need to define its core. Try to split the analysis into several components and provide arguments taken either from a book, a research, a scientific work, or a movie (depending on the subject matter of your analysis), and support your views comprehensively.

Decide on the content of your analytical essay

If you are a student who was given an analytical essay topic, read the task several times before you are 100% sure that you clearly understand the requirements as to the analytical essay format. In case you were lucky to choose the topic of the analytical paper by yourself, make sure the theme you will be dealing with is familiar or at least seems interesting to you. 

Remember that different subject matters require a different approach to their analysis. If you examine some literature work, you can prove your opinion based on the deeds of a certain or several characters. But if you have been assigned the task to elaborate on some historic events, analyze their main causes, driving forces that have affected their course, and their global consequences.  

Take care of the proper start

Don’t forget to start your analytical essay with a thesis statement. It is a sentence or a couple of sentences that aim to summarize the key statements of your paper. A thesis statement should provide readers with a preliminary idea of what your essay is all about.  

Find extra reasoning

Make sure your thesis is supported by compelling arguments. To find enough evidence, you should carry out a thorough analysis of the assigned topic. List the crucial points of your research and ponder over the ways they can be used to prove your final opinion. 

Elaborate the outline

A sound outline elaborated at the preparation stage will help you ensure a proper analytical essay structure and make the overall writing process easier. As a rule, an analytical essay consists of an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Your outline plan should include the key arguments you want to discuss in each paragraph. 

Analytical Essay Thesis

A thesis statement represents the central idea of your paper and must serve as strong proof of your standpoint. While elaborating your thesis statement, it is crucial to include it at the end of the first paragraph and thus set a direction for the overall paper. 

Analytical Essay Outline

An outline is not a required element of analytical essays writing and should not be included in the text, but it can greatly facilitate the whole process of paper writing.

The analytical essay structure looks as follows:

Introduction

In the introduction of an analytical essay, you will need to identify your paper’s subject matter. Mention the purpose of your work and specify its scope of research. Don’t forget to include a thesis to let readers know what your work is about.

Body Section

As has already been mentioned, the body section covers three or more main paragraphs, each being supported with arguments and details. Besides, you need to provide a small conclusion to each statement to make your essay sound professional and persuasive. 

At this stage, you need to summarize the points elucidated in your paper and make sure there is a smooth and logical transition from the body section to the concluding part of the text. If you don’t know how to conclude an analytical essay, try to restate the thesis statement without copying it word for word.  

Analytical Essay Examples

Writing an analytical essay may seem to be a thorny way. If you are still not sure how to properly craft one, try to find some examples that will help you go in the right direction. Below, there are some great examples of analytical essays. Take a look at their structure and try to write something similar based on your views and ideas:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JeR4i4RIZIj448W3KVFyHP-eS3QPN7gW/view

https://stlcc.edu/docs/student-support/academic-support/college-writing-center/rhetorical-analysis-sample-essay.pdf

https://www.germanna.eduhttp://handmadewriting.com/wp-content/uploads/tutoring/handouts/Literary-Analysis-Sample-Paper.pdf

30 Analytical Essay Topics

If you were allowed to choose the theme for your paper by yourself, check on the following analytical essay topics. Each of them can bring you the highest score:

General topics

• The influence of social networks on the life of teens
• Are salaries of football players too high?
• Wearing uniforms in schools should be banned
• A person in society: the problems of loneliness and privacy
• Sociology of corporate relationships
• Does the observation of space need more investments?
• Should the voting age in the UK be decreased?
• Reasons why capital punishment should be brought back in the UK
• A world with no rules: a new human era or a road to the global collapse?
• Life without technologies: will modern people survive?
• Should scientists test drugs on animals to fight cancer?
• The problem of keeping the balance between career and family life
• The importance of listening to your body 
• Problems caused by the lack of communication
• Food addiction and the problems it causes
• Problems of vaccination in the XXI century
• Does evil really rule the world?
• How does body size affect life quality?
• Pros and cons of video games 
• The role of a family model in the life and career of a person

Analytical Essay Topics on Literature

• “Robinson Crusoe”: fantasy vs reality
• Observation of the artistic uniqueness in the comedy by W. Shakespeare “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” 
• Observe the social problems in the novel by John Steinbeck “The Grapes of Wrath”
• Convulsions and death of the “little man” in the networks of impersonal, alienated forces in the novel “The Metamorphosis”
• Observation of the problems of a man on a plagued land in the novel “The Plague”
• Revolt of the protagonist in the novel by J. Salinger “The Catcher in the Rye”
• Observation of friendship and love in the fate of humanity in the XX century
• The triumph of immorality in the novel by F. Sagan “Hello Sadness”
• Observation of the personality of an American student in the novel by J. Salinger “The Catcher in the Rye”
• Eternal tragedies of humanity in the tragedy by W. Shakespeare “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark”

How to Write a Well-Structured Analytical Essay With a Solid Argument

Writing an analytical essay with a clear structure might be challenging unless you are thoroughly prepared. We decided to help you out and create a detailed guide listing the main things to consider when creating an analytical essay outline. You need to explain your main idea in a concise way to bring your point across. As analytical writing has high requirements, it pays off to find an analytical essay example and analyze how this text was written. It will allow you to understand the analytical essay format better and learn how to provide substantive analysis on various topics. Read on to learn how to write a top-level analytical paper and submit it on time.

Main Tips for Writing an Analytical Essay

An analytical essay should provide a comprehensive analysis of a chosen topic. What makes an analysis essay different from other assignments is that it includes a personal opinion of an author. This is why analytical writing should be persuasive.

Below, we have rounded up the key tips you need to follow when producing an analytical essay outline and the main body of your text. Read on to learn more about the analytical essay format and create a text that will fully meet the requirements.

Select an Analytical Essay Topic

Before creating an analytical essay outline, make sure to pick a topic that you are interested in. It should be provocative enough to engage your readers. A widely-debated topic will help you write an analytical essay that grabs the attention of a wide audience.

Consider your goals and conduct thorough research to see if you have enough sources to support the main thesis of your analysis essay.

Come Up With a Strong Analytical Thesis Statement

When writing an analytical essay, start by formulating a thesis statement that includes the topic and the main goal of your text. It will help you create an analytical essay outline and show your readers what you will discuss in your analysis essay.

Add it to the last paragraph of your analytical essay introduction. Due to this, your analytical essay outline will look better structured. Look at any analytical essay example to see how you can introduce your subject. In most cases, one sentence will suffice to state your analysis essay’s goal. However, a complex analytical essay outline might require you to use two sentences for a thesis statement.

Write an Analytical Essay Body with a Clear Structure

Your analytical essay outline should include 3-4 paragraphs. However, a literary analysis essay usually consists of 5 paragraphs. When it comes to analytical writing, it is important to cover a different point in each section of the main body of an analysis paper.

After writing an analytical essay, check whether each paragraph contains an introduction and the main point. Besides, it should contain evidence. An expertly written analytical essay outline will help you reach out to your target audience more effectively.

Conduct Research Before Writing an Analytical Essay Outline

While this step is preparatory, it is a must for those who want to write a well-grounded analytical paper.

• First, select the best ideas for your essay
• Then, emphasize the problems with works written by other researchers
• Finally, write your analytical essay outline to demonstrate what approach you want to take

Examine the context and find examples to illustrate the scope of the issue. You may draw parallels to emphasize your point and make your topic more relatable.

Analyze the Implications of the Evidence

After listing your pieces of evidence and demonstrating how it is related to your thesis, show why it is important. You need to explore it deeply and use it to support your argument. It will make your analytical essay outline well-grounded facts.

Write an Analytical Essay Conclusion

Whether you write a literary analysis essay or other types of assignments, there is no need to add any new data at the end of your analysis paper. Instead, summarize the arguments you mentioned in your analytical essay outline. The conclusion of your analysis essay should be short and clear. Here, you need to demonstrate that you have achieved your goals.

Analytical Essay Writing Tips

If you want to get the highest grade for your analytical essay, you need to know a little bit more than just the basics of paper writing. Read these handy tips to write a perfect essay you will be proud of:

• Double-check your paper for spelling and grammar mistakes. In case your essay contains too many errors, neither an in-depth analysis nor the elaborate writing style will make it look any better. Situations when essays of great value in terms of research and a message they convey are poorly assessed because of the abundance of mistakes are not rare. Make sure you have enough time to proofread your paper before submission. Also, you may consider asking somebody to take a fresh look at your essay and check it for you.
• Reading your analytical essay out loud helps you discover all types of errors or weak phrases. This method might seem a bit uncomfortable, but it has proved to be very effective for many students. Note that silent reading of your paper isn’t even half as helpful as reading it aloud. 
• Another great idea to check on the rhythm and flow of your paper is to ask someone to read it for you. While listening to the text, you could perceive it from another perspective and discover even more inconsistencies and mistakes.  
• Double-check the facts you use in your analytical essay. The names of people, books, research, publications, as well as dates of historical events are too important to be misspelled. Things like these show your professionalism and the way you treat your readers.

Write an Analytical Essay with HandmadeWriting

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Textual Analysis Essay - Read, Grasp and Analyze

Table of contents:, step 2. build your textual analysis essay structure, step 3. work the introduction section, step 4. include a thesis statement, step 5. develop the main body, step 6. summarize your conclusion, step 7. study examples of a textual analysis outline.

One of the most significant and substantial traits that every student must possess is a knack for analyzing. It is basically what college is about: learning to perceive and process information on the go. College professors assign you tasks that are meant to develop your analytical, writing and conceptual skills. One of such assignments is a textual analysis essay, also known as literary analysis essay.

Step 1. Determine the Goal of Your Textual Analysis Essay

The point of it is precisely what the name implies - the analysis of a certain piece of text. But, do you know how to write a textual analysis essay? Not all students have the required set of skills. It may not be easy for every scholar to master the task of writing a textual analysis. And if by any chance, you are among them, we are here to help you out. Our professional team have been performing all kinds of writings for years now. And today we want to help you figure out how to write a textual analysis, understand its definition and purpose, and learn all the ins and outs. Let's begin!

In order to understand how to go about the writing, you need to grasp the textual analysis definition first. Like mentioned before, the name explains itself. You are presented with an extract or the entirety of a piece of writing, be it a novel, a short story, an article, or something else falling under the "text" category.

Textual analysis essays are papers that break down the whole given body of the written work, fractionate it as a whole and as an assembly of a few different parts, and explain the meaning or intent behind them.

Sounds a tad too complicated, doesn't it? Well, that's what you get when you apply to college - a lot of unnecessarily fancy words and sleep deprivation. Basically, you need to write a fully detailed study, highlighting strong and weak points and making conclusions based on text references. It is, after all, an analysis. So, if you understand now what is a textual analysis essay, you are prepared to take on the task of the text inspector.

The first thing you need to do is, of course, pick a text you're planning on analyzing. In most cases, the assigner provides you with one right away, but sometimes you need to choose it yourself. Proceed carefully and don't make a mistake of overestimating your abilities. Choose something that is easy for you to understand, and therefore, easier to write about. Try finding as many sources as you can. Of course, all the analyzing must be done exclusively by you, but it's not prohibited to reference someone else's work when presenting examples.

One of the main secrets about how to write a good textual analysis is planning. By the way, it applies to any type of work: before starting anything, you need to make a plan in order to reach the maximum efficiency in your doings. Back to your task - first, put together the structure. Make a textual analysis essay outline. It will help you organize your thoughts. While writing an outline, you can see more clearly how your essay will look like. Getting the "big picture" of it all is a crucial stage of writing. Just like you're assembling Lego's with an outlined instruction, you need to build your essay from separate pieces. And to find those pieces - make a plan!

While writing an outline, you can see more clearly how your essay will look like. Just like you're assembling Lego's with an outlined instruction, you need to build your essay from separate pieces. And to find those pieces - make a plan!

The introduction of textual analysis is, in a way, the most important part of the paper. If the intro "hooks" the reader, they will proceed with examining your essay further. Yes, you are writing it for your professor, but every college assignment should be regarded as one up for the nationwide publishing. It gives you a better understanding of its significance. So, try your best to catch the reader's attention. For instance, you can add an epigraph with a quote from a book you're compiling an analysis on.

The introduction part needs to establish the theme of your essay, and explain why it is important to investigate it.

The introduction part needs to establish the theme of your essay, and explain why it is important to investigate it. Once again, your topic must be something you are interested in, intrigued by, or feel the need for a discussion. After you've done that, proceed to make your thesis statement. It is desirable, although not necessarily, for your thesis statement to be the last sentence of the introduction section. After that, it's all about convincing your reader in the main body.

A little tip: write your introduction when the rest of the essay is done. It seems strange, but composing the main part first will help you see all the major points you need to mention at the beginning.

Let us provide you with an example of an introduction to a textual analysis essay on the Victor Hugo's Les Miserables .

Enjolras' portrayal by Hugo was clearly intended as a re-establishing of the old archetype of Orestes in the new age.

"His flaring nostrils, his downcast eyes, gave to his implacable Greek profiles that expression of wrath and chastity which for the ancient world belonged to justice." ― Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

Victor Hugo's epic novel about the destinies of various societal outcasts is one of the most significant written works ever to exist. In it, the author portrays the human nature as a neutral state. People are born with neither good nor bad qualities, but they are shaped by the society and circumstances of their lives. The problematique of "nature vs. nurture" is as old as the literature itself, but in this essay, I would like to look more closely at the destiny of one particular character. Young revolutioner Enjolras. His story is made even more interesting in this discourse, for he was brought up as an aristocrat, but ended up on the barricades fighting to bring down the king. Enjolras' portrayal by Hugo was clearly intended as a re-establishing of the old archetype of Orestes in the new age.

As you can see, we've set the mood of the essay and added our thesis statement at the end.

When you get to the part of the actual analysis, it's time to whip out a good old argumentative structure.

In the textual analysis, you are required to provide a few examples regarding your thesis statement, following by the explanations and elaborations that prove the said statement to be true.

Don't make them vague and subjective. Write short and on point. At this stage, you don't need to go into details. Prove in general terms - just why your statements are true. You'll get to the more thorough analysis later on.

Next step is to demonstrate your perception of the author's strategy. Describe how and what the author does to highlight something, bring attention to it, or deny it. Don't write about everything there is in the book, though. You only need to mention the points that connect directly to your thesis statement.

After that, it's time for our usual argument-example scheme. You need to have at least three paragraphs on this, as per usual. Here, you can go into as much detail as you want. Bring out the references to the text or some other sources to relate to your arguments. There's no restriction about using quotes straight from the text, but it is advisable to avoid them. Instead, you can reference the part you want to bring to attention.

After everything is done, look it over and make sure you didn't omit anything. The next part of the writing process is simultaneously the easiest and the hardest one.

The textual analysis conclusion can be a tricky thing. On the one hand, you are already at the finish line, and you just need to summarize everything you've written in the central part. On the other hand, it can be hard to condense everything without repeating yourself a lot.

Be careful and precise: go back to your thesis points and paraphrase them in a way that makes answers from them, not questions.

Conclusively end your essay, and finish every thought you've started.

• Introduction
• Thesis Statement Enjolras' portrayal by Hugo was clearly intended as a re-establishing of the old archetype of Orestes in the new age.
• Topic Sentence The destinies and characteristics of Enjolras and Orestes are paralleled through the ages.
• Example Meaning of the name Orestes is "one who can conquer mountains," which goes strongly in line with Enjolras' characteristics. According to the myth about Orestus, his destiny is to fight and be an avenger and a warrior, who is, however, doomed to fall before seeing his goal through. Enjolras is described as the passionate man who died fighting for the freedom but never saw said freedom coming to France.
• Two or three topic sentences with accompanying examples, written in the same fashion.
• Conclusion Victor Hugo accomplished a great deal of things with writing Les Miserables, including reestablishing and reshaping certain archetypical tropes in literature. He managed to bring to life the shapeless abstract form of French life and people who were long gone by the time he started writing the first pages of his magnum opus. One of the brightest examples is the character of Enjolras, a young rebelling aristocrat who defied all the expectations and became a warrior, just like Orestes did centuries ago... etc.

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• Open access
• Published: 23 September 2023

Educational interventions targeting pregnant women to optimise the use of caesarean section: What are the essential elements? A qualitative comparative analysis

• Rana Islamiah Zahroh   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7831-2336 1 ,
• Katy Sutcliffe   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5469-8649 2 ,
• Dylan Kneale   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7016-978X 2 ,
• Martha Vazquez Corona   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2061-9540 1 ,
• Ana Pilar Betrán   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5631-5883 3 ,
• Newton Opiyo   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2709-3609 3 ,
• Caroline S. E. Homer   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7454-3011 4 &
• Meghan A. Bohren   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4179-4682 1  

BMC Public Health volume  23 , Article number:  1851 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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Caesarean section (CS) rates are increasing globally, posing risks to women and babies. To reduce CS, educational interventions targeting pregnant women have been implemented globally, however, their effectiveness is varied. To optimise benefits of these interventions, it is important to understand which intervention components influence success. In this study, we aimed to identify essential intervention components that lead to successful implementation of interventions focusing on pregnant women to optimise CS use.

We re-analysed existing systematic reviews that were used to develop and update WHO guidelines on non-clinical interventions to optimise CS. To identify if certain combinations of intervention components (e.g., how the intervention was delivered, and contextual characteristics) are associated with successful implementation, we conducted a Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). We defined successful interventions as interventions that were able to reduce CS rates. We included 36 papers, comprising 17 CS intervention studies and an additional 19 sibling studies (e.g., secondary analyses, process evaluations) reporting on these interventions to identify intervention components. We conducted QCA in six stages: 1) Identifying conditions and calibrating the data; 2) Constructing truth tables, 3) Checking quality of truth tables; 4) Identifying parsimonious configurations through Boolean minimization; 5) Checking quality of the solution; 6) Interpretation of solutions. We used existing published qualitative evidence synthesis to develop potential theories driving intervention success.

We found successful interventions were those that leveraged social or peer support through group-based intervention delivery, provided communication materials to women, encouraged emotional support by partner or family participation, and gave women opportunities to interact with health providers. Unsuccessful interventions were characterised by the absence of at least two of these components.

We identified four key essential intervention components which can lead to successful interventions targeting women to reduce CS. These four components are 1) group-based delivery, 2) provision of IEC materials, 3) partner or family member involvement, and 4) opportunity for women to interact with health providers. Maternal health services and hospitals aiming to better prepare women for vaginal birth and reduce CS can consider including the identified components to optimise health and well-being benefits for the woman and baby.

Peer Review reports

Introduction

In recent years, caesarean section (CS) rates have increased globally [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ]. CS can be a life-saving procedure when vaginal birth is not possible; however, it comes with higher risks both in the short- and long-term for women and babies [ 1 , 5 ]. Women with CS have increased risks of surgical complications, complications in future pregnancies, subfertility, bowel obstruction, and chronic pain [ 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 ]. Similarly, babies born through CS have increased risks of hypoglycaemia, respiratory problems, allergies and altered immunity [ 9 , 10 , 11 ]. At a population level, CS rates exceeding 15% are unlikely to reduce mortality rates [ 1 , 12 ]. Despite these risks, an analysis across 154 countries reported a global average CS rate of 21.1% in 2018, projected to increase to 28.5% by 2030 [ 3 ].

There are many reasons for the increasing CS rates, and these vary between and within countries. Increasingly, non-clinical factors across different societal dimensions and stakeholders (e.g. women and communities, health providers, and health systems) are contributing to this increase [ 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 ]. Women may prefer CS over vaginal birth due to fear of labour or vaginal birth, previous negative experience of childbirth, perceived increased risks of vaginal birth, beliefs about an auspicious or convenient day of birth, or beliefs that caesarean section is safer, quick, and painless compared to vaginal birth [ 13 , 14 , 15 ].

Interventions targeting pregnant women to reduce CS have been implemented globally. A Cochrane intervention review synthesized evidence from non-clinical interventions targeting pregnant women and family, providers, and health systems to reduce unnecessary CS, and identified 15 interventions targeting women [ 18 ]. Interventions targeting women primarily focused on improving women’s knowledge around birth, improving women’s ability to cope during labour, and decreasing women’s stress related to labour through childbirth education, and decision aids for women with previous CS [ 18 ]. These types of interventions aim to reduce the concerns of pregnant women and their partners around childbirth, and prepare them for vaginal birth.

The effectiveness of interventions targeting women in reducing CS is mixed [ 18 , 19 ]. Plausible explanations for this limited success include the multifactorial nature of the factors driving increases in CS, as well as the contextual characteristics of the interventions, which may include the study environment, participant characteristics, intensity of exposure to the intervention and method of implementation. Understanding which intervention components are essential influencers of the success of the interventions is conducive to optimising benefits. This study used a Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) approach to re-analyse evidence from existing systematic reviews to identify essential intervention components that lead to the successful implementation of non-clinical interventions focusing on pregnant women to optimise the use of CS. Updating and re-analysing existing systematic reviews using new analytical frameworks may help to explore the heterogeneity in effects and ascertain why some studies appear to be effective while others are not.

Data sources, case selection, and defining outcomes

Developing a logic model.

We developed a logic model to guide our understanding of different pathways and intervention components potentially leading to successful implementation (Additional file 1 ). The logic model was developed based on published qualitative evidence syntheses and systematic reviews [ 18 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 ]. The logic model depicts the desired outcome of reduced CS rates in low-risk women (at the time of admission for birth, these women are typically represented by Robson groups 1–4 [ 25 ] and are women with term, cephalic, singleton pregnancies without a previous CS) and works backwards to understand what inputs and processes are needed to achieve the desired outcome. Our logic model shows multiple pathways to success and highlights the interactions between different levels of factors (women, providers, societal, health system) (Additional file 1 ). Based on the logic model, we have separated our QCA into two clusters of interventions: 1) interventions targeting women, and 2) interventions targeting health providers. The results of analysis on interventions targeting health providers have been published elsewhere [ 26 ]. The logic model was also used to inform the potential important components that influence success.

Identifying data sources and selecting cases

We re-analysed the systematic reviews which were used to inform the development and update of World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. In 2018, WHO issued global guidance on non-clinical interventions to reduce unnecessary CS, with interventions designed to target three different levels or stakeholders: women, health providers, and health systems [ 27 ]. As part of the guideline recommendations, a series of systematic reviews about CS interventions were conducted: 1) a Cochrane intervention review of effectiveness by Chen et al. (2018) [ 18 ] and 2) three qualitative evidence syntheses exploring key stakeholder perspectives and experiences of interventions focusing on women and communities, health professionals, and health organisations, facilities and systems by Kingdon et al. (2018) [ 20 , 21 , 22 ]. Later on, Opiyo and colleagues (2020) published a scoping review of financial and regulatory interventions to optimise the use of CS [ 23 ].

Therefore, the primary data sources of this QCA are the intervention studies included in Chen et al. (2018) [ 18 ] and Opiyo et al. (2020) [ 23 ]. We used these two systematic reviews as not only they are comprehensive, but they were also used to inform the WHO guidelines development. A single intervention study is referred to as a “case”. Eligible cases were intervention studies focusing on pregnant women and aimed to reduce or optimise the use of CS. No restrictions on study design were imposed in the QCA. Therefore, we also assessed the eligibility of intervention studies excluded from Chen et al. (2018) [ 18 ] and Opiyo et al. (2020) [ 23 ] due to ineligible study designs (such as cohort study, uncontrolled before and after study, interrupted time series with fewer than three data points), as these studies could potentially show other pathways to successful implementation. We complemented these intervention studies with additional intervention studies published since the last review updates in 2018 and 2020, to include intervention studies that are likely to meet the review inclusion criteria for future review updates. No further search was conducted as QCA is suitable for medium-N cases, approximately around 10–50 cases, and inclusion of more studies may threaten study rigour [ 28 ].

Once eligible studies were selected, we searched for their ‘sibling studies’. Sibling studies are studies linked to the included intervention studies, such as formative research or process evaluations which may have been published separately. Sibling studies can provide valuable additional information about study context, intervention components, and implementation outcomes (e.g. acceptability, fidelity, adherence, dosage), which may not be well described in a single article about intervention effectiveness. We searched for sibling studies using the following steps: 1) reference list search of the intervention studies included in Chen et al. (2018) [ 18 ] and Opiyo et al. (2020) [ 23 ], 2) reference list search of the qualitative studies included in Kingdon et al. (2018) reviews [ 20 , 21 , 22 ]; and 3) forward reference search of the intervention studies (through “Cited by” function) in Scopus and Web of Science. Sibling studies were included if they included any information on intervention components or implementation outcomes, regardless of the methodology used. One author conducted the study screening independently (RIZ), and 10% of the screening was double-checked by a second author (MAB). Disagreements during screening were discussed until consensus, and with the rest of the author team if needed.

Defining outcomes

We assessed all outcomes related to the mode of birth in the studies included in the Chen et al. (2018) [ 18 ] and Opiyo et al. (2020) [ 23 ] reviews. Based on the consistency of outcome reporting, we selected “overall CS rate” as the primary outcome of interest due to its presence across studies. We planned to rank the rate ratio across these studies to select the 10 most successful and unsuccessful intervention studies. However, due to heterogeneity in how CS outcomes were reported across studies (e.g. odds ratios, rate ratios, percentages across different intervention stages), the final categorisation of successful or unsuccessful interventions is based on whether the CS rate decreased, based on the precision of the confidence interval or p-value (successful, coded as 1), or CS rate increased or did not change (unsuccessful, coded as 0).

Assessing risk of bias in intervention studies

All intervention studies eligible for inclusion were assessed for risk of bias. All studies included in Chen et al. (2018) and Opiyo et al. (2020) already had risk of bias assessed and reported [ 18 , 23 ], and we used these assessments. Additional intervention studies outside the included studies on these reviews were assessed using the same tools depending on the type of evidence (two randomized controlled trials and one uncontrolled before and after study), and details of the risk of bias assessment results can be found in Additional file 2 . We excluded studies with a high risk of bias to ensure that the analysis was based on high-quality studies and to enhance the ability of researchers to develop deep case knowledge by limiting the overall number of studies.

Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA)

QCA was first developed and used in political sciences and has since been extended to systematic reviews of complex health interventions [ 24 , 29 , 30 , 31 ]. Despite the term “qualitative”, QCA is not a typical qualitative analysis, and is often conceptualised as a methodology that bridges qualitative and quantitative methodologies based on its process, data used and theoretical standpoint [ 24 ]. Here, QCA is used to identify if certain configurations or combinations of intervention components (e.g. participants, types of interventions, contextual characteristics, and intervention delivery) are associated with the desired outcome [ 31 ]. These intervention components are referred to as “conditions” in the QCA methodology. Whilst statistical synthesis methods may be used to examine intervention heterogeneity in systematic reviews, such as meta-regression, QCA is a particularly suitable method to understand complex interventions like those aiming to optimise CS, as it allows for multiple overlapping pathways to causality [ 31 ]. Moreover, QCA allows the exploration of different combinations of conditions, rather than relying on a single condition leading to intervention effectiveness [ 31 ]. Although meta-regression allows for the assessment of multiple conditions, a sufficient number of studies may not be available to conduct the analysis. In complex interventions, such as interventions aiming to optimise the use of CS, single condition or standard meta-analysis may be less likely to yield usable and nuanced information about what intervention components are more or less likely to yield success [ 31 ].

QCA uses ‘set theory’ to systematically compare characteristics of the cases (e.g. intervention in the case of systematic reviews) in relation to the outcomes [ 31 , 32 ]. This means QCA compares the characteristics of the successful ‘cases’ (e.g. interventions that are effective) to those unsuccessful ‘cases’ (e.g. interventions that are not effective). The comparison is conducted using a scoring system based on ‘set membership’ [ 31 , 32 ]. In this scoring, conditions and outcomes are coded based on the extent to which a certain feature is present or absent to form set membership scores [ 31 , 32 ]. There are two scoring systems in QCA: 1) crisp set QCA (csQCA) and 2) fuzzy set QCA (fsQCA). csQCA assigns binary scores of 0 (“fully out” to set membership for cases with certain conditions) and 1 (“fully in” to set membership for cases with certain conditions), while fsQCA assigns ordinal scoring of conditions and outcomes, permitting partial membership scores between 0 and 1 [ 31 , 32 ]. For example, using fsQCA we may assign a five-level scoring system (0, 0.33, 0.5, 0.67, 1), where 0.33 would indicate “more out” than “in” to the set of membership, and 0.67 would indicate “more in” than “out”, and 0.5 would indicate ambiguity (i.e. a lack of information about whether a case was “in” or “out”) [ 31 , 32 ]. In our analysis, we used the combination of both csQCA and fsQCA to calibrate our data. This approach was necessary because some conditions were better suited to binary options using csQCA, while others were more complex, depending on the distribution of cases, and required fsQCA to capture the necessary information. In our final analysis, however, the conditions run on the final analysis were all using the csQCA scoring system.

Two relationships can be investigated using QCA [ 24 , 31 ]. First, if all instances of successful interventions share the same condition(s), this suggests these features are ‘necessary’ to trigger successful outcomes [ 24 , 31 ]. Second, if all instances of a particular condition are associated with successful interventions, this suggests these conditions are ‘sufficient’ for triggering successful outcomes [ 24 , 31 ]. In this QCA, we were interested to explore the relationship of sufficiency: that is, to assess the various combinations of intervention components that can trigger successful outcomes. We were interested in sufficiency because our logic model (explained further below) highlighted the multiple pathways that can lead to a CS and different interventions that may optimise the use of CS along those pathways, which suggested that it would be unlikely for all successful interventions to share the same conditions. We calculated the degree of sufficiency using consistency measures, which evaluate the frequency in which conditions are present when the desired outcome is achieved [ 31 , 32 ]. The conditions with a consistency score of at least 0.8 were considered sufficient in triggering successful interventions [ 31 , 32 ]. At present, there is no tool available for reporting guidelines in the re-analysis of systematic reviews using QCA, however, CARU-QCA is currently being developed for this purpose [ 33 ]. QCA was conducted using R programming software with a package developed by Thiem & Duşa (2013) and QCA with R guidebook [ 32 ]. QCA was conducted in six stages based on Thomas et al. (2014) [ 31 ] and explained below.

QCA stage 1: Identifying conditions, building data tables and calibration

We used a deductive and inductive process to determine the potential conditions (intervention components) that may trigger successful implementation. Conditions were first derived deductively using the developed logic model (Additional file 1 ). We then added additional conditions inductively using Intervention Component Analysis from the intervention studies [ 34 ], and qualitative evidence (“view”) synthesis [ 22 ] using Melendez-Torres’s (2018) approach [ 35 ]. Intervention Component Analysis is a methodological approach that examines factors affecting implementation through reflections from the trialist, which is typically presented in the discussion section of a published trial [ 34 ]. Examples of conditions identified in the Intervention Component Analysis include using an individualised approach, interaction with health providers, policies that encourage CS and acknowledgement of women’s previous birth experiences. After consolidating or merging similar conditions, a total of 52 conditions were selected and extracted from each included intervention and analysed in this QCA (Details of conditions and definitions generated for this study can be found in Additional files 3 and 4 ). We adapted the coding framework from Harris et al. (2019) [ 24 ] by adapting coding rules and six domains that were used, to organize the 52 conditions and make more sense of the data. These six domains are broadly classified as 1) context and participants, 2) intervention design, 3) program content, 4) method of engagement, 5) health system factors, and 6) process outcomes.

One author (RIZ) extracted data relevant to the conditions for each included study into a data table, which was then double-reviewed by two other authors (MVC, MAB). The data table is a matrix in which each case is represented in a row, and columns are used to represent the conditions. Following data extraction, calibration rules using either csQCA or fsQCA (e.g. group-based intervention delivery condition: yes = 1 (present), no = 0 (absent)) were developed through consultation with all authors. We developed a table listing the conditions and rules of coding the conditions, by either direct or transformational assignment of quantitative and qualitative data [ 24 , 32 ] (Additional file 3 depicts the calibration rules). The data tables were then calibrated by applying scores, to explore the extent to which interventions have ‘set membership’ with the outcome or conditions of interest. During this iterative process, the calibration criteria were explicitly defined, emerging from the literature and the cases themselves. It is important to note, that maximum ambiguity is typically scored as 0.5 in QCA, however, we decided it would be more appropriate to assume that if a condition was not reported it was unlikely to be a feature of the intervention, so we treated not reported as “absence” that is we coded it 0.

QCA stage 2: Constructing truth tables

Truth tables are an analytical tool used in QCA to analyse associations between configurations of conditions and outcomes. Whereas the data table represents individual cases (rows) and individual conditions (columns) – the truth table synthesises this data to examine configurations – with each row representing a different configuration of the conditions. The columns indicate a) which conditions are featured in the configuration in that row, b) how many of the cases are represented by that configuration, and c) their association with the outcome.

We first constructed the truth tables based on context and participants, intervention designs, program content, and method of engagement; however, no configurations to trigger successful interventions were observed. Instead, we observed limited diversity, meaning there were many instances in which the configurations were unsupported by cases, likely due to the presence of too many conditions in the truth tables. We used the learning from these truth tables to return to the literature to explore potential explanatory theories about what conditions are important from the perspectives of participants and trialists to trigger successful interventions (adhering to the ‘utilisation of view’ perspective [ 35 ]). Through this process, we found that women and communities liked to learn new information about childbirth, and desired emotional support from partners and health providers while learning [ 22 ]. They also appreciated educational interventions that provide opportunities for discussion and dialogue with health providers and align with current clinical practice and advice from health providers [ 22 ]. Therefore, three models of truth tables were iteratively constructed and developed based on three important hypothesised theories about how the interventions should be delivered: 1) how birth information was provided to women, 2) emotional support was provided to women (including interactions between women and providers), and 3) a consolidated model examining the interactions of important conditions identified from model 1 and 2. We also conducted a sub-analysis of interventions targeting both women and health providers or systems (‘multi-target interventions’). This sub-analysis was conducted to explore if similar conditions were observed in triggering successful interventions in multi-target interventions, among the components for women only. Table 1 presents the list of truth tables that were iteratively constructed and refined.

QCA stage 3: Checking quality of truth tables

We iteratively developed and improved the quality of truth tables by checking the configurations of successful and unsuccessful interventions, as recommended by Thomas et al. (2014) [ 31 ]. This includes by assessing the number of studies clustering to each configuration, and exploring the presence of any contradictory results between successful and unsuccessful interventions. We found contradictory configurations across the five truth tables, which were resolved by considering the theoretical perspectives and iteratively refining the truth tables.

QCA stage 4: Identifying parsimonious configurations through Boolean minimization

Once we determined that the truth tables were suitable for further analysis, we used Boolean minimisation to explore pathways resulting in successful intervention through the configurations of different conditions [ 31 ]. We simplified the “complex solution” of the pathways to a “parsimonious solution” and an “intermediate solution” by incorporating logical remainders (configurations where no cases were observed) [ 36 ].

QCA stage 5: Checking the quality of the solution

We presented the intermediate solution as the final solution instead of the most parsimonious solution, as it is most closely aligned with the underlying theory. We checked consistency and coverage scores to assess if the pathways identified were sufficient to trigger success. We also checked the intermediate solution by negating the outcome to see if it predicts the observed solutions.

QCA stage 6: Interpretation of solutions

We iteratively interpreted the results of the findings through discussions among the QCA team. This reflexive approach ensured that the results of the analysis considered the perspectives from the literature discourse, methodological approach, and that the results were coherent with the current understanding of the phenomenon.

Overview of included studies

Out of 79 intervention studies assessed by Chen et al. (2018) [ 18 ] and Opiyo et al. (2020) [ 23 ], 17 intervention studies targeted women and are included, comprising 11 interventions targeting only women [ 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 ] and six interventions targeting both women and health providers or systems [ 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 ]. From 17 included studies, 19 sibling studies were identified [ 43 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 ]. Thus, a total of 36 papers from 17 intervention studies are included in this QCA (See Fig.  1 : PRISMA Flowchart).

PRISMA flowchart. *Sibling studies: studies that were conducted in the same settings, participants, and timeframe; **Intervention components: information on intervention input, activities, and outputs, including intervention context and other characteristics

The 11 interventions targeting women comprised of five successful interventions [ 37 , 68 , 69 , 70 , 71 ] and six unsuccessful interventions [ 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 ] in reducing CS. Sixteen sibling studies were identified, from five out of 11 included interventions [ 37 , 41 , 43 , 70 , 71 ]. Included studies were conducted in six countries across North America (2 from Canada [ 38 ] and 1 from United States of America [ 71 ]), Asia–Pacific (1 from Australia [ 41 ]), 5 from Iran [ 39 , 40 , 68 , 69 , 70 ]), Europe (2 from Finland [ 37 , 42 ], 1 from United Kingdom [ 43 ]). Six studies were conducted in high-income countries, while five studies were conducted in upper-middle-income countries (all from Iran). All 11 studies targeted women, with three studies also explicitly targeting women’s partners [ 68 , 69 , 71 ]. One study delivering psychoeducation allowed women to bring any family members to accompany them during the intervention but did not specifically target partners [ 37 ]. All 11 studies delivered childbirth education, with four delivering general antenatal education [ 38 , 40 , 68 , 69 ], six delivering psychoeducation [ 37 , 39 , 41 , 42 , 70 , 71 ], and one implementing decision aids [ 43 ]. All studies were included in Chen et al. (2018), and some risks of bias were identified [ 18 ] (Additional file 2).

The multi-target interventions consisted of five successful interventions [ 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 ] and one unsuccessful intervention [ 49 ]. Sibling studies were only identified from one study [ 48 ]. The interventions were delivered in five countries across: South America (1 from Brazil [ 46 ]), Asia–Pacific (4 from China [ 44 , 45 , 47 , 49 ]), Europe (1 from Italy [ 48 ], 1 from Ireland [ 48 ], and 1 from Germany [ 48 ]). Three studies were conducted in high-income countries and five studies in upper middle-income countries. The multi-target interventions targeted women, health providers and health organisations. For this analysis, however, we only consider the components of the intervention that targeted women, which was typically childbirth education. One study came from Chen et al. (2018) [ 18 ] and was graded as having some concerns [ 47 ], two studies from Opiyo et al. (2020) [ 23 ] were graded as having no serious concerns [ 45 , 46 ], and three studies are newly published studies assessed as low [ 44 ] and some concerns about risk of bias [ 48 , 49 ] Table 2 and 3 show characteristics of included studies.

The childbirth education interventions included information about mode of birth, birth process, mental health and coping strategies, pain relief methods, and partners’ roles in birth. Most interventions were delivered in group settings, and only in three studies they were delivered on a one-to-one basis [ 38 , 41 , 42 ]. Only one study explicitly stated that the intervention was individualised to a woman’s unique needs and experiences [ 38 ].

Overall, there was limited theory used to design interventions among the included studies: less than half of interventions (7/17) explicitly used theory in designing the intervention. Among the seven interventions that used theory in intervention development, the theories included the health promotion-disease prevention framework [ 38 ], midwifery counselling framework [ 41 ], cognitive behavioural therapy [ 42 ], Ost’s applied relaxation [ 70 ], conceptual model of parenting [ 71 ], attachment and social cognitive theories [ 37 ], and healthcare improvement scale-up framework [ 46 ]. The remaining 10 studies only relied on previously published studies to design the interventions. We identified very limited process evaluation or implementation outcome evidence related to the included interventions, which is a limitation of the field of CS and clinical interventions more broadly.

• Qualitative comparative analysis

Model 1 – How birth information was provided to women

Model 1 is constructed based on the finding from Kingdon et al. (2018) [ 22 ] that women and communities enjoy learning new birth information, as it opens up new ways of thinking about vaginal birth and CS. Learning new information allows them to understand better the benefits and risks of CS and vaginal births, as well as increase their knowledge about CS [ 22 ].

We used four conditions in constructing model 1 truth table: 1) the provision of information, education, and communication (IEC) materials on what to expect during labour and birth, 2) type of education delivered (antenatal education or psychoeducation), and 3) group-based intervention delivery. We explored this model considering other conditions, such as type of information provided (e.g. information about mode of birth including birth process, mental health and coping strategies, pain relief), delivery technique (e.g. didactic, practical) and frequency and duration of intervention delivery; however these additional conditions did not result in configurations.

Of 16 possible configurations, we identified seven configurations (Table 4 ). The first two row shows perfect consistency of configurations (inclusion = 1) in five studies [ 37 , 68 , 69 , 70 , 71 ] in which all conditions are present, except antenatal education or psychoeducation. The remaining configurations are unsuccessful interventions. Interestingly, when either IEC materials or group-based intervention delivery are present (but not both), implementation is likely to be unsuccessful (rows 3–7).

Boolean minimisation identified two intermediate pathways to successful interventions (Fig.  2 ). The two pathways are similar, except for one condition: type of education. The antenatal education or psychoeducation materials is the content tailored to the type of women they target. Therefore, from the two pathways, we can see that the presence of distribution of IEC materials on birth information and group-based intervention delivery of either antenatal education to the general population of women (e.g. not groups of women with specific risks or conditions) or psychoeducation to women with fear of birth trigger successful interventions. From this solution, we can see that the successful interventions are consistently characterised by the presence of both IEC materials and group-based intervention delivery.

Intermediate pathways from model 1 that trigger successful interventions targeting pregnant women to optimise CS. In QCA, asterisk (*) denotes an ‘AND’ relationship; Inclusion score (InclS), also known as consistency, indicates the degree to which the evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that there is sufficient relation between the configuration and the outcome; Proportional Reduction in Inconsistency (PRI) refers to the extent in which a configuration is sufficient in triggering successful outcome as well as the negation of the outcome; Coverage score (CovS) refers to percentage of cases in which the configuration is valid

Model 2 – Emotional support was provided to women

Model 2 was constructed based on the theory that women desire emotional support alongside the communication of information about childbirth [ 22 ]. This includes emotional support from husbands or partners, health professional, or doulas [ 22 ]. Furthermore, Kingdon et al. (2018) describe the importance of two-way conversation and dialogue between women and providers during pregnancy care, particularly to ensure the opportunity for discussion [ 22 ]. Interventions may generate more questions than they answered, creating the need and desire of women to have more dialogue with health professionals [ 22 ]. Women considered intervention content to be most useful when it complements clinical care, is consistent with advice from health professionals and provides a basis for more informed, meaningful dialogue between women and care providers [ 22 ].

Based on this underlying theory, we constructed model 3 truth table by considering three conditions representative of providing emotional support to women, including partner or family member involvement, group-based intervention delivery which provide social or peer support to women, and opportunity for women to interact with health providers. Of 8 possible configurations, we identified six configurations (Table 5 ). The first three rows represent successful interventions with perfect consistency (inclusion = 1). The first row shows successful interventions with all conditions present. The second and third row shows successful interventions with all conditions except partner or family member involvement or interaction with health providers. The remaining rows represent unsuccessful interventions, where at least two conditions are absent.

Boolean minimisation identified two intermediate pathways to successful interventions (Fig.  3 ). In the first pathway, the partner or family members involvement and group-based intervention delivery enable successful interventions. In the second pathway, however, when partner or family members are not involved, successful interventions can happen only when interaction with health providers is included alongside group-based intervention. From these two pathways, we can see that group-based intervention, involvement of partner and family member, and opportunity for women to interact with providers seem to be important in driving intervention success.

Intermediate pathways from model 2 that trigger successful interventions targeting pregnant women to optimise CS. In QCA, asterisk (*) denotes an ‘AND’ relationship; Inclusion score (InclS), also known as consistency, indicates the degree to which the evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that there is sufficient relation between the configuration and the outcome; Proportional Reduction in Inconsistency (PRI) refers to the extent in which a configuration is sufficient in triggering successful outcome as well as the negation of the outcome; Coverage score (CovS) refers to percentage of cases in which the configuration is valid

Consolidated model – Essential conditions to prompt successful interventions focusing on women

Using the identified important conditions observed in models 1 and 2, we constructed a consolidated model to examine the final essential conditions which could prompt successful educational interventions targeting women. We merged and tested four conditions: the provision of IEC materials on what to expect during labour and birth, group-based intervention delivery, partner or family member involvement, and opportunity for interaction between women and health providers.

Of the 16 possible configurations, we identified six configurations (Table 6 ). The first three rows show configurations resulting in successful interventions with perfect consistency (inclusion = 1). The first row shows successful interventions with all conditions present; the second and third rows show successful interventions with all conditions present except interaction with health providers or partner or family member involvement. The remaining three rows are configurations of unsuccessful interventions, missing at least two conditions, including the consistent absence of partner or family member involvement.

Boolean minimisation identified two intermediate pathways to successful intervention (Fig.  4 ). The first pathway shows that the opportunity for women to interact with health providers, provision of IEC materials, and group-based intervention delivery prompts successful interventions. The second pathway, however, shows that when there is no opportunity for women to interact with health providers, it is important to have partner or family member involvement alongside group-based intervention delivery and provision of IEC materials. These two pathways suggest that the delivery of educational interventions accompanied by provision of IEC materials and presence of emotional support for women during the intervention is important to trigger successful interventions. These pathways also emphasise that emotional support for women during the intervention can come from either partner, family member, or health provider. For the consolidated model, we did not simplify the solution further, as the intermediate solution is more theoretically sound compared to the most parsimonious solution.

Intermediate pathways from consolidated model that trigger successful interventions targeting pregnant women to optimise CS.  In QCA, asterisk (*) denotes an ‘AND’ relationship; Inclusion score (InclS), also known as consistency, indicates the degree to which the evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that there is sufficient relation between the configuration and the outcome; Proportional Reduction in Inconsistency (PRI) refers to the extent in which a configuration is sufficient in triggering successful outcome as well as the negation of the outcome; Coverage score (CovS) refers to percentage of cases in which the configuration is valid.

Sub-analysis – Interventions targeting both women and health providers or systems

In this sub-analysis, we run the important conditions identified from the consolidated model, added condition of multi-target intervention, and applied it to 17 interventions: 11 interventions targeting women, and six interventions targeting both women and health providers or systems (multi-target interventions).

Of 32 possible configurations, we identified eight configurations (Table 7 ). The first four rows show configurations with successful interventions with perfect consistency (inclusion = 1). The first row is where all the multi-target interventions are clustered, except the unsuccessful intervention Zhang (2020) [ 49 ], and where all the conditions are present. All the conditions in the second to fourth rows are present, except multi-target interventions (all rows), interaction with health providers (third row) and partner and family member involvement (fourth row). The remaining rows are all configurations to unsuccessful interventions, where at least three conditions are missing, except row 8, which is a single case row. This case is the only multi-target intervention that is unsuccessful and in which partner or family members were not involved.

The Boolean minimisation identified two intermediate pathways (Fig.  5 ). The first pathway shows that partner or family involvement, provision of IEC materials, and group-based intervention delivery prompt successful interventions. The first pathway is comprised of all five successful multi-target interventions [ 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 ] and four of 11 interventions targeting only women [ 37 , 68 , 69 , 71 ]. The second pathway shows that when multi-target interventions are absent, but when interaction with health providers is present, alongside provision of IEC materials and group-based intervention delivery, it prompts successful interventions (3/11 interventions targeting women only [ 37 , 69 , 70 ]). The first pathway shows that there are successful configurations with and without multi-target interventions. Therefore, similar to the interventions targeting women, when implementing multi-target interventions, intervention components targeting women are more likely to be successful when partners or family members are involved, interventions are implemented through group-based intervention delivery, IEC materials were provided, and there is an opportunity for women to interact with health providers.

Intermediate pathways from multi-target interventions sub-analysis that trigger successful interventions targeting pregnant women to optimise CS. In QCA, asterisk (*) denotes an ‘AND’ relationship; Inclusion score (InclS), also known as consistency, indicates the degree to which the evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that there is sufficient relation between the configuration and the outcome; Proportional Reduction in Inconsistency (PRI) refers to the extent in which a configuration is sufficient in triggering successful outcome as well as the negation of the outcome; Coverage score (CovS) refers to percentage of cases in which the configuration is valid

To summarise, there are four essential intervention components which trigger successful educational interventions focusing on pregnant women to reduce CS, this includes 1) group-based intervention delivery, 2) provision of IEC materials on what to expect during labour and birth, 3) partner or family member involvement on the intervention, and 4) opportunity for women to interact with health providers. These conditions do not work in siloed or independently but instead work jointly as parts of configurations to enable successful interventions.

Our extensive QCA identified configurations of essential intervention components which are sufficient to trigger successful interventions to optimised CS. Educational interventions focusing on women were successful by: 1) leveraging social or peer support through group-based intervention delivery, 2) improving women’s knowledge and awareness of what to expect during labour and birth, 3) ensuring women have emotional support through partner or family participation in the intervention, and 4) providing opportunities for women to interact with health providers. We found that the absence of two or more of the above characteristics in an intervention result in unsuccessful interventions. Unlike our logic model, which predicted engagement strategies (i.e. intensity, frequency, technique, recruitment, incentives) to be essential to intervention success, we found that “support” seems to be central in maximising benefits of interventions targeting women.

Group-based intervention delivery is present across all four truth tables and eight pathways leading to successful intervention implementation, suggesting that group-based intervention delivery is an essential component of interventions targeting women. Despite this, we cannot conclude that group-based intervention delivery is a necessary condition, as there may be other pathways not captured in this QCA. The importance of group-based intervention delivery may be due to the group setting providing women with a sense of confidence through peer support and engagement. In group-based interventions, women may feel more confident when learning with others and peer support may motivate women. Furthermore, all group-based interventions in our included studies are conducted at health facilities, which may provide women with more confidence that information is aligned with clinical recommendations. Evidence on benefits of group-based interventions involving women who are pregnant has been demonstrated previously [ 72 , 73 ]. Women reported that group-based interventions reduce their feelings of isolation, provide access to group support, and allow opportunities for them to share their experiences [ 72 , 74 , 75 , 76 ]. This is aligned with social support theory, in which social support through a group or social environment may provide women with feelings of reassurance, compassion, reduce feelings of uncertainty, increase sense of control, access to new contacts to solve problems, and provision of instrumental support, which eventually influence positive health behaviours [ 72 , 77 ]. Women may resolve their uncertainties around mode of birth by sharing their concerns with others and learning at the same time how others cope with it. These findings are consistent with the benefits associated with group-based antenatal care, which is recommended by WHO [ 78 , 79 ].

Kingdon et al. (2018) reported that women and communities liked learning new birth information, as it opens new ways of thinking about vaginal birth and CS, and educates about benefits of different modes of birth, including risks of CS. Our QCA is aligned with this finding where provision of information about birth through education delivery leads to successful interventions but with certain caveats. That is, provision of birth information should be accompanied by IEC materials and through group-based intervention delivery. There is not enough information to distinguish what type of IEC materials lead to successful intervention; however, it is important to note that the format of the IEC materials (such as paper-based or mobile application) may affect success. More work is needed to understand how women and families react to format of IEC materials; for example, will paper-based IEC materials be relegated over more modern methods of reaching women with information through digital applications? The QUALI-DEC (Quality decision-making (QUALI-DEC) by women and healthcare providers for appropriate use of caesarean section) study is currently implementing a decision-analysis tool to help women make an informed decision on preferred mode of birth using both a paper-based and mobile application that may shed some light on this [ 80 ].

Previous research has shown that women who participated in interventions aiming to reduce CS desired emotional support (from partners, doulas or health providers) alongside the communication about childbirth [ 22 ]. Our QCA is aligned with this finding in which emotional support from partners or family members is highly influential in leading to successful interventions. Partner involvement in maternity care has been extensively studied and has been demonstrated to improve maternal health care utilisation and outcomes [ 81 ]. Both women and their partners perceived that partner involvement is crucial as it facilitates men to learn directly from providers, thus promoting shared decision-making among women and partners and enabling partners to reinforce adherence to any beneficial suggestions [ 82 , 83 , 84 , 85 , 86 ]. Partners provide psychosocial support to women, for example through being present during pregnancy and the childbirth process, as well as instrumental support, which includes supporting women financially [ 82 , 83 , 84 ]. Despite the benefits of partner involvement, partner's participation in maternity care is still low [ 82 ], as reflected in this study where only four out of 11 included interventions on this study involved partner or family member involvement. Reasons for this low participation, which include unequal gender norms and limited health system capability [ 82 , 84 , 85 , 86 ], should be explored and addressed to ensure the benefits of the interventions.

Furthermore, our QCA demonstrates the importance of interaction with health providers to trigger successful interventions. The interaction of women with providers in CS decision-making, however, is on a “nexus of power, trust, and risk”, where it may be beneficial but can also reinforce the structural oppression of women [ 13 ]. A recent study on patient-provider interaction in CS decision-making concluded that the interaction between providers who are risk-averse, and women who are cautious about their pregnancies in the health system results in discouragement of vaginal births [ 87 ]. However, this decision could be averted by meaningful communication between women and providers where CS risks and benefits are communicated in an environment where vaginal birth is encouraged [ 87 ]. Furthermore, the reasons women desire interaction with providers can come from opposite directions. Some women see providers as the most trusted and knowledgeable source, in which women can trust the judgement and ensure that the information learned is reliable and evidenced-based [ 22 ]. On the other hand, some women may have scepticism towards providers where women understand that providers’ preference may negatively influence their preferred mode of birth [ 22 ]. Therefore, adequate, two-way interaction is important for women to build a good rapport with providers.

It is also important to note that we have limited evidence (3/17 intervention studies) involving women with previous CS. Vaginal birth after previous CS (VBAC) can be a safe and positive experience for some women, but there are also potential risks depending on their obstetric history [ 88 , 89 , 90 ]. Davis (2020) found that women were motivated to have VBAC due to negative experiences of CS, such as the difficult recovery, and that health providers' roles served as pivotal drivers in motivating women towards VBAC [ 91 ]. Other than this, VBAC also requires giving birth in a suitably staffed and equipped maternity unit, with staff trained on VBAC, equipment for labour monitoring, and resources for emergency CS if needed [ 89 , 90 ]. There is comparatively less research conducted on VBAC and trial of labour after CS [ 88 ]. Therefore, more work is needed to explore if there are potentially different pathways that lead to successful intervention implementation for women with previous CS. It may be more likely that interventions targeting various stakeholders are more crucial in this group of women. For example, both education for women and partners or families, as well as training to upskill health providers might be needed to support VBAC.

Strength and limitations

We found many included studies had poor reporting of the interventions, including the general intervention components (e.g. presence of policies that may support interventions) and process evaluation components, which is reflective of the historical approach to reporting trial data. This poor reporting means we could not engage further in the interventions and thus may have missed important conditions that were not reported. However, we have attempted to compensate for limited process evaluation components by identifying all relevant sibling studies that could contribute to a better understanding of context. Furthermore, there are no studies conducted in low-income countries, despite rapidly increasing CS rates in these settings. Lastly, we were not able to conduct more nuanced analyses about CS, such as exploring how CS interventions impacted changes to emergency versus elective CS, VBAC, or instrumental birth, due to an insufficient number of studies and heterogeneity in outcome measurements. Therefore, it is important to note that we are not necessarily measuring the optimal outcome of interest—reducing unnecessary CS. However, it is unlikely that these non-clinical interventions will interfere with a decision of CS based on clinical indications.

Despite these limitations, this is the first study aiming to understand how certain interventions can be successful in targeting women to optimise CS use. We used the QCA approach and new analytical frameworks to re-analyse existing systematic review evidence to generate new knowledge. We ensure robustness through the use of a logic model and worked backwards in understanding what aspects are different in the intervention across different outcomes. The use of QCA and qualitative evidence synthesis ensured that the results are theory-driven, incorporate participants’ perspectives into the analysis, and explored iteratively to find the appropriate configurations, reducing the risk of data fishing. Lastly, this QCA extends the understanding of effectiveness review conducted by Chen et al. (2018) [ 18 ] by explaining the potential intervention components which may influence heterogeneity.

Implications for practice and research

To aid researchers and health providers to reduce CS in their contexts and designing educational interventions targeting women during pregnancy, we have developed a checklist of key components or questions to consider when designing the interventions that may help lead to successful implementation:

Is the intervention delivered in a group setting?

Are IEC materials on what to expect during labour and birth disseminated to women?

Are women’s partners or families involved in the intervention?

Do women have opportunities to interact with health providers?

We have used this checklist to explore the extent to which the included interventions in our QCA include these components using a matrix model (Fig.  6 ).

Matrix model assessing the extent to which the included intervention studies have essential intervention components identified in the QCA

Additionally, future research on interventions to optimise the use of CS should report the intervention components implemented, including process outcomes such as fidelity, attrition, contextual factors (e.g. policies, details of how the intervention is delivered), and stakeholder factors (e.g. women’s perceptions and satisfaction). These factors are important in not just evaluating whether the intervention is successful or not, but also in exploring why similar interventions can work in one but not in another context. There is also a need for more intervention studies implementing VBAC to reduce CS, to understand how involving women with previous CS may result in successful interventions. Furthermore, more studies understanding impact of the interventions targeting women in LMICs are needed.

This QCA illustrates crucial intervention components and potential pathways that can trigger successful educational interventions to optimise CS, focusing on pregnant women. The following intervention components are found to be sufficient in triggering successful outcomes: 1) group-based delivery, 2) provision of IEC materials, 3) partner or family member involvement, and 4) opportunity for women to interact with health providers. These intervention components do not work in siloed or independently but instead work jointly as parts of configurations to enable successful interventions. Researchers, trialists, hospitals, or other institutions and stakeholders planning interventions focusing on pregnant women can consider including these components to ensure benefits. More studies understanding impact of the interventions targeting women to optimise CS are needed from LMICs. Researchers should clearly describe and report intervention components in trials, and consider how process evaluations can help explain why trials were successful or not. More robust trial reporting and process evaluations can help to better understand mechanisms of action and why interventions may work in one context yet not another.

Availability of data and materials

Additional information files have been provided and more data may be provided upon request to [email protected].

Abbreviations

Coverage score

• Caesarean section

Crisp set qualitative comparative analysis

Fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis

Information, education, and communication

Inclusion score

Low- and middle-income countries

Proportional reduction in inconsistency

Quality decision-making by women and healthcare providers for appropriate use of caesarean section

Vaginal birth after previous caesarean section

World Health Organization

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Acknowledgements

We extend our thanks to Jim Berryman (Brownless Medical Library, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, The University of Melbourne) for his help in refining the search strategy for sibling studies.

This research was made possible with the support of UNDP/UNFPA/UNICEF/WHO/World Bank Special Programme of Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction (HRP), a co-sponsored programme executed by the World Health Organization (WHO). RIZ is supported by Melbourne Research Scholarship and Human Rights Scholarship from The University of Melbourne. CSEH is supported by a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Principal Research Fellowship. MAB’s time is supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DE200100264) and a Dame Kate Campbell Fellowship (University of Melbourne Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry, and Health Sciences). The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The contents of this publication are the responsibility of the authors and do not reflect the views of the UNDP/UNFPA/UNICEF/WHO/World Bank Special Programme of Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction (HRP), World Health Organization.

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Supplementary Information

Additional file 1..

Logic model in optimizing CS use.

Additional file 2.

Risk of bias assessments.

Additional file 3.

Coding framework and calibration rules.

Additional file 4.

Coding framework as applied to each intervention (data table).

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Zahroh, R.I., Sutcliffe, K., Kneale, D. et al. Educational interventions targeting pregnant women to optimise the use of caesarean section: What are the essential elements? A qualitative comparative analysis. BMC Public Health 23 , 1851 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-023-16718-0

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-023-16718-0

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