"Analysis" in TMA for humanities subject? What are they looking for?

- How many sentences in paragraph ("topic sentence, evidence, analysis") dedicated to analysis?

So, in my last essay, I was criticised for being too descriptive and "relying too much on material". She said: "make the academic argument your own". So, the prof suggested Point --> evidence --> analysis.

But how do I analyse without citing too much? Can it include connecting evidence? I know it means to connect it to the essay question, but what does analysis look like "in practice"? Thank you, much appreciated!!

Hello. They're asking you to demonstrate the art of critical thinking which is central to most social science essays and takes some practice. I'll give an example.

Essay title: "Discuss the evidence regarding bananas".

So you would make a point which is the introduction of your paragraph subject: "The colour of bananas have been a source of debate."

Evidence: "Smith et al. (2018) state that bananas are yellow. However, Jones et al. (2019) have found evidence for purple bananas."

Analysis: "Yet, the study by Jones et al. (2019) found only one bunch of a purple bananas in one country and scientists have argued that this was a bad bunch of bananas and is not indicative of a new type of banana (Ellen et al., 2020)." You could then maybe add your own interpretation of this evidence with something like "So the validity of this study could be called into question." or relate back to what you've learned about generalisability/validity and other issues with studies.

The analysis is the critical thinking part and it shows you've actually read the article with a critical eye. You need to criticise the evidence you're using with other evidence and then steer it around to suit your argument or what the premise of your entire essay is. You should also include evidence that goes against your overall argument so that it's balanced, but you then argue that contradicting evidence with stronger evidence to support your argument; that's how you build up an argument.

I imagine that you're doing the point, then just providing the evidence (for the colour of bananas) but that doesn't give the reader any kind of direction or well-rounded information to help them (make the judgement about bananas). You're not analysing the evidence, you're just giving them a list of studies and evidence but nothing more.

After that, you usually do a link sentence. This can either link to the next paragraph subject to make it more fluid, or you could do a small summary of the paragraph you've just written.

Hope this helps!