Hi, Franklin kowski here today to talk to you about specific purpose. The first rule in analyzing a story is to have a specific concrete topic in mind and distinguish between a subject and a topic. And it's a distinction that escapes many of the students that I work with. So it's an important background to analyzing a story. So let's move on to the overview. So, by the end of the lecture, you will understand the distinction between the difference between a subject at a specific topic and First we'll, we'll choose we'll talk about an interesting subject.

You want to choose an interesting subject for you. You know, it makes a big difference in talking about something that you're curious and passionate about. And you will also want to this is key. You also want to think of the subject as the theme let's say or the central meaning in a story or film. And we'll elaborate on this shortly, then you will narrow the subject into a specific topic, which is the actually the crux of this of this lesson. And finally, we'll decide on the purpose.

We'll talk about the purpose of your analysis. So let's move on now to choosing a subject. The author of the Idiot's Guide to writing well, and I might add, also speaking well offers five ideas for finding a good subject. And these include the following you want to choose a controversial subject that allows you to take a stance that's a very important term taking a stance. In other words, you want a subject such such an auto talk in terms of theme that allows you to argue a point of view. For example, a subject like motherhood as you see on the slide.

Is not something that you can argue about, I would think. But then again, you could. Second you want to choose a subject or let's say a thematic element that interest you. And as I mentioned before, something that you want to learn more about, for example, most people are fascinated by the subject of money, but it can be approached in any number of ways. You also want to choose this subject, let's say with a theme that has a lot of information readily available in both print and electronic sources. But be careful about choosing a subject that has so much written information about it that you get lost in the content and lose your own originality in coming up with a good thesis that we'll see in the next lecture.

Don't choose a subject that is too hot, let's say in other words, Avoid subjects or themes that are poorly or quickly written about or not carefully supported by alternative information. Alternative interpretation sorry, we don't want to talk about alternative facts but alternative interpretations or facts. And finally, you want to choose a subject or theme that doesn't have a definitive answer. This gives you the opportunity to express an informed opinion based on the research you do. Okay, Let's now move on to the area of the gist of the lecture is about narrowing a subject into a topic seems evident, but it really is takes a little bit of thinking. So let's say you have a broad general subject in mind.

Now you want to narrow the subject into a very specific topic or issue that you want to to analyze. And here are five interesting subjects that are worth exploring. Can you guess what some of these subjects are from the visuals. The first one on the left is social networking. Then there's animal testing underneath. There's gun control.

There's euthanasia or assisted suicide, which is becoming more and more discussed today, throughout the world, and also marijuana as a topic very relevant to everyone, particularly young people. So, let's move on now to narrowing a subject into a topic again, and one expert recommends using wh questions to narrow a broad subject into a manageable topic. And here are some interesting questions you can ask about these topics that are the subjects actually that leads To a narrow topic. So the first one there, which has to do with social networking. So the question you can ask is a why question. Why is social networking for example, so popular?

It was a film made several years ago about this topic, I think was called Facebook, something like that social network. And the particular topic that you could discuss among many is the advantages of using social media. You can have a how question, how, for example is animal testing conducted? story or film that you're watching might have that particular subject? And so the topic could be the mistreatment of tested animals. Who question who is in favor of gun control?

And this relates to, to to to to people and to characters as we'll see later in the lecture, On characterization, and the topic that you can come up with is for example, is the role of the the National Rifle Association, the NRA? What questions so is interesting? So what are the effects of euthanasia on a sick person's family? That's a great question. There could be a story or a film about euthanasia. And so a good topic that you could explore it are his arguments for assisted suicide and as well as arguments against assume that assisted suicide.

In fact, it's a it's an activity I do in a debate project that I have students so work on. And finally we come to to marijuana. We can ask a when question a wh one question, when should use of marijuana be allowed? And here one topic among many again is the medicinal uses marijuana. So let's move on now to the next slide here. Another expert recommends using a checklist for narrowing a topic.

I always think we all love using checklists I do as a teacher Very much so. So you might want to ask yourself in thinking about a subject and then choosing a topic, is the topic still too broad, let's say for an analysis, and you might need to break it down into a sub topic. So might be too broad. The topic is the topic let's say the the thematic element boring and when you lose interest in it, so that that's important to choose something that you're interested in and has relevance to you. Is the topic too controversial and may offend your audience. I mean, you have to keep your audience in mind especially if you're in a classroom situation about choosing, choosing topics either political or sexual.

Or social that might offend people? Is there only one point of view or position on the topic? For example, the the topic of of, or let's say feminism, which that's that's a, that's a broad subject. But could you break that down into a topic that has more than one position? That That could be a challenge? It seems that the equal pay for equal work seems to make sense.

We think is the topic debatable. This is key. We'll look at this actually in the in the next lecture on debatable thesis. is the topic debatable, or does it offer an opportunity to take a stance because in coming up with a an analyzing a story, you need to take a position argue a point of view So let's move on now to my next slide, which I need to call up here, which has to do with purpose know your purpose. And three points to keep in mind are first there, there are several purposes to analyzing a story, including to inform, to entertain, or to persuade, and we're going to focus on persuasion. In the case of communicating your critical analysis, your purpose will be to persuade or convince your audience of your point of view.

This is what we're talking about is argumentation. And second, the audience of your analysis is most likely if it's a classroom situation will be your teacher, your classmates, classmates, but they may not be familiar with the topic you're talking about. So you don't want to talk in a vacuum. You want to provide enough information to show your knowledge of the subject. And this requires research that actually we'll talk about in the next course on writing a career. Other words you want to use Third Person pronouns he, she, they and also the editorial we, if you're, let's say, writing your critical analysis of a story or film, and you should avoid first person pronouns, I mean mine that especially in an academic context, and should the second person pronouns, you, you're yours, but then again, that depends on your teachers approach to the situation.

So let's move on and wrap up. Let's see what we've covered. So in this lecture, we laid the foundation for coming up with a good critical analysis. You learned how to find a good subject that you're excited about, that you're curious about. You also learned how to come up with a narrow topic that you can argue about, you've got to really dig down into a subject to come up with a good topic. And finally, you looked at the point of view you should take when analyzing Your story.

So in the next lecture which is on debatable thesis, you'll find out more about the really the another foundation for a good critical analysis. And later in the course, there's an activity actually on distinguishing and working with a subject and a number of subjects and turning them into viable topics. So see you in the next lecture. Bye now.