Analytical Skill

A client hands you a two-page letter and asks, “what does this actually mean for me?” Nobody will hand you a summary. Analytical skill is the ability to take a piece of writing apart — its argument, its assumptions, its gaps — and say clearly what it is doing, which is exactly what the short stories in this module exist to train before you ever meet a real client letter.

In two minutes

Analytical skill, in this module, means the ability to read a passage — a short story, a speech, a piece of prose — and identify its central argument or theme, the writer's technique, and the logical structure holding it together, rather than simply summarising what happens.

The rest of this chapter

The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of English – I on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.