The difference between summary and analysis
| What to look at | Summary | Analysis |
|---|---|---|
| Focus | Explains what happened | Explains how it works and why it matters |
| Evidence | Introduces the content | Interprets the relationship between evidence and claim |
| Relation to the question | May not return to the question | Connects to the answer to the question |
| Revision question | What? | How? Why? So what? |
Summary is necessary. If the reader cannot tell what you are talking about, you cannot analyse it either. The problem is when most of a paragraph ends up as explanation.
Take a short original story, for example. Just before leaving school, the main character looks back at the school building three times.
A summary could say: "Before leaving school, the main character looks back at the building three times." That is accurate, but it is still explaining what happened. To move closer to analysis, you go on to what the action shows.
For example: "By repeating the act of looking back three times, the story emphasises that the character still has doubts about the decision to leave. It is not a simple farewell but a state in which the character cannot cut ties with the past." Here you think about how the description is working.
It is not analysis because you added more information. It moves closer to analysis because you explain meaning and function for the same evidence.
The shape of analysis differs by subject
| Subject | What analysis looks at |
|---|---|
| Language A | How the expression, structure and the author's choices create meaning |
| Individuals and Societies | Separating sources and events, and the causes, relationships, effects and links to evidence |
| Business and Economics | Applying concepts and theories to a case and explaining the results and relationships |
This is quite important. In IB, you do not write the same way in every subject.
In other words, there is no all-purpose template such as "analysis always means writing this one sentence". Looking at the International Baccalaureate's official Language A page and the 2026 examiner instructions, analysis goes beyond mere description and needs to match each subject's assessment criteria and the command terms in the question.
This article covers a shared way of thinking that is easy to use across several subjects.
Four questions to turn summary into analysis
When you reread your own paragraph, check in this order.
| Question | What to check |
|---|---|
| What | With What, check what is happening, what is written and what evidence there is. |
| How | With How, think about how the evidence works and what relationship or effect it creates. |
| Why | With Why, think about why it matters, why that evidence is used and what makes it stronger than other explanations. |
| Link | How does it answer the question? How does it return to the claim of the whole paragraph? |
You do not need to write all four in the same order every time. This is not a template but a set of questions for finding what your own paragraph is missing.
1.Are you stopping at What?
A paragraph that tends towards summary often keeps explaining "what there is". First check that your paragraph does not end at What. Showing what happened, what is written and what numbers or techniques there are is necessary, but on its own it tends to stay at explanation.
For example, "Sales rose over two years" alone is a summary of data. You can move to analysis with something like: "If sales rose at the same time as the price change, consider that pricing strategy may have affected demand, while also considering other factors such as advertising and overall market growth."
2.Add How
A very usable question for turning writing into analysis is How. With How you think about how the evidence works, how the expression affects the reader, how an event leads to the next result and how data supports a claim.
In Language A, when a metaphor is used, do not stop at naming the technique. Explain something like "the metaphor makes the character's anxiety into a concrete image and lets the reader feel the emotion closely", and you can see how the technique creates meaning. The IB's examiner instructions for Language A also stress analysing how features create meaning, not just spotting them.
3.Add Why
Even after writing How, a paragraph can still feel shallow. The next thing to look at is Why. With Why you think about why the evidence matters, why the author is thought to have made that choice, why one cause matters more than others and how data relates to the claim.
In an original history example, "The government raised taxes, and afterwards protest movements grew" is just an explanation of events. Once you consider "the possibility that the tax rise directly raised dissatisfaction over the cost of living and became the trigger that made existing political discontent visible", you can analyse the relationship and importance of the events.
4.Finally, return to the question
Even when you think you are writing analysis, you can drift away from the question. Even a very good explanation weakens the role of the whole paragraph if it is unclear how it answers the question.
At the end, check what this analysis answers in relation to the question. For example, rather than ending with "this expression emphasises the main character's anxiety", go on to how that anxiety strengthens the story's resistance to "leaving" and complicates the main character's decision, and the paragraph's role becomes clear. Doing so lets you return to the larger argument.
Looking at the IB's 2026 examiner instructions, how you connect to the question differs by subject. Even so, it is an easy point to check that good analysis does not close inside the text but comes back to the focus of the task.
Seen as Before and After
Here too we do not use existing IB questions or materials, only original examples.
| Before | After |
|---|---|
"The advertisement uses a blue background, and the product is placed in the centre. Next to the product there is a short slogan." This describes accurately what can be seen. However, it is almost all summary. | "By placing the product in the centre and reducing the surrounding information, the eye is drawn to the product itself. By leaving only a short slogan, it prioritises immediacy over complicated explanation. As a result, the advertisement tries to create the impression of 'a product you can choose without hesitating' rather than explaining the product's functions in detail." Here, the same information is used to explain the layout, the amount of information and the effect on the reader. |
You do not need to add difficult words to make it analysis. Moving from "what there is" to "how it works" changes the role of the writing.
Things not to do when your analysis is weak
When you feel analysis is lacking, it can be tempting to rely on these three things.
| What people tend to do | Why it is not analysis | Do this instead |
|---|---|---|
| Add only technical terms | Literary, economic or historical terms are not connected to the evidence. Terms are for making explanation short and accurate | If you use a term, write how it applies to the evidence |
| Make quotations longer | Even if the evidence gets longer, if the explanation afterwards does not change, only the proportion of summary grows | Choose the necessary evidence briefly and spend time on what can be said about it |
| Memorise all-purpose phrases | Without a specific meaning after "This shows that..." or "This suggests that...", the phrase alone is not enough | Decide what you will explain after the phrase |
How to revise when the teacher says "more analysis"
When you get a comment, try colour-coding your paragraph before rewriting it all. Mark what explains evidence or events, your own interpretation, how the evidence works, and the link to the question.
If most of the paragraph is only the first colour, there may be too much summary. Conversely, if there is interpretation but no evidence, the basis for the analysis is weak. Looking at the balance of the roles rather than the amount of writing makes it easier to fix.
Three things Petra Tutors looks at
When Petra Tutors reviews writing, rather than asking for finished analysis from the start, we ask these three things. When revising, check in order what this evidence shows, why, and how it relates to the question.
If your child can answer these three out loud, the material for analysis is often already there. Sometimes the reason they cannot write it is not that they have no ideas, but that they slip back into summary on the way from idea to writing. Explaining aloud first and then writing makes it easier to separate your own thinking from the explanation of the source.
A checklist for turning summary into analysis
Summary: analysis is not about adding information
When told in IB that you write "only summary", it is easy to think you need to write more. What you need is not length. It is whether, for the same evidence, you can think through what there is, how it works, why it matters and how it connects to the question.
We chose this theme because the concern that the content is right but is not analysis is not simply a matter of English ability. Some students have ideas but end up with only explanation in their writing.
If you cannot tell which parts of your paragraph are summary and where analysis begins, Petra Tutors can also sort it out with you while looking at your actual writing. To start, pick one paragraph and colour-code it with the four: What, How, Why and Link.
