Analyzing a process means telling step-by-step how something is, was, or could be done. You can analyze an action or a phenomenon — how a skyscraper is built, how a revolution begins, how sunspots form. You can also explain large, long-ago events that you couldn’t possibly have witnessed or complex technical processes that you couldn’t personally duplicate. In “The Case for Cloning” (Time 9 Feb. 1998), Madeleine Nash’s informative process analysis sets forth how the process of cloning cells happens.
Cloning individual human cells … is another matter. Biologists are already talking about harnessing for medical purposes the technique that produced the sheep called Dolly. They might, for example, obtain healthy cells from a patient with leukemia or a burn victim and then transfer the nucleus of each cell into an unfertilized egg from which the nucleus has been removed. Coddled in culture dishes, these embryonic clones — each genetically identical to the patient from which the nuclei came — would begin to divide. The cells would not have to grow into a fetus, however. The addition of powerful growth factors could ensure that the clones develop only into specialized cells and tissue. For the leukemia patient, for example, the cloned cells could provide an infusion of fresh bone marrow, and for the burn victim, grafts of brand-new skin. Unlike cells from an unrelated donor, these cloned cells would incur no danger of rejection; patients would be spared the need to take powerful drugs to suppress the immune system.
In contrast, the directive, or “how-to,” process analysis tells readers how to do something (how to box, invest for retirement, clean a painting) or how to make something (how to draw a map, blaze a trail, fix chili). Especially on Web sites, directions may consist of simple step-by-step lists with quick advice for browsers. In essays and articles, however, the basics may be supplemented with advice, encouragement, or relevant experience. In “How to Catch More Trout” (Outdoor Life May 2006), Joe Brooks identifies the critical stages in the process in his first paragraph:
Every move you make in trout fishing counts for or against you. The way you approach a pool, how you retrieve, how you strike, how you play the fish, how you land him — all are important factors. If you plan your tactics according to the demands of each situation, you’ll catch a lot more trout over a season.
Then Brooks introduces the first stage:
The first thing you should do is stand by the pool and study it awhile before you fish. Locate the trout that are rising consistently. Choose one (the lowest in the pool, preferably), and work on him. If you rush right in and start casting, you’ll probably put down several fish that you haven’t seen. And you can scare still more fish by false-casting all over the place. A dozen fish you might have caught with a more careful approach may see the line and go down before you even drop the fly on the surface.
He continues with stages and advice until he reaches the last step:
The safest way to land a fish is to beach it. If no low bank is handy, you can fight a fish until he is tired and then pull his head against a bank or an up-jutting rock and pick him up. Hold him gently. The tighter your grip, the more likely he is to spurt from your fingers, break your leader tippet, and escape. Even if you intend to put him back, you want to feel that he is really yours — a trout you have cast and caught and released because you planned it that way.
Brooks skillfully addresses his audience — readers of Outdoor Life, people who probably already know how to fish and hunt. As his title indicates, Brooks isn’t explaining how to catch trout but how to catch more trout. For this reason, he skips topics for beginners (such as how to cast) and instead urges readers to try more sophisticated tactics to increase their catch.
Process analysis can also turn to humor, as in this paragraph from “How to Heal a Broken Heart (in One Day)” by student Lindsey Schendel.
To begin your first day of mourning, you will wake up at 11 a.m., thus banishing any feelings of fatigue. Forget eating a healthy breakfast; toast two waffles, and plaster them with chocolate syrup instead of maple. Then make sure you have a room of serenity so you may cry in peace. It is important that you go through the necessary phases of denial and depression. Call up a friend or family member while you are still in your serious, somber mood. Explain to that person the hardships you are facing and how you don’t know if you can go on. Immediately afterwards, turn on any empowering music, get up, and dance.
Like more serious process directions, this paragraph includes steps or stages (sleeping late, eating breakfast, crying and calling, getting up and dancing). They are arranged in chronological order with transitions marking the movement from one to the other (To begin, then, while, immediately afterwards).
See more on transitions.
Process analyses are wonderful ways to show readers the inside workings of events or systems, but they can be difficult to follow. Divide the process into logical steps or stages, and put the steps in chronological order. Add details or examples wherever your description might be ambiguous; use transitions to mark the end of one step and the beginning of the next.