How to you analyze the complex issues we face these days in business, government, education, and public affairs? How do you make sense of the "blooming, buzzing confusion" of modern life?
In modern society, the ability to make smart decisions—in business, government, education, and community affairs—depends on assessing a welter of information and ideas.
In this step-by-step how-to guide, Charles Euchner shows how to analyze complex issues in all fields -- how to develop good questions, brainstorm, identify variables that might explain a question, “operationalize” the variables, gather evidence, and assess various explanations.
Euchner, a case writer at the Yale School of Management, shows how anyone can learn these skills. Whether you’re a student in high school or college, a journalist or an author, a business strategist or a family doctor, a sales person or a public servant, you can master all of these skills.
Table of Contents
1. Start Making Sense
2. Ask This-or-That and W Questions
Case Study: Brian Lamb’s Interviewing Techniques
3. Brainstorm to Open Your Mind
Case Study: Brainstorming Nonviolence
4. Brainstorm with Discipline, Too
Case Study: Shakespeare and Me
5. Always Ask: What Causes What?
Case Study: What’s the “Best” Form of Government?
6. Identify Variables to Answer Questions
Case Study: The Causes of Party Decline
7. Operationalize—Then Count—Variables
Case Study: Edward Glaeser’s Work on Urban Vitality
8. Use Testimony of Experts ... and Ordinary People
Case Study: The Global Warming Controversy
9. Make Large-Scale Arguments
Case Study: Exploring the Causes of War
10. Make Small-Scale Arguments
Case Study: Exploring the Causes of the Civil War
11. Making Sense of Things
About the Author
Charles Euchner, a longtime college teacher and author, is the creator of The Writing Code, the only comprehensive learning system for writing.
Euchner has taught and directed research institutes at a number of premier universities, including Harvard, Yale, Penn, Holy Cross, Northeastern, and St. Mary’s.
He is also the author or editor of ten books. His latest book "Nobody Turn Me Around: A People’s History of the 1963 March on Washington" (Beacon Press, 2010), has been praised as a dramatic reinterpretation of the civil rights movement. Kirkus Reviews, in a rare starred review, called it “dynamic ... sharp, riveting.” Juan Williams, author of Eyes on the Prize, called it “compelling and dramatic.” Curtis Wilkie, a longtime chronicler of civil rights, says the book provides “a panorama of vivid characters.” Roger Wilkins, a former White House aide in the civil rights era, said it “brings it all back in vivid detail.” A short documentary based on the book, written by Euchner, won the award for best writing at the 2011 Re-Image Film Festival and will air on PBS stations.
Euchner’s other books include a trilogy on the state of sports in modern America ("Playing the Field," "The Last Nine Innings," and "Little League, Big Dreams"), grassroots politics ("Urban Policy Reconsidered" and "Extraordinary Politics"), presidential politics ("Selecting the President" and "The President and the Public"), and regional politics (the two-part "Governing Greater Boston" project).
In modern society, the ability to make smart decisions—in business, government, education, and community affairs—depends on assessing a welter of information and ideas.
In this step-by-step how-to guide, Charles Euchner shows how to analyze complex issues in all fields -- how to develop good questions, brainstorm, identify variables that might explain a question, “operationalize” the variables, gather evidence, and assess various explanations.
Euchner, a case writer at the Yale School of Management, shows how anyone can learn these skills. Whether you’re a student in high school or college, a journalist or an author, a business strategist or a family doctor, a sales person or a public servant, you can master all of these skills.
Table of Contents
1. Start Making Sense
2. Ask This-or-That and W Questions
Case Study: Brian Lamb’s Interviewing Techniques
3. Brainstorm to Open Your Mind
Case Study: Brainstorming Nonviolence
4. Brainstorm with Discipline, Too
Case Study: Shakespeare and Me
5. Always Ask: What Causes What?
Case Study: What’s the “Best” Form of Government?
6. Identify Variables to Answer Questions
Case Study: The Causes of Party Decline
7. Operationalize—Then Count—Variables
Case Study: Edward Glaeser’s Work on Urban Vitality
8. Use Testimony of Experts ... and Ordinary People
Case Study: The Global Warming Controversy
9. Make Large-Scale Arguments
Case Study: Exploring the Causes of War
10. Make Small-Scale Arguments
Case Study: Exploring the Causes of the Civil War
11. Making Sense of Things
About the Author
Charles Euchner, a longtime college teacher and author, is the creator of The Writing Code, the only comprehensive learning system for writing.
Euchner has taught and directed research institutes at a number of premier universities, including Harvard, Yale, Penn, Holy Cross, Northeastern, and St. Mary’s.
He is also the author or editor of ten books. His latest book "Nobody Turn Me Around: A People’s History of the 1963 March on Washington" (Beacon Press, 2010), has been praised as a dramatic reinterpretation of the civil rights movement. Kirkus Reviews, in a rare starred review, called it “dynamic ... sharp, riveting.” Juan Williams, author of Eyes on the Prize, called it “compelling and dramatic.” Curtis Wilkie, a longtime chronicler of civil rights, says the book provides “a panorama of vivid characters.” Roger Wilkins, a former White House aide in the civil rights era, said it “brings it all back in vivid detail.” A short documentary based on the book, written by Euchner, won the award for best writing at the 2011 Re-Image Film Festival and will air on PBS stations.
Euchner’s other books include a trilogy on the state of sports in modern America ("Playing the Field," "The Last Nine Innings," and "Little League, Big Dreams"), grassroots politics ("Urban Policy Reconsidered" and "Extraordinary Politics"), presidential politics ("Selecting the President" and "The President and the Public"), and regional politics (the two-part "Governing Greater Boston" project).
