Some effective strategies of reading political texts

When the whole semester is about political texts reading, and then is not it become mandatory for students to know what political texts are and how to read them? The word “political” comes from “politics”, so it is understandable that when a text provides political issue or concern, or political process explicitly or implicitly mostly with any implied idea of responsibility of government or people regarding that issue, then it is entitled “political texts”. Besides, a political text has some specific characteristics like a political view providing title, a clear and informative abstract along with sufficient evidences and an effective conclusion. Next, what is the strategy of reading a political text?

The answer might be easy in case of the text like “Women’s Capabilities and the Right to Education in Bangladesh” by Mary Arends-Kuenning and Sanjeda Amin. Because, it is a chronologically organized text where writers raise their claims in various sectors with some unambiguous titles. In addition, each and every sector has a clear topic sentence which effectively contributes to provide writer’s messages. As a result, it is not detrimental to skip the writings of body paragraphs. But, presented evidences including facts, researches, and testimonials should be noted to understand the support of regarding claims. For example, in “Women’s Capabilities and the Right to Education in Bangladesh”, writer emphasizes her claim of providing a fact that convinced parents let their daughters to continue studies for hoping to get benefit from educated daughters instead of thinking about daughters’ empowerment; as a result, the “schooling attendance” of women rapidly increased between 1992 and 1996 (Mary Arends-Kuenning and Sanjeda Amin, 128). So, analyzing texts’ evidences and arguments is indispensable while reading a political text.
In contrast, when the text is confused or hard to understand like Amartya Sen’s “More Than 100 Million Missing Women” as it is not a well-organized text, more attention sould give on the title and the abstract. Because, the title of a political text hold the main points of the text and the abstract gives the main idea of those points briefly. As, in this type of essay, writer’s claims are not presented sector by sector, more importance has to give in evidences like data, facts, and testimony to easily catch the writer’s point of view. For instance, in “More Than 100 Million Missing Women”, writer claimed that in the West the number of women is higher to men where in the East the rate of women is low providing sufficient ratio like he says, “. . . the ratio of women to men is typically around 1.05 or 1.06, or higher” where “in South Asia, West Asia, and China, the ratio of women to men can be as low as 0.94, or even lower” ( Sen 1). Moreover, at the end of the text, Sen talks about political process saying that “If this situation is to be corrected by political action and public policy, the reasons why there are so many “missing” women must first be better understood”(Sen 12).

Above all, when we are reading any political text, we have to keep attention gradually to the title, abstract, introduction, sector titles, topic sentences, evidences, and conclusion. Then we will get a brief idea about writer’s claim. Furthermore, we have critically analysis writer’s point of view evaluating the content of the text.

Works cited:
Arends-Kuenning, Mary and Amin, Sanjeda, “Women’s capability and right to education in Bangladesh .” International Journal of Politics and Society, Vol. 15, No.1, September 2001. Print.
Sen, Amartya. “More Than 100 Million Missing Women.”Nybooks Archives. Dec, 1990. Mar 4, 2013.

Steps needed to be taken when reading a political text

Both the text “Women’s capabilities” and “more than 100 million missing women” is developed on three categories: the first being primarily theoretical, the second more policy-orientated, and the third focusing on methodological approaches. As discussed initially by Amartya Sen, the capability approach represents a powerful analysis of measurements of welfare based on productiveness. This approach draws on a liberal thoughtful framework highlighting the importance of the well-being of the individual in terms of what he or she is able to do and become and the kind of life he or she is able to lead. In this view, individual capabilities are supported by so-called ‘social perception’ (Sen, 6) either support or oppose capabilities. In the International Journal of Politics, AmaryArends-Kuenning and Sajeda Amin developed the capabilities framework with a particular focus on women’s capabilities in developing countries. She distinguishes between: 1) ‘basic capabilities’ generally innate from birth; 2) ‘internal capabilities’ which are developed states of the person; 3) ‘combined capabilities’ which require an appropriate political, economic and social environment. In the other article, “more than 100 million missing women,” writer AmartyaSen states that gender inequality could be overcome by three main things: education for women, better (property) rights and – most notably – productive, gainful, outside-of-the-house work for females(Sen,12). In both the article there is one common thing as in both problems related to women’s right is discussed. Structures of both the articles are also same as it is discussed in chronological order and the only difference is that in “women’s capabilities” there are many subheadings used.

In addition to this I would like to explain about the way we should read the political texts. I am going to explain the way and the strategies we used in the class to explain the way of reading political texts. In reading and analyzing each text, we assessed the content of the texts in light of the title, the table of contents, and chapter titles. We asked what content-wise expectations these aroused in a reader and whether the book’s subject matter in outline confirmed title-related expectations. We analyzed the structural design of the text’s contents, assessing whether the text gave equal treatment to each of the types of method it engaged. Finally, we analyzed the language of the text itself, looking for evidence of rhetorical argumentation. We looked for such devices as: 1. word choice; 2. sentence structure and order; 3. argument-by-adverb (“therefore,” “hence,” “however,” “of course”), rather than making arguments through the use of explicit logic; 4. the use of quotation marks around certain words or phrases, thereby calling attention to their meaning; 5. the rhythmic repetition of key words or phrases to make a point, rather than specific statement argument.

Moreover, in the article “women’s capabilities and the right to education in Bangladesh”- the writer uses the word “education”-which gives the reader a political view of the women’s right. There were also many quotation marks used in this article. For example,  the following quotation given is used to grab reader’s eye and to give the idea that it is important-“focuses on the ability of human beings to lead lives they have reason to value and to enhance the substantive choices they have”(Sen, 127). In this text, writer stresses on the word “perceived” many times to denote that many people can see this aspect of women’s education in many different ways and have different opinions. All these above techniques have the effect of directing readers’ thought processes and shaping their experience of the political text.

Works Cited

Arends-Kuenning, Mary and Amin, Sanjeda,“Women’s capability and right to education in Bangladesh.” International Journal of Politics and Society, Vol. 15, No.1, September 2001. Print

Sen, Amartya, “More Than 100 Million Missing Women.” Nybooks  Archives. Dec 20, 1990. April 7, 2013.

 

political texts: really hard to understand the core of it

Right now what we are discussing about is, the ‘political issues’ which is a bit harder term than others. According to the oxford dictionary, politics is “activities aimed at improving someone’s status or increasing power within an organization”—from where we can define politics in a different way. Political texts can actually affect the norms of the society; it can bring a political change. Even most of the writer’s actually write their articles to impact the society for a change.

The articles which have been read throughout the class, most of the students were actually confused how are they political as most of them are related to women. Some students misunderstand that they are actually talking about feminism. But actually they are political papers as they showed how a certain group of people are being dominated by a powerful group of people by the name of society and they have the hidden urge to solve this problem.

In “a room of one’s own”, Virginia Woolf described how we have made the women the “worm” which has nothing to do by herself and the privileges which we are giving to the men are introduced as “wings of the eagle”. The society is so dominant towards the women that they kept them in a corner of the society and if they try to be like the men, they suffered because it doesn’t suit them actually—just like the wings on a worm. The author actually illuminated to the fact that how women were dominated by the society and her criticism implies to the persuasion for the betterment of women, which is a part of politics.

But in the text, “Women’s Capabilities and the Right to Education in Bangladesh”, we saw that women are being given the right for education. But for what do they need this right? To get married. To be educated has become a criterion to get married in the society. Isn’t it politics? To fulfill the demand of certain group of people we are targeting the women. They are still oppressed though they are allowed to be educated. This text focused on how the education rights of the women are misused as the society is actually using this right for a purpose. This is how this text is a political text, which seems to be a text about feminism but shows the politics of a certain group of people to dominate women. It shows how a powerful group in the society is ruling over another group of people to dominate them

“Politics”, this word is still not clear to us as it has a critical meaning. But I think why the texts we are reading are political readings, is clearer than before. And if it gets more confusing then it’s a great opportunity to discuss about this and come to a conclusion.

 

Works cited:

Arends-Kuenning, Mary and Amin, Sanjeda, “Women’s capability and right to education in Bangladesh.” International Journal of Politics and Society, Vol. 15, No.1, September 2001. Print

Woolf, Virginia. “A Room of One’s Own.” Fort Washington: Harvest Book. 1981. First published 1929.

Ways to do the political analysis

How to read a political text? To know the answer first we have to know what political texts are and what format they follow. Basically political texts are “any textual activity that has a direct or indirect Impact on the political process (intentionally or otherwise)” (Baker, 8). A political text usually has strong title, abstract, clear organization of sections, mostly given statistics and numbers and an objective tone.

To read and understand a political text first we need to read abstract and then the titles very closely. After titles comes the need of reading introduction, as it is the map of the whole text, along with the author’s main argument. Introduction leads us to visualize the whole argument. Reading the topic sentences of each paragraph helps to get the idea of individual paragraphs. Lastly, the most important process in reading a political text is to interrogate the author. We need to figure out the puzzle set up by the author. Sometimes the author likes to provoke some thoughts in reader’s mind to make them think about the political changes that are going on, specially mentioned in his or her argument. We also need to review the evidences that the author provides and how it helps to support his or her argument.
To explain in details we can take the example of “Women’s capability and the right to education in Bangladesh”. In this particular text the authors talk about a political issue prevalent in Bangladesh: women’s capability for education. So, it can be considered as a political text. Again, it has clear titles like: “Approach and Methodology”, “Women’s Schooling and Marriage capital”, etc. which gives a clear idea of what the topic is about. Next, its abstract is summarizing the author’s argument on women’s capability in education. The authors in their introduction set a whole plan along with some background information about the topic. If we start interrogating author’s point of view, like “in the instrumentalist and capabilities approach whose interest is at stake?”, we can see their implication. Finally, the author show many relevant statistics, numbers to support their arguments. For example, in “More than 100 million missing women” Amartya Sen mentions, “the low ratio of 0. 94 women to men in South Asia, West Asia and China would indicate a 6 percent deficit of women” (2). Both of the texts have an objective tone which holds the interest of the readers.
Works cited
Arends-Kuenning, Mary and Amin, Sanjeda, “Women’s capability and right to education in Bangladesh.” International Journal of Politics and Society, Vol. 15, No.1, September 2001. Print
Baker, Mona. “ Translating Political Texts”. University of Manchester. April 7 2013.
Sen, Amartya, “More Than 100 Million Missing Women.” Nybooks Archives. Dec 20, 1990. April 7, 2013.

Be The Magnifying Glass Towards Your Text

Political texts as like any other texts are important to read carefully to understand and analyze. These are mainly objective where the authors try not to be biased and to bring up the positive and negative effects of a topic. These types of texts are mostly based on current and controversial issues. Mary Arends-Kuenning and Sajeda Amin, in their text “Women’s Capabilities and the Right to Education in Bangladesh” have managed to show an epitome of political writings. The main eye catcher of any writing is the title. Good and effective titles draw the attention of the readers to one’s writing and help the readers to get a hint of the content of their argument. As a reader, one should focus on the title. By looking simply to the title of the text “Women’s Capabilities and the Right to Education in Bangladesh” one can easily understand what it is about. To make it clearer, the author divided it to some sections with individual titles. To read this specific text, one should read the main title and all the sub-titles at first which will give the overview of the text. The finest work of the authors is that they have put an abstract at the beginning of the text. It is great opportunity for you to go through the most important information in the text. Then, you should read the introduction and the conclusion which will provide you with authors’ purpose of writing this text and it will help you to connect more with their argument. Now, just skim through it for once and during skimming look for the topic sentences of each paragraph. When you finished reading it for the first time then read it again and this time start annotating it. Mark the information and evidences they use in their support and also for the other side.
Finally, analyze each point and come up with your idea to support or oppose their claim. Think about the references while analyzing, verify those references are reliable or not. If you support the claim, then think about the solutions that are mentioned by the author. This entire process is useful to read a political text and this will involve the reader in the text. Follow the above methods to read the political text properly.
Work Cited
Arends-Kuenning, Mary and Amin, Sanjeda, “Women’s capability and right to education in Bangladesh .” International Journal of Politics and Society, Vol. 15, No.1, September 2001. Print.

How to interpret political texts and to illuminate political concern from it

The word “politics” confuses general people, when they are asked to answer something related to it. The most common answer people give is that they are not interested in it or they don’t read much political texts. Why is it so? It’s because they don’t know the actual meaning of politics and they are scared of it to answer as it is related to Government Issue. According to “Merriam-Webster Dictionary”, ‘politics’ is “the art or science concerned with winning and holding control over a government”. A political text is a reflection of issues that are related to politics in order to provide the readers some idea and evidence about the writer’s argument about politics.
While reading a political text the indispensable thing is to read title of the text, as it gives some hints about the political problem or the purpose to write the text. The title sometimes explains the political situation or the problem of the country. Mary Arends-Kuenning and Sajeda Amin in their “Women’s Capabilities and the Right to Education in Bangladesh” emphasizes in women education: “a force that enables women to have expanded choices” (Amin, 125). Moreover, Amartya Sen in “More than “100 Million Missing Women” emphasizes in the ratio of women to men in order to show number of missing women. Here, we can see that the author gives an image of the political situation of the countries to keep people aware of the current issues. The writer has to use many evidences in a view to convince the readers to support his thought. In “Women’s Capabilities and the Right to Education in Bangladesh” the writer uses many sources to support his claim. For example, by using the evidences he supports his claim that “mothers’ education is an important determinant of children’s schooling” (Amin, 126). The writer Amartya Sen, also uses data as an evidence to support his thoughts about the unusual ratio of women in his “More than 100 Million Missing Women”.
By reading the articles mentioned above we can give the reader some political outlook about the political situation of the country and the purpose to write this kind of text. Political issue gives the reader information about the problems of the country. In “100 Million Missing Women” the writer shows the problem of the imbalance of women population. Through this the reader gets to know about one of the political issues. The political text helps the author to convince people to support his argument. To clarify a political text, one should give some ideal clarification to make the people believe to the writer’s argument about political issues.
Works cited:

Arends-Kuenning,Mary and Amin,Sanjeda, “Women’s capability and right to education in Bangladesh .” International Journal of Politics and Society, Vol. 15, No.1, September 2001. Print

“Politics.” Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, 2013. Web. 7 April 2013.

Sen, Amartya. “More Than 100 Million Missing Women.” Nybooks Archives. 20 Dec 1990. Web. 07 Apr 2013.

Enacting Political Change

“Political” is a term derived from “politics” meaning affairs related to politics. Political texts, in the same way, are those texts which draw attention towards particular issues regarding miscellaneous problems, beliefs, ideas and concerns directly or indirectly related with “politics”. Firstly, before scrutinizing the meaning of a text, I think it is important to determine whether the text is a political text or not. And an effective way to decide on this matter is to think critically about the political perspectives of the claim made in the text and also by matching those perspectives with the reliable evidences used in the text.

In Amartya Sen’s “More than 100 Million Missing Women”, the issue of missing women has been brought to universal concern using the connection of this problem with politics. Sen is firstly highlighting the problem of women outnumbering men throughout the world and then presenting the possible reasons and solutions to this problem. As he mentions, “At birth boys outnumber girls everywhere in the world, by much the same proportion- there are around 105 or 106 male children for every female children”(01). Then he proceeds by comparing the ratio of women to men in different parts of the world. For instance, in Punjab and Haryana, this ratio is 0.86 whereas in Europe, North America and Japan, the ratio is 1.03(Sen 02). Here, it is supporting the idea that in the West, women outnumber men but in the East, women fall short in number compared to men. This shortfall, in turn, causes the shortfall of women globally i.e. “leading to the excess mortality of women” (Sen 02). The problem is presented in a political angle by estimating the fields of discrimination faced by women such as- in job specialization, basic nutrition and health care, economy and most importantly education. Finally, he is making a statement that only after considering its reasons; this problem can be solved by “political action and public policy” (Sen16). So, the whole text weaves together a very powerful message of enacting political change.

Similar to Sen’s “capabilities approach” (Amin 127), Sajeda Amin in her “Women’s Capabilities and the Right to Education in Bangladesh” has also advocated the right of women’s education by “enhancing their capabilities” (Amin 127). She has effectively contrasted this approach with the “human capital approach” by mentioning the factors of “fertility decline”, “growth-oriented development” and enhancing “substantive choices”(Amin 127). Later, by using statistical evidence, she is making the claim credible for the reader and then posing a challenge to the existing status quo in Bangladesh. As a whole, in each of these political texts, a particular issue is discussed and then gradually an invitation for bringing political change through solving these problems is illustrated.
Works Cited
Arends-Kuenning, Mary and Amin, Sanjeda, “Women’s capability and right to education in Bangladesh .” International Journal of Politics and Society, Vol. 15, No.1, September 2001. Print.
Sen, Amartya. “More Than 100 Million Missing Women.”Nybooks Archives. Dec, 1990. Mar 4, 2013.

Protected: Analyzing ‘Political Analysis Texts’

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Significance of Political Texts

Political texts are the writings that are characterized by different stylistic, lexical and syntactic peculiarities reflecting to the current events taking place in definite time. These texts are more essential that seeks the interest of people to urge for the amendment of wrong deeds going on in a country. Political writings help to grab the attention of people in general either about some covert events in the process for which they are to be made accountable or enforce people to act on some contemporary important issues. In other words, political articles provide the information related to the public associations, societal dealings and government policies to be pondered and further discussed for its controversy to come to a conclusion.

Political texts are most of the time written in a clear cut manner for every reader to understand undoubtedly about the issue in the text. Since, the article contains some crucial matters that require value judgments of the targeted audience to yield the author’s piece fruitful and effective. To support the main argument, the author facilitates with the facts, data and statistics in abundance to clarify the misconceptions about the topic aroused in reader’s mind, prove it authenticate and yield a reaction out of it. These texts do not digress from the main point and directly focuses on the core message. It is surrounded by the political theories too, which hunt for a more precise thought on the topic along with the factual data. As in the article by Kuenning and Amin, they have mentioned the theory or philosophy regarding the human capital approach (instrumentalism) and the capabilities approach to women’s education in Bangladesh. This use of theoretical perspective props up the practical evidences to be accurate thus it produces the emergence in solving the problem portrayed by the text.

Therefore, political texts like “Women’s capabilities and the right to education in Bangladesh” play vital role in the society to judge women’s education in the best possible way as instrumentalist approach or capabilities approach. This political text aware people about the subject of women’s education that is only valued for marriage market to secure their well being, prevalent in most of the sectors in Bangladesh. It has been the current social and a political issue since; all the sectors in the country are more or less affected by it or affect this issue of women’s education. Hence, a political article like this is very essential for it provides the knowledge and facts that are not considered important to discuss, but apparently, influences the economic, social, cultural, ethical and moral aspects of the country.

Works cited

Arends-Kuenning, Mary and Amin, Sanjeda, “Women’s capability and right to education in Bangladesh.” International Journal of Politics and Society, Vol. 15, No.1, September 2001. Print

Reading and Understanding the Political Issues

I’m not a good reader. When I have to read books or handouts in class, it takes me a lot of time to pay closely attention and re-read the text many times. Recently when we have study about political issues with large number of pages, I have to struggle to finish reading, understand and remember the content of the texts. However, I gain experience for myself that I find it less difficult and confusing as I read more and more political texts.
How to read political texts? Political issues are sensitive issues, so that the writers are required to present them with clear organization. In “Women’s Capabilities and the Right to Education in Bangladesh”, Arends-Kuenning and Amin divide the article into many sections with the abstract, introduction, 5 main points (Approach and Methodology, Women’s schooling and Marriage capital, The Effect of women’s education on Women’s well-being and agency, Education and Bargaining power, Women’s education and Traditional social structures) and the conclusion. Similarly, Lesorogol sets up her article with an abstract, introduction, 4 main points (Education and Modernity, Education and Boundary making, Boundaries of Knowledge and Capability, Boundaries of Gender roles and Morality/Sexuality) and conclusion. To save time but still get understanding thorough these articles, we had better read the abstract first. Then, we read the introduction section, skip the body sections and read the conclusion. While the introduction usually provides the background information as well as suggests what the writer is going to talk about, the conclusion summaries again the whole things; therefore, if we go over these sections first, we can have an observation over the issue and visualize what is going on in the text. We won’t get lost in the article. To read and understand the political issues better, we should print the texts. With the paper, we could mark and give our comments in the margin of the texts. In reading political issue, critical thinking will help us discern the points the writer argues for and decide whether or not we agree with the point.
To illuminate the political issues, the political texts are well-organized, precise and explicit but not metaphorical language with objective tone. The writer illustrates the issues with evidence: facts, statistics, and surveys, testimonials… For example, in “Women’s Capabilities and the Right to Education in Bangladesh”, the writers provide specific evidences from their interviews of the Bangladeshi rural residents to exemplify the writers’ claims about the Bangladeshi’s perception of education for women. In the same way, Lesorogol shows many facts and testimonials to prove the boundaries existing between educated girls and uneducated girls in Kenya. With evidences, the tone of the political issues is objective, free from bias. Thus, the writers gain credibility in their readers, convincing the readers.

Works Cited
Arends-Kuenning, Mary and Amin, Sanjeda, “Women’s capability and right to education in Bangladesh .” International Journal of Politics and Society, Vol. 15, No.1, September 2001. Print.
Carolyn, Lesorogol.K, “Setting Themselves Apart: Education, capabilities, and Sexuality among Samburu women in Kenya” International Journal of Politics and Society.Print.