Analysis

Analysis may be defined as the separation of anintellectual or material whole into its constituent partsand the study of the constituent parts and their inter-relationships in making up a whole. Analysis has botha qualitative dimension (what something is) and aquantitative dimension (how much of that something [Page 18]there is). In logic, analysis also refers to the tracing ofthings to their source, the search for original principles. In evaluation, judging evaluands requires ananalysis by identifying important aspects of the evaluand and discerning how much of those aspects ispresent. The opposite of analysis is synthesis.