Criminal homework help.

Student Handout – Analysis by Form

Identify the formal organization of the narrative. Basically you are going to divide the narrative into a Prologue, Central Issue, and Epilogue. You will then have to evaluate these in terms of balance or proportion.

Determine the Central Issue of the narrative. The Central Issue (CI) is the event itself. Initially it can be somewhat difficult to learn to identify this. With practice you will be able to accurately identify the CI every time.

Determine the Prologue and Epilogue. The Prologue is the portion of the narrative prior to the CI and the Epilogue is the portion of the narrative after the CI.

Length of the Prologue and Epilogue compared to the Central Issue. The more balanced the three parts of the narrative are, the more it indicates truthfulness. Another thing to pay attention to is if the subject is very detailed in one part of the narrative and vague in another.

Is the narrative deceptive as to form? A narrative that has one or two of three parts that is significantly out of balance when compared to the others is said to be “Deceptive as to Form.”

Identify any non-confirming statements in the narrative. This is where the writer alludes to some action or activity they are going to perform without ever telling you that they actually performed it. Here in the mountains, this sort of statement often starts with “fixin” as in “I was fixin to go to the grocery store.” They did not go to the store, but the way they phrase leads you to believe they did or had every intention of going when in fact they did just the opposite. Weakened assertions will often begin a non-confirming statement. Watch out for phrases like “I started”, “I was going”, “I intended”, etc.

One other task to perform at this stage is to identify any non-sequential statements. These are statements that are out of place or chronological order in the narrative. They may take the form of an aside, a second person reference, or something else that interrupts the flow of the narrative. At this point it is obvious that they do not fit with that part of the narrative, but the subject included them for some reason. The answer to “Why the subject included this?” could yield significant information.

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