There is no area of daily life or professional activity which escapes the need to carry out, before any decision is taken, a preliminary analysis, however brief, of the situation or facts which arise or which are submitted, or even to carry out an in-depth analysis of these facts or situations in order to draw the conclusions which follow from them.
Preliminary analysis is what is required, even in an apparently irreflective way, when we are faced with an emergency situation that does not allow us to carry out an in-depth analysis for lack of time.
It is important not to confuse the apparently unthinking response with the totally unthinking response, which is a reflex response and outside the scope of this study.
I'm thinking here of conflict situations, be they family, professional, political or military on the battlefield: In other words, situations that require an immediate response.
In this hypothesis, it is the personality and the experience of the person acting that will determine the outcome of the reflection prior to the action, and the short lapse of time between the occurrence of the event and the reaction is such that it is not possible to apply any methodology to it, and consequently its analysis does not fall within the scope of this study either.
When it is carried out beforehand, the analysis enables the situation to be understood with the result of minimising the negative consequences of the decision that will be taken as a result.
In-depth analysis is what is applied when studying texts or situations without any idea of (absolute) urgency. It is the kind of analysis a lawyer makes when studying a case, or a geopolitical scientist makes when faced with a possible upheaval in the international situation.
When carried out in depth, analysis enables us to understand information, identify problems, formulate hypotheses and make informed decisions.
But for analysis to be fruitful, it is essential to follow a rigorous methodology, to know all the key stages and their importance in the reflection process.
This is what we are going to focus on in this article, bearing in mind that the importance of these steps may vary depending on the result sought.
Thus, the lawyer will have to take into account all the documents submitted to him and extract the elements likely to support the theory he is defending. The researcher will also have to take into account all the data that he can collect without knowing in advance the result of his research. Finally, in artificial intelligence, the research result is defined as a priority and the choice of data to be exploited will depend on this result.
Whatever the case, an analysis necessarily goes through 3 stages:
1) The objective
The objective to be achieved must be clearly and precisely established before anything else, otherwise we will no longer be talking about reflection but about daydreaming. This first stage is extremely important, as it enables us to focus on the most relevant aspects and develop an appropriate analysis strategy.
To define it, we need to ask ourselves the right question(s) to which the subsequent analysis should provide answers. After all, isn't the aim of an analysis to provide the most appropriate answer possible to the question we are asking or are asking ourselves?
a. In the case of the lawyer, this objective is to defend the theory he is developing in the interests of his clients. The lawyer is therefore aware of the result he must achieve, but to do so he must take into consideration all the data or elements submitted to him or in his possession or which he may come into possession of.
b. In the case of the researcher, this objective will merge with the very object of his research and this is why he will have to look for the data that he thinks will be useful for his research work without knowing in advance the result to which it will lead.
c. In the case of the artificial intelligence developer, it is the desired result that will define the choice of data to be taken into account to achieve it.
2) Collect the data and put it in order
Once the desired objective has been defined, the data needed to achieve it must be collected and put in order or organised.
A. Data collection,
Data collection varies according to the field in which you operate. But in all cases, you need to ensure that your sources are reliable, not simply by carrying out research, but by conducting a genuine investigation into their authenticity and relevance.
The lawyer should therefore read and reread the documents submitted to him so as not to lose sight of any details that might prove useful, and look for the applicable legal texts and case law that he can cite in support of his argument. This research may lead him to look for the spirit of the law, the legislator's wishes, case law in favour of AND against the thesis he is defending. This research must be rigorous and cannot be carried out simply by researching internet sites; it must also be carried out in a library to find out the opinion of the doctrine on the subject.
The researcher will have to seek out all the data that he believes to be useful for the very purpose of his research with the same rigour to which the lawyer must adhere.
Artificial intelligence developers will have an easier task in that, most of the time, the data they need to create their project is provided by the client. But if they are working on their own on a project of their own, they will have to consider themselves as researchers and comply with the same rigorous requirements if they want to achieve the desired result.
B. Organising the data,
Once the data has been collected, it needs to be organised. This is the most important stage in the analysis methodology, as the analysis and conclusions drawn will depend on how the data is organised.
This stage consists of classifying the data according to its relevance and synthesising it to make it usable and coherent for further analysis.
Without this step, it will be impossible to carry out a useful, in-depth analysis of the data and elements gathered in the previous step.
This step is the same in any type of analysis of facts or situations. It is crucial. We'll come back to it in a later article.
3) Analysing the data and drawing conclusions
This is the stage at which the intelligence of the person analysing the data or situation is revealed. The description of this stage requires further development, which we will also cover in a later article.
However, we can already say that the process of analysis is ultimately the same as that of memory: Prehension, Retention and Extraction.
If, in the case of memory, retention is a simple chemical factor, prehension depends on the attention we pay to a fact, extraction depends on the intelligence of each individual.
In the case of analysis, the same applies, although in this case the person carrying out the analysis will have different tools at his disposal which he can use according to the field in which he is evolving.
For example, when analysing texts, the lawyer will use semantic analysis, the study of form and content, while the developer will use lexicographical analysis to produce statistics on the texts without taking into account the meaning of the words used.
On the other hand, both the researcher and the developer will use descriptive statistical techniques, graphic visualisations and other methods to identify trends, patterns or relationships between variables, useful tools in the analysis of the data submitted to them.
Ultimately, however, it is the intelligence of the person using these tools that will enable them to analyse the data correctly and draw the right conclusions.
In conclusion, we can say that the analysis methodology is a rigorous approach that enables us to extract valuable information from the data. By following these key steps, we can conduct a structured, reliable and relevant analysis. It is important to remember, however, that analysis is an iterative process, where each stage may need to be adjusted in the light of results and new information. By cultivating your analytical skills and using the right tools, you'll be able to explore the data with confidence and make more informed decisions in your field.
#analysis #artificialintelligence #intelligence #memory #methodology #lawyer
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