Analyzing Documents

SOAPSTONE METHOD

SOAPSTONE• S = Subject – What the document is about• O= Occasion – The event that prompted the document• A= Audience – The group for whom the document was

created• P= Purpose – The reason for the document.

– Is it to inform? Is it to persuade? What is the perspective of the speaker? Is he/she somehow affected by the events going on around him/her? Does he/she approve or disapprove of what is going on?

• S= Speaker – What is the person’s name? What is the available biographic information? What class does he/she belong to?

• TONE = Tone – What is the mood of the piece? Is the tone sarcastic? Is it defeated?

Now let’s try one together

Apply SOAPSTONE

•How to select a good officials

Subject•Helps to

advise the emperor on what types of men should be part of the bureaucracy

Occasion

•The Sung emperor, but also a wider audience, perhaps even prospective bureaucrats who might want to know how to move up in the bureaucracy

Audience

Apply SOAPSTONE

•To advise the emperor and others on what it should take to be a good bureaucrat. Maybe that has been lacking? Perhaps this was prompted because of a decline in the quality of the bureaucracy. He is also clearly a Confucian since he has no problem addressing the emperor and giving him straight-forward advice

Purpose•Wang An

Shi, Confucian scholar and prime minister to the Sung emperor

Speaker

•Respectful, but firm. Clear indication of the standards that should be implemented to maintain a strong bureaucracy

Tone