Analysis - Definition and Overview

An analysis is a critical evaluation, usually made by breaking a subject (either material or intellectual) down into its constituent parts, then describing the parts and their relationship to the whole. See also analytic and synthesis.

As such, it can be applied in many different fields of study:

• In philosophy:
  • analysis (philosophy)

• In mathematics:
  • mathematical analysis
    • real analysis - real numbers
    • complex analysis - holomorphic functions
    • functional analysis - study of spaces of functions
    • non-standard analysis - hyperreal numbers
    • harmonic analysis - Fourier series
  • numerical analysis
  • statistical analysis
    • meta-analysis
    • analysis of variance (ANOVA)
    • time-series analysis

• In computing:
  • object-oriented analysis and design
  • Structured Analysis such as Yourdon
  • lexical analysis
  • semantic analysis
  • syntax analysis
  • competitive analysis
  • analysis of algorithms
  • computer program analysis
  • static code analysis

• In music:
  • musical analysis
    • Schenkerian analysis

• In psychotherapy:
  • psychoanalysis
    • transactional analysis

• In cryptography:
  • cryptanalysis - the decoding of ciphers
  • frequency analysis

• In economics:
  • fundamentals analysis
  • technical analysis - used in predicting stock market trends

• In language studies:
  • discourse analysis
  • voice analysis

• In signal processing:
  • finite element analysis
  • principal components analysis
  • independent components analysis
  • link quality analysis
  • path quality analysis

In other fields:

• system analysis - in electrical engineering
• systems analysis - study of large systems
• lithic analysis - study of stone tools, in archaeology
• isotope analysis in archaeology and paleontology
• aura analysis - study of bodily auras and energy fields
• dimensional analysis - in physics and engineering
• neutron activation analysis - in chemistry
• life cycle cost analysis
• chemical analysis