3 August 2000: Link to raw scan of full document: http://216.167.120.50/cia-ath-all.htm. Thanks to Hugh Pyle.

31 July 2000. Thanks to Hironari Noda.

Office of Training and Education (OTE) is a component of the Central Intelligence Agency.

See related training course outline: http://cryptome.org/cia-atpip.htm

See 88 original GIF images in a single Zipped file:

http://216.167.120.50/cia-ath/cia-ath.zip  (3.1MB),

or separate Zipped files:

handbook01-07.zip (200KB)
handbook08-14.zip (232KB)
handbook15-21.zip (252KB)
handbook22-28.zip (233KB)
handbook29-35.zip (255KB)
handbook36-42.zip (270KB)
handbook43-49.zip (265KB)
handbook50-56.zip (193KB)
handbook57-63.zip (325KB)
handbook64-69.zip (255KB)
handbook70-74.zip (195KB)
handbook75-79.zip (183KB)
handbook80-86.zip (210KB)
handbook87-88.zip (96KB)

Not all image numbers match page numbers. The images are scaled fairly large and print most clearly if reduced by printer to sheet size.

[Total 88 pages, marked top and bottom "Official Use Only."; cover, TOC and first 16 pages in this portion.]

_______________________________

Analytic Thinking and
Presentation for
Intelligence Producers
_______________________________

Analysis Training Handbook

OTE
Office of Training and Education
________________________________________

Contents
___________________________________

Scope Note

The Analyst's Craft

Who We Are and What We Do
The Ethics of Analysis
When to Write
Guide to Gisting
Key Intelligence Questions to Ask

Conceptualizing Finished Intelligence

Strict Construction
The Conceptualization Process
Crafting Titles
Zeroing in on the Focus
Developing a Case: The Internal Formula
Finding the Right Level of Generality

[End this portion of transcription of Handbook.]

Balance of Handbook are in HTML preparation.

Core Assertions (Analytic Topic Sentences)
The Inverted Pyramid Paragraph
Advancing an Argument
Expanding a Single Pargraph to a Multiparagraph Line of Reasoning

Writing Effective Intelligence

Basic Principles of Analytic Writing
Achieving Clarity, Brevity, and Precision
Active Voice
Active Voice Versus Passive Voice
Bloopers
Important Reminders About a Paragraph
Longer Papers
Topic Sentence Outline
Concept Paper
Self-Editing

Dealing With Information and Sources

Assessing Information Needs

Developing Analytic Objectivity

Pitfalls to Avoid and Why
Handling Mind-Set
Getting Starting With Methodologies
Alternative Scenarios
Analysis of Competing Hypotheses
Opportunity Analysis

Handling Review and Coordination

Surviving the Review Process
Coordination Guidelines
Interpersonal, Bureaucratic, and Communication Skills

Giving an Intelligence Briefing

Essentials of Effective Oral Presentation
Groundwork
Design
Logistics
Rehearsing and Delivering a Briefing

Scope Note
___________________________________

This handbook is designed to help analysts in the Intelligence Community become more effective at their craft. The handbook articulates the philosophy and mission of intelligence officers and systematically lays out principles they can use to conceptualize and create written and oral products. Officers can adapt these principles to their individual accounts, from substantive analysis to staff and administrative work.

The skill portions of the handbook focus on tools for strengthening officers' ability to arrive quickly at an overall judgment and make a case for it and to communicate both clearly and concisely. Emphasis is on written communication, but the principles of analytic writing -- clarity, brevity, and precision -- apply equally to oral presentations.

The sections on analytic objectivity provide officers with guidance on avoiding bias and increasing objectivity, techniques for building their analytic sophistication, and area in which they can seek additional training.

________________________

The Analyst's Craft
________________________

Who We Are and What We Do
___________________________________

Our Job Is

Our job as intelligence officers is to:

• Define intelligence problems and issues clearly.

• Anticipate trends and developments.

• Provide our consumers with judments and insights.

• Tell our consumers what is really happening in a situation.

• Be responsive to our consumers.

• Evaluate raw information critically to determine its relevance, reliability, and weight as evidence.

• Extract key points from raw information or otherwise identify what is important in a sea of detail.

• Make meaningful characterizations about data by "synthesizing" them into judgments that are greater than the data they're based on.

• Deal with ambiguity, uncover and test assumptions, reconcile conflicting information, and guard against bias, subjectivity, deception, and "politicization."

• Consider the views of others.

• Evaluate alternative scenarios.

• Assess implications for our consumers.

Our Job Is Not

It is not our job to know everything.

• We have to make judgments on the basis of information that is incomplete, conflicting, and of varying degress of reliability.

• We need to provide the best possible answer given the time and information available.

• We do not pile up detail. Data dumps are not the way to show our expertise.

• And we are not historians.

Analytic Mission

As intelligence analysts, we "synthesize":

• We interpret, not describe.

• We render the complex simple.

• We read, weigh, and assess fragmentary information to determine what it means, to get the "big picture."

• That is, we draw conclusions that are greater than the data they're based on. One plus one equals three!

• We see the forest, not just the trees:

-- Synthesizing takes and inordinate amount of time up front. You have to know your bottom line before you write or speak, because your bottom line comes first and drives the rest of your written or oral product.

Sound analytic thinking and good analytic communication require us to do two major things:

• Conceptualize -- focus, frame, and advance defendable judgments.

• Craft -- write or speak so clearly and simply that the reader cannot possibly misunderstand our message. To put it another way: Everyone who reads what we have written or hears what we have said comes away with exactly the same message. Our job is not done until that is accomplished.

Conceptualizing

Conceptualization is a technique for focusing on an overall Judgment and a logical argument for it. When you conceptualize, you establish three things:

• Contract. Your title -- a pledge that creates an expectation in the reader's mind; conveys a message.

• Focus. Your "statement of synthesis," the big picture and bottom line, the major judgment, the what and so what -- a simple declarative sentence that synthesizes information into an analytic assertion.

• Case. Your argument -- the advancement of the line of reasoning that supports or unfolds from your focus.

Crafting

Your ability to craft writing that conveys ideas clearly and succinctly shows your aptitude in the "expository writing" style. Expository writing is:

• Plain talk.

• Straightforward, matter-of-fact communication -- the efficient conveyance of ideas.

• Writing that seeks to inform or persuade.

• Writing intended for a busy reader who literally is in "a hurry to stop reading."

• Expository writing requires that you use precise words and simple language.

• Expository writing stresses the importance of clarity, speed, and structure to help you stay in control of your judgments -- never make your reader wonder what you are getting at.

• Developing skills in expository writing -- clarity, brevity, precision, and structure -- is essential to preparing effective briefings.
  

The Ethics of Analysis
___________________________________

Our Responsibility

Protecting analytic objectivity must remain a paramount goal of any intelligence organization. Without objectivity, our products have no value, and we have no credibility.

• Above all, we must have courage -- courage to press our opinions where the evidence warrants, no matter how unpopular our conclusions might be, and courage to recast our findings when our thinking changes or when we find new evidence.

• We must not aliow our products to be distorted by motivations that could range from individual biases and misplaced assumptions -- those of others or our own -- to inplicit or explicit pressures to twist analysis for policy or operational reasons.

• Primary responsibility clearly rests with the analyst or analysts concerned and with the appropriate layers of management.

• Responsibility for encouraging analytic objectivity must be shared across a wide spectrum.

- Pursuing objectivity requires a team effort and special vigilance to prevent bias from affecting analysis.

- An organization must rely on the professional judgment, leadership, and integrity of officers at every level.

- A number of people can become involved, including officers from other parts of the organizaton, officers from different components of the Community, and, finally, the consumer.

• We as analysts must submit the best draft we can -- a draft that:

- Shows we've spent a great deal of time up front thinking through the problem logically and planning the product before we started drafting.

- Provides sound substantiation for our judgments.

- Is written in a clear, concise, precise, and well-structured style.

- Demonstrates we've considered other outcomes, rejected them, and why.

• Such a draft gives our management "something to work with" and builds our reputation as credible, responsible analysts.

Review and Coordination

Review and coordination processes are crucial to analytic objectivity. They represent an important connection among analysts and managers and reviewers.

• Conducted conscientiously, they can provide the best protection against distorting analysis. Unfortunately, distortion sometimes occurs during these processes.

• Review shouldn't take place in a vacuum.

- When major differences emerge and you feel your objectivity is being threatened, you should meet with the reviewer to justify your conclusions.

- You must be prepared to discuss how you arrived at your judgments, what your evidence is, and what alternatlve conclusions you rejected and why.

- Try to understand the logic in the reviewer's explanation of why he or she is challenging your analysis.

• Coordination can help maintain analytic objectivity.

- This process should ensure that you have considered the widest possible range of information and judgments.

- You should coordinate both officially -- with other offices and individuals with a stake in the analysis -- and informally -- with people who have expertise on the subject.

- Resolve conflict over analytic objectivity as you do during the review process.

External Review

Using external review helps promote objectivity.

• External review can offer perspectives free of policy or operational biases.

• Consider two kinds:

- Cleared outside experts who review your draft.

- Conferences with experts in and out of government who give you new ways of looking at your issue.

Alternative Views

Giving your manager alternative views helps stimulate debate over conventional wisdom.

• You and your manager can use these to arrive at a product you both accept.

• Customers often want you to lay out different scenarios in your finished intelligence so they can plan for the unexpected.

Joint Analysis

Products involving analysts from different offices make the best use of diverse and scarce resources by:

• Stimulating analytic cross-fertilization.

• Combining expertise from more than one discipline.

• Helping eliminate duplication of effort.

When To Write
___________________________________

Questions To Ask Yourself: What? And So What?

 Is there a hook (or peg)?

 Does it meet threshold?

 What can I add that's unique?

Event Driven

• You need a hook (or peg) -- a developmcnt that gives you an opportunity to write.

• The development can be a single event. For example:

- An election or coup.

- A terrorist incident.

- An unexpected budget cut or personnel reduction.

- An international financial development.

- The seizure of an unusually large amount of drugs.

- A series of events taking place in the account you follow.

- An ongoing story in your account.

• The event can be happening now, forthcoming, or something you predict.

Meeting Threshold

• The event must meet threshold. Threshold is a significant departure from the norm that warrants the attention of your consumers because it has implications for their interests.

Adding Analysis

• You have to go beyond what's said in the press or what the basic facts are to add something unique.

• You must provide judgments or insights that answer one or more of your consumers' questions:

- What is actually going on?

- What does it mean?

-What might happen next or in the future?

Guide To Gisting
___________________________________

To gist means to evaluate raw facts critically and distill them -- in as few words as possible -- into intelligence that is relevant to your consumers' interest.

Making Information Manageable

Gisting reduces your sources to their main facts or points, which makes your infomlation easier to handle.

• Read each piece of information and ask yourself: "What are the main facts or points in this document?"

- Write them down in as few words as possible in the margins of the documents or on a separate piece of paper.

- Don't worry about "relevance" at this stage.

• Gist all of your information.

• Then go back and organize it logically: put like data together and eliminate repetition.

Consumer Relevance

• Now consider which facts or points you will keep and which you will put aside.

• You are looking for new information that would be important to a consumer.

• The crucial question to ask is, "What does the consumer need to know?"

- Answer this question by asking yourself: "What are the key intelligence questions?"

- What must the consumer know compared with what would be nice or interesting for him or her to know? Exclude the latter!

• Next decide how you wilI order the facts or points you've kept. Ask yourself:

- What new fact or point would the consumer want to know first? If I had to exclude everything else, what one thing would I tell him or her?

- What would the consumer want to know next?

- And next? And next. . . ?

- What is the least important thing?

Key Intelligence Questions To Ask
___________________________________

The Key lntelligence Questions are generic questions that can be applied to any account. You can use them for three major purposes:

• To select the essential intelligence information from your research data.

• To ask yourself the questions you need to answer in order to make judgments about the issues your consumer is interested in.

• To help you decide what overall analytic message you want to communicate to your consumer.

Key Questions -- adapt them to the issues you follow:

 What is new on my account? What is being done differently?

 Why is it happening?

 Who are the principal actors? (In some types of work, these will include your office or agency.)

 What are the goals, broader concerns, and motivations of the principal actors?

 What factors will influence success or failure?

 Are the actors aware of these factors? Do they have a program or strategy to deal with the factors?

 What constitutes success? Or failure?

 What are the prospects for success? Or failure?

 What are the implications for the actors, their broader concerns, your consumer, the United States, or other countries of:

- What is taking place now?

- Success?

- Failure?

 Where do the principal actors go from here?

 What are alternative scenarios and their meaning for the actors, their broader concerns, your consumer, the United States, or other countries?

________________________

Conceptualizing Finished
Intelligence
________________________

The Conceptualization Process
___________________________________

The conceptualization process is the technique you use to crystallize your main judgment or point and lay out your argument for it. The process involves establishing three essential elements -- you need to have each of them.

Title

• Your title is a pledge to the reader. If it has to do with apples, the reader expects to read about apples, not about oranges and not about apples and oranges.

• If you can't crystallize your title, you don't know what you're writing about.

Focus

• Your focus is your statement of synthesis (overall judgment or point, big picture, and bottom line) -- the crystallization of the judgment you believe is the most relevant for your consumer.

• If you can't crystallize your overall judgment into one sentence, you don't know what you're writing about. You can't begin to write because you don't know the judgment you're trying to prove and discuss.

Case

• Your case consists of the facts and subordinate judgments or points you use to lay out the argument for your focus -- your line of reasoning.

• You can't begin to lay out your argument if you don't know what you're trying to prove.

Consistency of Focus

You have consistency of focus when:

• Your focus delivers on your pledge in your title.

• Your case directly supports your focus.

Crafting Titles
___________________________________

Contracts With the Reader

Titles As Contracts Colombia: Antidrug Policy Under Pressure Llbya: Aerial Refuellng Program Revived Office of Personnel: Budget Reductions Limit Employee Assistance

• A title is the first step in the conceptualization process, which goes on to state your focus (statement of synthesis) and lay out your case.

• Your title is a pledge that creates an expectation in the reader's mind. It should be analytic, not descriptive, and convey your focus (statement of synthesis) in abbreviated form.

Do It First

• Try to craft your title first. This will force you to zero in on the major point you want to make in your piece.

• If you can't crystallize the general purview of your piece in the title, you haven't done your thinking and don't know what your piece will be like -- your title and focus statement have absolute control over the rest of your piece.

• You can conununicate your point in only a few words. See inset.

• See Zeroing in on the Focus for help in conceptualizing your tide.

• Study publications from your office to see how it crafts titles.

Consistency of Focus

• Always compare your title with your lead sentence -- are they an absolute fit?

• Make sure that what you are pledging in your title is delivered in your lead sentence.

What To Emphasize

You can construct titles in different ways.

• Emphasize the geographic:
  
  - Peru: Setbacks for Drug Control

• Emphasize the topical:
  
  - International Finance: Problems and Prospects for Debtor Nations

• Mix the two:
  
  - The New Frankfurt Installation: Origins and Impact of Security Problems

Zeroing in on the Focus
___________________________________

If you can't summarize your bottom line in one sentence, you haven't done your analysis.

Statement of Synthesis

The focus can be called the:

- Statement of synthesis.
- Big picture and bottom line.
- What and so what.
- Core assertion.
- Major judgment or point.
- Or whatever your office wants to call it.

• The faster you can arrive at a focus, the better an inferential thinker you will be considered.

• You must create a statement of synthesis for any inforrnation you analyze and any piece you write. And a piece can have only one focus. If you have more than one major judgrnent to make, you have more than one piece you can write.

• Express your focus in a simple declarative sentence that synthesizes inforrnation into an analytic assertion. Answer three questions:
  
  - What? The significant departure from the norm (threshod) that allows you to write the piece.
  
  - So what? The relevance of the event or development.
  
  - Why? The motivations, reasons, or forces behind the event or development.

• Often you can answer just what? and so what? in one sentence because of space constraints. You answer why? later in the piece.

No Focus, Nowhere To Go

• If you don't have a focus, you can't organize your piece or begin to draft it. This is true because your piece consists of only the things that support -- prove, explain, or discuss -- your focus. If an insight or piece of information doesn't do this, you must leave it out.

Steps to Focusing

• You need to know your customers' concerns in order to produce relevant intelligence.

• When you're familiar with the issues your consumers are interested in, use the Key Intelligence Questions to ask yourself the questions you need to answer in order to make judgments relevant to those issues.

• You need to reach into your information and grab the point.
  
  - Use gisting to reduce your information to manageable amounts and to identify the most important facts or points.
  
  - Then begin the conceptualization process . . .

• Discipline yourself to answer at least two of the three major questions:
  
  - What? What's the significant departure from the norm? What new and unusual thing has happened?
  
  - So what? What's the consequence? Why care?

• The skill is in finding the right level of generality for your focus statement:
  
  - What? "The Counternarcotics program is faltering." With this focus you're looking at a country's overall program, a focus that is at a higher level of generality than . . .
  
  - What? "Opium production is surging." This focus is at a lower level of generality because it deals with just one aspect of the faltering counternarcotics progam.
  
  - Which what? is right depends on which one you want to focus on and how you play your story out.
  
  - If your focus is the faltering program, you might devote one section of your piece to surging opium production.

• Combine your answers to what? and so what? in one sentence and spell everything out:
  
  - What? And so what?: Lambodialand's opium harvest is likely to reach 20 tons this year -- compared with 12 last year -- doubling the amount of heroin the country may try to smuggle to the United States.
  
  - What? And so what?: The recent Congressionally mandated budget reduction will force us to end projects X, Y, and Z.

• If you're having touble narrowing your focus, ask yourself:
  
  - What one message do I want the reader to come away with? Or . . .
  
  - If I had the attention of my agency's director for only 30 seconds, what's the one thing I'd tell him about my piece?

• Write your simple declarative sentence down and post it where you can refer to it.
  
  - This will help you maintain consistency of fows as you work on your piece.
  
  - And your statement of synthesis is a general roadmap to your entire piece. In its most basic form, it tells you what elements to cover in your piece and in what order.

Practice!

• Skill comes with repetition.

• Practice creating statements of synthesis every day. Use newspaper and magazine editorials -- editorials often have more than one focus, no clear focus, or a poorly stated focus.

Corollary

• Stick literally to one idea per paragraph.

• If you start to tell a new story or make a new judgment, you need to put it in a new paragraph, section, or piece.

Developing a Case: The Internal Formula
___________________________________

Case

Your case:

• Proves your focus -- statement of synthesis -- overall judgment -- big picture and bottom line -- what and so what.

• Sets your focus in context.

• Looks beyond your focus.

• Addresses what's important for the consumer.

Internal Formula

Your case follows a pattern called the internal formula. The intemal formula is the structure that helps you get your ideas on what deserves to be written. It gives you the disciplxne to zero in on your focus. It's the stucture that forms the basis for organizing longer papers.

1.

-SYNTHESIS- /________________________________\ Big picture/bottom line - What/so what ^ ||

2. Substantiation. Evidentiary or other substantiating base. Where you prove your focus. The specific reasons why you believe your focus is true.

3. Perspective. Vantage point from which to assess broader or narrower views and insights. You can also tie up loose ends, talk about ambiguities, give alternative scenarios, or talk ahout the actors' motivations.

4. Outlook or Prospects. Forward-looking judgments in greater detail than the lead statement of synthesis. You talk about where things will go or how they will fare.

5. Implications for the United States or a particular consumer. Assessment of the impact of the preceding judgments on the interests of the United States or your consumer, in greater detail than the lead statement of synthesis. Sometimes "where things are going" is the "implications,"' and you can combine the two.

Finding the Right Level of Generality
___________________________________

General or Detailed?

• You'll have to struggle with how general or detailed your statement of synthesis will be. Determining this is your judgment call.

• No formula exists for easily deciding what level of generality is right. This skill takes time and practice to develop.

Imagine an Umbrella

• To help yourself, imagine being out in the rain. How big an umnbrella do you need? That depends on what's under it. You may need a regular-sized umbrella, or you may need a circus tent to cover everything that's relevant.

• You have to find a balance between general and detailed. That balance depends on the story you need to tell. You don't want a statement of synthesis that's so broad it covers everything you're going to say in your paper or so narrow that you aren't telling a relevant story.

• If your story is about ethnic strife in Europe, you don't want a statement of synthesis that talks about the future of Western civilization, and you don't want one that talks about one group's inability to plant its crops.

[End page 16 of 81.]