How to be more critical in your dissertation literature review
“Be more critical”.
“Stop being so descriptive”.
“Go further in your analysis”.
All incredibly common feedback received by postgraduate social science students on their dissertation literature review drafts.
But HOW can you be more critical, stop being so descriptive and go further in your critical analysis?
In this blogpost, I’m going to explore three questions to help you be more critical…
What’s it about?
How can it be applied to my dissertation topic?
How valuable is it for my literature review specifically?
What’s it about?
Before you can start critically analysing something, whether that’s a theory, a piece of research, an idea, an intervention, you’ve got to demonstrate your understanding of it. The person reading your dissertation needs to be convinced that you actually know what you’re on about.
So, take a couple of sentences and describe the thing you’re analysing. Don’t waffle on about it for ages, just say enough to demonstrate you know what you’re on about.
For example, say you’re writing about feminist theory because that’s the theoretical framework for some of the literature you’re reviewing. You might say…
Feminism describes a range of theoretical positions, all of which agree that gender is an important organizing principle of social life. However, they differ in other respects, for example, the work of ___ focuses upon, whilst the work of ____ concerns ____
That answers the ‘What’s it all about?’ question and shows the reader that you know your stuff.
Use these phrases as prompts when developing your responses to the “What’s it all about?” question…
_______ concerns _______
_______ describes _______
_______ focuses upon _______
How can it be applied to my dissertation topic?
Here, you are taking the piece of literature or the concept you’re analysing and thinking about who or what it’s relevant for in relation to your dissertation.
Say for example, your dissertation is looking at how effective boxing clubs are in preventing young people offending and you’ve come across a piece of literature about netball and preventing young women offending. Is this relevant for your dissertation? Well no, not entirely. But bits of it might be. Which bits might be helpful, which bits might not? Are there any general concepts or theoretical models that you can take from it?
Another example, you’re looking at the role of online forums in supporting women with postpartum depression. You’ve come across a piece of literature about the role of face-to-face support groups in supporting women with postpartum depression. It’s about the same group of people, with the same issue – but the context in which the support is provided is different. Might this piece of literature tell you something about what women’s support needs are, the kind of things they need help with, even if the specifics of that piece of literature are more concerned with online forums? Does it identify the disadvantages of face-to-face support groups? Does this open up the opportunity to start thinking about where online forums might be helpful to fill in the gaps that in-person support groups leave. Could you use it for that?
Here are some phrases you can use when you’re addressing this question in your work …
_____ can be applied to _______
_____ is limited in its capacity to explain _______
_____ is relevant when considering _______
_____ has a bearing on _______
_____ has an impact upon _______
How valuable is it for my literature review?
Here, you are making a judgement about the value of the piece of literature you’re examining. You’re evaluating it. You’re looking at its strengths and weaknesses.
How helpful is it? How does it help push the needle forwards?
So, for example, say that you’re considering the value of symbolic interactionism in making sense of why some children are excluded from school. You might come across Howard Becker’s labelling theory and think, “That’s really valuable because when a child is labelled as naughty or badly behaved, that tends to stick, that tends to influence how people behave towards them and how they think about themselves, which then impacts on how they behave”. So, you may conclude that this is useful in making sense of how children come to be excluded from school.
However, you might also find that symbolic interactionism tends to focus on the individual and those around them but it doesn’t spend a lot of time looking at the social, cultural or political context in which that behaviour takes place. How come particular behaviours, and particular children, come to be labelled as naughty in the first place? Where do these expectations come from? Has it always been like this? If not, when did it change? Is symbolic interactionism all that helpful when we think about those bigger picture issues? What does it contribute towards our understanding here?
You’ll find that whilst symbolic interactionism is helpful in one respect, there’s another respect in which it’s lacking, there are things it doesn’t look at.
Here are some phrases you can use when you’re addressing this question in your literature review …
_____ is helpful in that _______ , however it fails to _______
Whilst _____ explains _______ , it does not provide a compelling explanation for _______
To gain a comprehensive understanding, it is important to also consider the contribution of _______
______ helps understand _______ to a large extent / to some extent / not at all.
There you have three questions to help supercharge your critical analysis in your dissertation literature review. For more helpful insights like this, become a Degree Doctor insider and join my email subscriber list! Every Wednesday, I share quick, easy to implement tips that you can start using right away to take your dissertation to the next level. Click below to sign up!