Critical Reading and Writing for Postgraduates - Doctorado en ...

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making a critical choice perhaps some set texts. If so, someone else has made decisions on your behalf to get you started. But there will still come a point when you have to decide what to read. The more principled you can make your choices, the better. Strategy is paramount. Apart from planning ahead – getting to the library before the crowd for instance – it is useful to operate a two-stage process when identifying what to read. First, draw up a long-list of texts that look important. Then select those which look most central to your reading purpose (discussed below). An advantage of this approach is that you can easily compensate if an item you had targeted is not available. You can work out from your long-list what other text might fulfil the same function. Drawing up the long-list is relatively straightforward. You might consider any of these tactics: •• Use any recommended reading list for your module or subject area, including those from past years. •• Search the Internet for reading lists posted up for similar modules at other universities, and identify texts that are repeatedly recommended. •• Look up one or two important texts in the library catalogue. Then do a search using their subject code to see what else has been classified as covering the same topic. •• Go to the library shelves and see what is physically stored under the same class mark as the key recommended texts. •• Note how many copies the library has of a particular text. If there are plenty, it has evidently been a recommended text at some point. •• As you begin to read, note texts that are often cited by others, and whether positively or negatively (both may be useful). •• Make a list of the three or four journals most often carrying papers that have been recommended or frequently cited, then check the back and current issues of those journals for similar papers. •• Use abstracts databases to search for papers via keywords and author names that you associate with the topic. •• Look through the catalogues (on paper or on-line) of the leading academic publishers to see what has come out recently. •• Check what books have been reviewed in recent academic journals. In this way, you can soon build up your list of possible reading, from which you can choose what you actually read and in how much detail. Yet you might reasonably ask why you should consider reading anything that has not been specifically recommended to you. A relevant text may not be included on your reading list for various reasons. There may not have been room for all the possible items. Or your topic may be one of several covered in the module, so it has not been given many entries of its own. By keeping the reading list small, the lecturer may be encouraging you to take some 15
critical reading and writing for postgraduates responsibility for seeking out appropriate literature. In short, it is up to you to find out what else might be worth reading and add it to your long-list. From long-list to short-list How should you decide which items on your long-list to prioritize? Your reading has to achieve several aims that your selection of texts must take into account. A convincing essay (or dissertation) is likely to cover some or all of the following in relation to the literature: •• An overview of what the key issues in the field are and why they are important. •• An overview of what has been done and found out, and a summary of where the field of enquiry currently stands. •• Some specific examples of the sorts of methodology, results and analysis reported by individual researchers. •• Answers to one or more specific questions that you have been required, or have chosen, to address. No single text can support all of these agendas. You may need one set of texts to help you develop your overview, another set to help you interpret the work to date within its wider context, yet another to give you specific information about methodology and analysis, and so on. To target your reading, ensure that you short-list a variety of texts that between them will help you achieve each of your goals. But how can you tell what a particular text is most likely to be useful for? One way is by categorizing texts according to their main purpose. Support literature Textbooks Most students turn to textbooks early on in their academic studies. There are two basic types. Firstly, skills textbooks aim to help you learn such things as how to design a robust investigation or analyse data statistically. They are not usually problematic to use, since it is clear that they are a tool rather than a resource. Secondly, subject textbooks generally introduce readers to a field of academic enquiry, and are explicitly designed to support students’ learning. Features of textbooks may include: •• They are relatively cheap compared with research books. •• Words like ‘introduction’, ‘guide’ or ‘study’ appear in the title or the series title. •• They are available in softback, and have an eye-catching cover. 16
Page 1 and 2: Second Edition Second Edition Secon
Page 3 and 4: Education at SAGE SAGE is a leading
Page 5 and 6: © Mike Wallace and Alison Wray 201
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Page 9 and 10: How to Use this Book The book is ai
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Part Two Developing an In-Depth Ana
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12 Focusing and Building up your Cr
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What makes a literature review crit
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13 Integrating Critical Literature
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integrating critical literature rev
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15 Using the Literature in Research
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Appendix 1 ‘One word or two? Psyc
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appendix 1 Certificates were issued
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appendix 1 why a speaker/writer cho
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appendix 1 do so, they would be Afr
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appendix 1 account for why the expe
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appendix 1 but it could still be ar
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appendix 2 may inhere in their ende
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appendix 2 and organized to meet it
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appendix 2 ways that generate poor
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appendix 2 control. Changing belief
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appendix 2 sharing to consulting te
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appendix 2 Other SMT members Norms
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appendix 2 3 Other teachers have th
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Appendix 3 CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF A T
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appendix 3 (d) How does the sort of
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appendix 3 (d) With what degree of
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appendix 3 (d) Are sources of backi
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appendix 3 8 To what extent are cla
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Appendix 4 Logic checksheet: Develo
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appendix 4 Focusing the presentatio
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Index abstraction level of 84, 86 a
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