Literature Review

Purpose Foundation of ideas (classics and contemporary) Important themes and models (strands and examples) Touchstone: Meaningful work Comparison, setting the bar How does my works compare with influential works?

Two questions How can we use literature effectively? How does the literature get in our way and prevent us from doing our best work? Lit review as setting and context Making a table, standard pieces but leaving room for your own work

Becker’s research on deviance Label became the most important than about the person Power of a label/characteristic to override other characteristics Drew on existing literature to frame his argument

Critical question Why haven’t you looked at other theories to explore your argument? Take a look at the other “conversations” to discover other approaches May provide a fresh take for you

Ideological hegemony “being trapped in the categories of your time and place” Search for the dominant ideology and how it has shaped your thinking Not an easy task “routinely inspect competing ways of talking about the same subject matter”