- The tool can help users to practice, and turn into a habit, looking beyond the (mainstream) body of literature that they are being presented with.
- Students can follow these steps to train their critical eye towards literature selections and think about what kind of literature would be relevant to their research projects, essays, and other coursework.
- The questions provided in this tool can also be used as questions to discuss with colleagues and students to critically analyze certain literature.
What does your literature selection currently look like?
This helps you to become more critically aware of the perspective(s) that are presented in your current body of literature. Some variables to consider:
- What are the (sub)disciplinary backgrounds of the authors/books?
- What are the educational-geographical backgrounds of the authors/books?
- What are the social backgrounds of the authors you read?
What is missing?
As a follow up from the first section, this section focuses on identifying the holes in a body of literature, which literature can be added and how to add it.