escription
Method choice is a reflection of your own work and thought as a critic. Even more than with
your text selection, perhaps, your selection of a method is an indication of your purpose and therefore the significance and “meaning” of your work. In this paper you will make such a case by demonstrating your fluency with a method. A recommended structure for your paper:
-Review a number of pieces that discuss – at both the theoretical and “practice” level – the
method you intend to employ. In other words, a literature review. The aims of this
literature review ought to include:
a) an exposition of the fundamental assumptions and rationales for the method (not
necessarily specifically with regard to your essay, although that will come in this
paper…more in terms of what is ____ method about? Why do it? What does one “get
from doing it?)
b) some demonstration of how that method “operates in action” by showing how
previous scholars have employed the method, and what they were able to “learn”
from that method [note: you do not need to – and should not – go through extensive
summaries of these pieces, perhaps a paragraph at most for all but the most
significant pieces]. Think of this section as “showing off” the benefits of the method.
As such it ought to have some sense that each piece you discuss adds some new,
interesting possibilities of what can be done
c) Any limitations – as you see it – of the method and, if possible, ways you intend to
“correct” these deficiencies. This last part is what most demonstrates “your place in
the conversation” and your contribution as a scholar. It allows you to show that you
are familiar with the debates over the assumptions, entailments, and efficacy of a
particular method, that you have taken a particular side (or sides), or that you have
added to our collective wisdom by correcting/refining/amplifying/eviscerating some
concept. In short, you are asking (and answering) the question: Is this method
“enough” or adequate and if not why not?
This review ought to take into account between
3-5 essays.
Last, some sense of HOW you will employ the method. In other words, what particular
“tools” of the method are you most interested in using? Why?
Yes, you may draw from several methods if you wish. In this case the essay should demonstrate (obviously) why each is necessary. Another way of putting it is that you will be building a case for why the methods complement one another in some way.