“How many theories should I include?” Wrong question!

Students often come to me when their first assignment draft is done and ask, “What theories should I add in now?”, “How many theories do I need to include?”.

These are the wrong questions to be asking.

So, what should you be doing with theory from the word “go”?

Five things: Discover. Ask. Research. Record. Apply.,

(1) Discover

Look at the documentation that comes with the module or unit you are studying. You’ll find it on Moodle, Blackboard or other platform that your college or university uses. Download any module or unit guides and handbooks, marking criteria and learning outcomes. These documents will refer to theory and they may well identify particular bodies of theory or types of theory you need to draw upon.

(2) Ask

Contact your professor. Email them, say that you’re keen to ensure that you’re focusing on the right theory from the outset. Write something like, “I’ve looked at the marking criteria and the learning outcomes. I’m under the impression that this is the theory I need to be exploring, am I right?”. Or, if the documentation wasn’t very specific, ask them which theories you should be focusing on. This will ensure that you head off in the right direction.

(3) Research

Research those theories. Ask your professor to recommend some reading around them. Look on your college or university library website and search for introductory theory textbooks. For example, if you’re studying criminology, look for books with the titles “Introduction to Criminological Theory”, if you’re studying Social Work, look for books with the title, “Introduction to Social Work Theory”.

(4) Record

Make some detailed notes on those theories whilst you’re reading about them and ensure you are doing so strategically. Create a table and put details about each theory into it. Include a short summary of the theory in a few sentences. Critically analyse it, what are its strengths and weaknesses? How valuable is it? What contribution does it make?

For more tips on how to do a thorough critical analysis, check out my recent blogpost on this. In your table, make sure that you are writing things in your own words, rather than just copying and pasting things from the stuff you read. This helps you to develop your understanding of the theory, and it also gives you some useful phrases and summaries that you can lift out and repurpose for your assignments.

(5) APPLY

Apply what you are learning about theory to the issues you are exploring in the assignment. You are beginning to research the theory at the beginning of your assignment. It is something that should run parallel to the process of researching the actual issues that the assignment explores. As such, the way in which you are thinking about the issues will be theory informed.

And that is your five-step process to make sure that theory isn’t an afterthought!

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