Reddit mentions of Dialectical Materialism: Its Laws, Categories, and Practice

I can give you the definition that scholar Ira Gollobin gives in his book Dialectical Materialism: It's Laws, Categories, and Practice which I found pretty helpful as, not so much a hard-and-fast rule, but as a useful heuristic. He claims that dialectics are the basic and general truths about the universe. They can be applied to two general categories: 1) The objective (the universe, nature, objects outside the mind) and 2) The subjective (the experiencing person, the objects and faculties of the mind).

Furthermore there are (again generally speaking) Three dialectical laws... A) The Unity and Conflict of Contradictions B) The transformation of Quantity into Quality and vice verse and C) The Negation of Negation

When you apply these laws to phenomenon you wish to examine then you are engaging in dialectical study.

But dialectics is a pretty complicated issue and you won't get a nice neat short answer that is totally comprehensive (it's like asking "what is logic" or "what does it mean to say 'I'm a scientist?' ").

Here are some reading materials I would recommend which my clear some things up. I have listed them in order of difficulty from easiest to hardest...

-Dialectics for Kids

-Dance of the Dialectics: Steps in Marx's Method by Bertell Ollman

-Dialectical Materialism: It's Laws, Categories, and Practice by Ira Gollobin

The Dialectics of the Abstract and the Concrete in Marx's Capital by E.V. Ilyenkov

Dialectical Logic by E.V. Ilyenkov

Good Luck!