I think that anyone who has an interest in traditional archival research will find this a thoughtful and valuable guide to the many different elements of the research process. --Theory and Methods "His research advice is systematic and thorough and could easily serve for other researchers than sociobiographers. In eighty-eight pages, Hill has managed to pack not only this sound research advice but a critique of archival practices and a six-page bibliography. The book is certainly worth a r...

John Gerring's exceptional textbook has been thoroughly revised in this second edition. It offers a one-volume introduction to social science methodology relevant to the disciplines of anthropology, economics, history, political science, psychology and sociology. This new edition has been extensively developed with the introduction of new material and a thorough treatment of essential elements such as conceptualization, measurement, causality and research design. It is written for students...

Narrative Inquiry provides both a new theoretical orientation and a set of practical techniques that students and experienced researchers can use to conduct narrative research. Explaining the principles of what she terms "dynamic narrating," author Colette Daiute provides an approach to narrative inquiry that builds on practices of daily life where we use storytelling to connect with other people, deal with social structures, make sense of surrounding events, and craft our...

This book is a ′survival guide′ for students and researchers who would like to conduct a qualitative study with limited resources. Brinkmann shows how everyday life materials such as books, television, the internet, the media and everyday conversations and interactions can help us to understand larger social issues.As living human beings in cultural worlds, we are constantly surrounded by ′data′ that call for analysis, and as we cope with the different situations and episodes of ou...

InFirst Person Action Research Judi Marshall invites her reader to join her in the rich world of first person inquiry: a reflexive approach to life and to one’s own participation in research and learning.Written as a collage of interrelated chapters, fragments and voices, this is an important meditation on the nature of inquiring action. Judi Marshall’s book provides an accessible introduction to self-reflective practice; exploring its principles and practices and illustra...

Qualitative Social Research employs an accessible approach to present the multiple ways in which criticism enhances research practice. Packed full of relevant, ′real world′ examples, it showcases the strengths and pitfalls of each research method, integrating the philosophical groundings of qualitative research with thoughtful overviews of a range of commonly used methods.This book is ideal for students and prospective researchers and explains what makes qualitative sociol...

`The authors make excellent use of illustrative examples′ - Reference ReviewsThe SAGE Dictionary of Statistics provides students and researchers with an accessible and definitive resource to use when studying statistics in the social sciences, reading research reports and undertaking data analysis. Written by leading academics in the field of methodology and statistics, the Dictionary will be an essential study guide for the first-time researcher a...

With increased emphasis on helping readers understand the context in which power calculations are done, this Second Edition introduces a simple technique of statistical power analysis that allows researchers to compute approximate sample sizes and power for a wide range of research designs. Because the same technique is used with only slight modifications for different statistical tests, researchers can then easily compare the sample sizes required by different designs and...

Accurate data entry and analysis can be deceptively labor-intensive and time-consuming. Creating and Verifying Data Sets with Excel is a focused, easy-to-read guide that gives readers the wherewithal to make use of a remarkable set of data tools tucked within Excel—tools most researchers are entirely unaware of. Robert E. McGrath’s book is the first to focus exclusively on Excel as a data entry system. It incorporates a number of learning tools such as screenshots, text bo...

This concise, hands-on book by author Elizabeth A. Wentz is essential reading for any graduate student entering the dissertation process in the social or behavioral sciences. The book addresses the importance of ethical scientific research, developing your curriculum vitae, effective reading and writing, completing a literature review, conceptualizing your research idea, and translating that idea into a realistic research proposal using research methods.The author also offers insig...

Pricing drives three of the most important elements of firm success: revenue and profits, customer behavior and firm image. This book provides an introduction to the basic principles for thinking clearly about pricing. Unlike other marketing books on pricing, the authors use a more analytic approach and relate ideas to the basic principles of microeconomics. Rakesh Vohra and Lakshman Krishnamurthi also cover three areas in greater depth and provide more insight than may be gleaned from exi...

This book covers mediation analysis—the examination of whether an effect of one variable on another is direct or indirect or both. Author Dawn Iacobucci offers thorough coverage of introductory and advanced material as well as conceptual and statistical information. The book begins by introducing arguments of causality, and proceeds to examine current options for analyzing data patterns purported to exhibit meditational structures. Iacobucci shows direct and indirect paths via causal paths...