How To Research
1st Edition
Published on 1. January 2010
329 pages
978-0-335-23869-9 (ISBN)
Description
How to Research is a clear and accessible guide to the business of doing a research project. It systematically takes the reader through from the planning to the writing up and finishing off.
More details
Other editions
Additional editions
Loraine Blaxter | Christina Hughes | Malcolm Tight
How to Research
Book
09/2010
4th Edition
Open University Press
€35.00
Shipment within 15-20 days
Content
- Front cover
- Half title page
- Title page
- Copyright page
- Contents
- List of boxes
- 1 All at sea but learning to swim
- Introduction
- The first time researcher
- Getting a flavour of possibilities
- Why am I doing this research?
- Will I have anything new to say?
- In whose interests is this research?
- At last, writing up
- How to use this book
- What's different about this edition?
- Summary
- Exercises
- Further reading
- 2 Getting started
- Introduction
- Choosing a topic
- What to do if you can't think of a topic
- Focusing
- Finding and choosing your supervisor
- Individual and group research
- Researching in your workplace
- Keeping your research diary
- Summary
- Exercises
- Further reading
- 3 Thinking about methods
- Introduction
- Everyday research skills
- Which method is best?
- Families, approaches and techniques
- Action research
- Case studies
- Experiments
- Surveys
- Which methods suit?
- Deciding about methods
- Summary
- Exercises
- Further reading
- 4 Reading for research
- Introduction
- Why read?
- Coping with the research literature
- Basic reading strategies
- Using libraries
- Using the internet
- Good enough reading
- Reading about method as well as subject
- Recording your reading
- The literature review
- Issues in reading
- Summary
- Exercises
- Further reading
- 5 Managing your project
- Introduction
- Managing time
- Mapping your project
- Piloting
- Dealing with key figures and institutions
- Sharing responsibility
- Using computers
- Managing not to get demoralized when things do not go as planned
- Summary
- Exercises
- Further reading
- 6 Preparing to collect data
- Introduction
- Access and ethical issues
- Sampling and selection
- Recording your progress
- The ups and downs of data collection
- Summary
- Exercises
- Further reading
- 7 Collecting data
- Introduction
- Applying techniques for collecting data
- Documents
- Interviews
- Observations
- Questionnaires
- Mixed methodologies
- Summary
- Exercises
- Further reading
- 8 Preparing to analyse data
- Introduction
- The shape of your data
- The nature of data
- Managing your data
- Computer-based data management and analysis
- The process of analysis
- Summary
- Exercises
- Further reading
- 9 Analysing your data
- Introduction
- Analytical strategies
- Analysing documents
- Analysing interviews
- Analysing observations
- Analysing questionnaires
- Interpretation
- Summary
- Exercises
- Further reading
- 10 Writing up
- Introduction
- Drafting and redrafting
- How to argue
- How to criticize
- Who am I writing for?
- Grammar, referencing and plagiarism
- Using tables, diagrams and other illustrations
- Panics
- Summary
- Exercises
- Further reading
- 11 Finishing off
- Introduction
- Planning to finish?
- The penultimate and final drafts
- Added extras
- The process of assessment
- What do I do now?
- Summary
- Exercise
- Further reading
- References
- Index
- Back cover
