Full Description
Becoming a Social Science Researcher is designed to help aspiring social scientists, including credentialed scholars, understand the formidable complexities of the research process. Instead of explaining specific research techniques, it concentrates on the philosophical, sociological, and psychological dimensions of social research. These dimensions have received little coverage in guides written for social science researchers, but they are arguably even more important than particular analytical techniques. Truly sophisticated social science scholarship requires that researchers understand the intellectual and social contexts in which they collect and interpret information. While social science training in US graduate schools has become more systematic over the past two decades, graduate training and published guidance still fall short in addressing this fundamental need.
Contents
Preface
List of Tables and Illustrations
I. Preview
Why You Should Read This Book
Chapter Summaries
II. The Context of Your Quest
1. Perception and Misperception in Life and Scholarship
2. Social Science and History
3. Scholarship as Social Process and as Politics
4. Progress in Social Science—Real and Imaginary
5. Dimensions of Social Science
III. Your Quest: Weighing Intellectual Choices
6. Building Faculty Relationships and Preparing for Your Doctoral Exams
7. Choosing Research Problems: Personal Values and Disciplinary Agendas
8. Concept Formation—The Heart of Analytical Thought
9. Hypotheses, Theories, and Research Designs
10. Case Studies and Comparative Methods
11. The Logics of Explanation
IV. Your Quest: From Planning to Finishing
12. Planning the Project and Writing Your Prospectus
13. Mapping Research Resources and Gathering Evidence
14. Producing a Draft
15. Through the Jungle: Guiding Your Reader (and Yourself)
16. Getting to Go: Revising and Defending
17. Your Choices and Your Futures
"On the Meaning of Education"
Information on the Supplementary Website
Acknowledgments
