Making Sense of the Social World: Methods of Investigation

• Provides greater detail on qualitative data analysis: A new chapter draws attention to the distinctive features of qualitative data analysis and illustrates several different approaches. There is a new section in this chapter on visual sociology and more on computer-assisted qualitative data analysis.
• Offers an expanded appendix on secondary data resources: The appendix on sources of secondary data has been greatly expanded and now includes instructions for using the resources available at the Inter-university Consortium on Political and Social Research (ICPSR).
• Provides writing techniques: New sections on writing techniques and literature reviews provide tips for writing clearly and on preparing a composite literature review.
• Improves clarity of traditionally difficult topics: There is expanded coverage of conceptualization, units and levels of analysis, ecological fallacy, and the varieties of longitudinal research designs to provide a better understanding of these often difficult topics. The authors also include mnemonics–memory tricks–to help students remember important distinctions.
• Increases international examples: Reflecting the increasingly global scope of social science research, more examples are included from researchers in other countries or about persons from countries outside the United States.
• Expands treatment of human subjects issues: More details are provided about how to consider ethical issues involving the treatment of human subjects in research, as well as the increasing role of university IRB’s in student research.

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