Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. Finding your Social Science Project
  • Cited by 3
      • Show more authors
      • You may already have access via personal or institutional login
    • Select format
    • Publisher:
      Cambridge University Press
      Publication date:
      October 2022
      October 2022
      ISBN:
      9781009118620
      9781009100397
      9781009114912
      DOI:
      https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009118620
      Dimensions:
      (244 x 170 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.78kg, 354 Pages
      Dimensions:
      (244 x 170 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.6kg, 354 Pages
      • Subjects:
      Research Methods in Politics, Research Methods in Sociology and Criminology, Research Methods In Sociology and Criminology, Qualitative Research Methods, Research Methods In Politics
      Series:
      Strategies for Social Inquiry
    You may already have access via personal or institutional login
    • Selected: Digital
    Add to cart View cart Buy from Cambridge.org
    Subjects:
    Research Methods in Politics, Research Methods in Sociology and Criminology, Research Methods In Sociology and Criminology, Qualitative Research Methods, Research Methods In Politics
    Series:
    Strategies for Social Inquiry
    Information

    Book description

    The most important step in social science research is the first step – finding a topic. Unfortunately, little guidance on this crucial and difficult challenge is available. Methodological studies and courses tend to focus on theory testing rather than theory generation. This book aims to redress that imbalance. The first part of the book offers an overview of the book's central concerns. How do social scientists arrive at ideas for their work? What are the different ways in which a study can contribute to knowledge in a field? The second part of the book offers suggestions about how to think creatively, including general strategies for finding a topic and heuristics for discovery. The third part of the book shows how data exploration may assist in generating theories and hypotheses. The fourth part of the book offers suggestions about how to fashion disparate ideas into a theory.

    Reviews

    ‘Exploration and inspiration are necessary to locate a good social science topic; and this book tells you why and shows you how. Playful and insightful; highly recommended.’

    Richard Swedberg - Cornell University, New York

    ‘This innovative book endorses diverse approaches to focusing research projects: induction from data, deduction from theory, concentration on data that lends itself to strong causal inference (for example, natural experiments), and concern with explaining major events in the world. The book is engagingly written and will be an excellent text in the classroom. Bravo for Gerring and Seawright!’

    David Collier - UC Berkeley

    Refine List

    Actions for selected content:

    Select all | Deselect all
    • View selected items
    • Export citations
    • Download PDF (zip)
    • Save to Kindle
    • Save to Dropbox
    • Save to Google Drive

    Save Search

    You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

    Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
    Cancel
    ×

    Contents

    Contents

    Metrics

    Altmetric attention score

    Full text views

    Total number of HTML views: 0
    Total number of PDF views: 0 *
    Loading metrics...

    Book summary page views

    Total views: 0 *
    Loading metrics...

    * Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

    Usage data cannot currently be displayed.

    Accessibility standard: Unknown

    Why this information is here

    This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

    Accessibility Information

    Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.