Qualitative Research Methods – serie

You've finished your research and have reached the point of writing it up. You know your findings are important both for your colleagues and for a more general public. But how do you write this material to appeal to different audiences? In Writing Strategies, Laurel Richardson shows you how. Drawing on her own experiences, she carefully outlines strategies for writing up the same research in different ways. By showing the reader the stylistic and intellectual imperatives and conventions of different writing media, she prepares the writer for approaching and successfully addressing diverse audiences. From writing academic papers to trade books, from scientific writing to widely circulated work, your needs will be met using this volume as your personal guidebook. Writing Strategies will be useful to ethnographers, researchers and teachers of language and writing, and to all social scientists trying to present their material in different ways.

"There are lessons for every writer about rhetorical strategies and narrative choices. . . . She is effective in demonstrating the micro strategies of creating an authorial persona: showing how particular phrases and passages were deployed to convince the reader of the legitimacy of her text, both for the popular market and the academic one."

--Contemporary Sociology

"Excellent advice on getting started, keeping going and crafting your writing advice offered towards appropriate audiences, and much of the advice offered is as applicable to quantitative as qualitative work."

--Social Research Association News

From the First Edition:

"Continues the high quality of previously published volumes in the Sage series on qualitative research methods. . . . Useful and instructive. . . . David L. Morgan deals with a number of practical issues concerning the conduct of focus groups, such as the degree of moderator involvement and group size. . . . Provides ample illustrations . . . and thought-provoking advice for researchers and students."

--Contemporary Sociology

"David L. Morgan's book is unique among current offerings on focus groups because it is directed at academic users of focus groups rather than practitioners. His account is also unique in its critical attitude toward contemporary market research applications of focus groups. . . . The book succeeds best at providing fuel for scholarly debates about what group interviews can and cannot contribute to research."

--Journal of Marketing Research

"Provides the reader with a very clear and practical overview of the focus group as a method for field research. . . . Well-written and informative. . . . Providing the history and methodological rationale for the method. . . . Attests to the benefits or strengths of focus group research on the basis of personal opinion and testimonial evidence."

--Personnel Psychology

Only a decade ago, focus groups were virtually unknown to social scientists. Now their use in academic as well as outside settings is vast and ever growing. David L. Morgan has extensively revised and updated his best-selling Focus Groups as Qualitative Research, providing an excellent guide for researchers in every discipline. He begins his comprehensive revision with an updated introduction that offers a discussion of current social science approaches to focus groups. Expanded coverage on the comparison of focus groups to individual interviews follows, as well as more on the strengths and weaknesses of focus groups (Chapter 2). Chapter 3's section on self-contained focus groups has also been expanded to reflect the increased range of research being done in this area. The next chapter has been thoroughly reorganized both to provide an overview of what a typical set of groups looks like as well as new insights on research design. Similarly, Chapters 5 and 6 have been reorganized and broadened to include examples from social scientists who have established their own practices and methodological research on focus groups. This best-selling research guide concludes with future directions and references that take into account the explosive growth in focus groups as a research tool for all social scientists.

Reflecting the many changes that have occurred in the study of focus groups over the years, Focus Groups as Qualitative Research, Second Edition is for qualitative researchers in every academic discipline as well as those in nonacademic settings.

From the First Edition:

"Continues the high quality of previously published volumes in the Sage series on qualitative research methods. . . . Useful and instructive. . . . David L. Morgan deals with a number of practical issues concerning the conduct of focus groups, such as the degree of moderator involvement and group size. . . . Provides ample illustrations . . . and thought-provoking advice for researchers and students."

--Contemporary Sociology

"David L. Morgan's book is unique among current offerings on focus groups because it is directed at academic users of focus groups rather than practitioners. His account is also unique in its critical attitude toward contemporary market research applications of focus groups. . . . The book succeeds best at providing fuel for scholarly debates about what group interviews can and cannot contribute to research."

--Journal of Marketing Research

"Provides the reader with a very clear and practical overview of the focus group as a method for field research. . . . Well-written and informative. . . . Providing the history and methodological rationale for the method. . . . Attests to the benefits or strengths of focus group research on the basis of personal opinion and testimonial evidence."

--Personnel Psychology

Only a decade ago, focus groups were virtually unknown to social scientists. Now their use in academic as well as outside settings is vast and ever growing. David L. Morgan has extensively revised and updated his best-selling Focus Groups as Qualitative Research, providing an excellent guide for researchers in every discipline. He begins his comprehensive revision with an updated introduction that offers a discussion of current social science approaches to focus groups. Expanded coverage on the comparison of focus groups to individual interviews follows, as well as more on the strengths and weaknesses of focus groups (Chapter 2). Chapter 3's section on self-contained focus groups has also been expanded to reflect the increased range of research being done in this area. The next chapter has been thoroughly reorganized both to provide an overview of what a typical set of groups looks like as well as new insights on research design. Similarly, Chapters 5 and 6 have been reorganized and broadened to include examples from social scientists who have established their own practices and methodological research on focus groups. This best-selling research guide concludes with future directions and references that take into account the explosive growth in focus groups as a research tool for all social scientists.

Reflecting the many changes that have occurred in the study of focus groups over the years, Focus Groups as Qualitative Research, Second Edition is for qualitative researchers in every academic discipline as well as those in nonacademic settings.

First-person narratives are a fundamental tool of the qualitative researcher. One of the latest volumes in the Qualitative Research Methods series, The Life Story Interview provides specific suggestions and guidelines for preparing and executing a life story interview. Author Robert Atkinson, Director of the Center for the Study of Lives at the University of Southern Maine, places the life story interview into a wider research context before moving on to planning and conducting the interview. Atkinson carefully covers the classic functions of stories, the research uses of life stories, generating data from a life story, and the art and science of life story interviewing. He also thoroughly examines the potential benefits of sharing a life story, getting the information desired and questions to ask, and transcribing and interpreting the interview. To provide further support for the reader, the book concludes with a sample life story interview.

As the use and study of narratives continues to grow in importance throughout the research enterprise, The Life Story Interview becomes an even-more valuable tool for qualitative researchers in all disciplines.

The latest volume in the Qualitative Research Methods series, A Narrative Approach to Organization Studies presents a specific approach to organization studies and provides illustrations of its use. Inspired by the works of Bakhtin, Eco, Rorty, and Silverman, author Barbara Czarniawska asserts that narratives are still the main carriers of knowledge in modern societies. Drawing on more than 25 years of field organization studies undertaken throughout Europe and the United States, Czarniawska takes the reader through the narrative approach, from positioning one's self in the field to writing up the research. A Narrative Approach to Organization Studies will be an invaluable research tool for researchers in management, public administration, sociology, anthropology, education, and political science.

Whether the goals of research are applied or more abstract, team research has been an important aspect of ethnography. In Doing Team Ethnography, the latest volume in the Qualitative Research Methods series, authors Ken Erickson and Donald Stull examine the myriad of challenges and opportunities in doing team ethnography. From setting goals and putting together a team, to observing, sharing, and collaborating on a finished product, Doing Team Ethnography provides clear and practical advice to researchers at any level or in any discipline.

Whether the goals of research are applied or more abstract, team research has been an important aspect of ethnography. In Doing Team Ethnography, the latest volume in the Qualitative Research Methods series, authors Ken Erickson and Donald Stull examine the myriad of challenges and opportunities in doing team ethnography. From setting goals and putting together a team, to observing, sharing, and collaborating on a finished product, Doing Team Ethnography provides clear and practical advice to researchers at any level or in any discipline.

This book in the QRM series is designed for a wide variety of research methods courses taught in various departments. It will be of most interest to those in Public Policy, Political Science, and Public Administration departments, but will also be of interest to researchers in Sociology, Anthropology, Communication and Education departments, among others. The book fills a gap in the traditional policy analysis coverage, which is usually heavily quantitative. It will also fill a gap in the QRM series in covering the discipline of political science, which is warming to qualitative methodology…slowly.

There has been much in the journal literature in the past 15 years calling for more interpretive approaches to the study of public policy; Yanow has been in the middle of it.

This Second Edition summarizes the state of the art of gender issues in fieldwork both in anthropology and sociology. Warren shows how the researcher's gender affects both the fieldwork relationships and the production of ethnography. The authors focus is more empirical than theoretical; using literature on gender and ethnography, together with their own experiences as women ethnographers, they focus on ways in which researchers represent these experiences through narrative. 

This Second Edition summarizes the state of the art of gender issues in fieldwork both in anthropology and sociology. Warren shows how the researcher's gender affects both the fieldwork relationships and the production of ethnography. The authors focus is more empirical than theoretical; using literature on gender and ethnography, together with their own experiences as women ethnographers, they focus on ways in which researchers represent these experiences through narrative. 

Discourse Analysis: Investigating Processes of Social Construction is the first book to provide a concise, straightforward guide for students and researchers who are interested in understanding and using discourse analysis. The authors reflect on the practice of analyzing discourse and the potential for revealing the processes of social construction that constitute social and organizational life. Addressed to graduate students, academics, and experienced researchers, this book is a comprehensive guide for those new to discourse analysis as well as for researchers in need of a complement to other modes of inquiry. 

Discourse Analysis: Investigating Processes of Social Construction is the first book to provide a concise, straightforward guide for students and researchers who are interested in understanding and using discourse analysis. The authors reflect on the practice of analyzing discourse and the potential for revealing the processes of social construction that constitute social and organizational life. Addressed to graduate students, academics, and experienced researchers, this book is a comprehensive guide for those new to discourse analysis as well as for researchers in need of a complement to other modes of inquiry. 

The process of collecting accurate data through interviewing, questionnaires, and other methods has not always been clear. However, data collection in field settings can be done in a structured, systematic and scientific way. These authors show us how. First, they focus on the importance of finding the right questions to ask. By providing a variety of formats - triadic comparisons and rating scales for data collection, both oral and written methods - and stressing cultural relativity, Weller and Romney suggest ways to improve not only the data collected, but also the interpretation and analysis of such data. Primarily addressed to qualitative social scientists, this volume is also appropriate for anyone who wants to study attitudes and beliefs. In particular, it is an ideal text for courses in anthropology, linguistics, qualitative research methods, health care, and survey research.

Like all writing, biographies are interpretive. They require no less than organizing into text the chaos of human existence. Interpretive Biography Norman Denzin combines one of the oldest techniques in the social sciences and humanities with one of the newest. Bringing in elements of postmodernism and interpretive social science, he reexamines the biographical and autobiographical genres. The book points up the inherent weaknesses in traditional biographical forms, and outlines a new way in which biographies should be conceptualized and shaped.

With numerous examples taken from his own work and those of past biographies, this practical volume makes provocative reading for all social scientists.

"I believe most sociologists will find this work useful because of several contributions. Of particular merit here is the development of the sociological enterprise along lines of the ''sociological imagination.'' Denzin not only adds to the Mills tradition, but also extends it . . . most useful for those also versed in phenomenological and cognitive theories."

--Teaching Sociology

"Denzin's critical grasp of the subtle issues in biography production can serve as conceptual benchmarks in the production of biographical ''texts'' in the field."

--Nexus: The Canadian Student Journal of Anthropology

"In five short chapters, Interpretive Biography provides an excellent guide to the assumptions of the biographical method, to its key terms, and to the strategies for gathering and interpreting such materials. In this book, he introduces the key concept of epiphany, or turning points in person's lives. Along the way, a host of examples are provided, making this an extremely valuable volume for practitioners of the method."

--The Sociological Review

"Skillfully uses examples from sociological life stories to show deficiencies in current research procedures and the new dimensions that semiotic analysis can add."

--Contemporary Sociology

"A welcome addition to the literature on qualitative research methodology."

--Qualitative Studies in Education