How to Do Research: A Practical Guide to Designing and Managing Research Projects (3rd revised edition)
Nick MooreFacet Publishing2006176 pp.ISBN 978-1-85604-594-0Keywords: Research, Project management,ProjectsReview DOI: 10.1108/09565690710757986
This book should be read by anyone involved in academic research, students,early career researchers and lecturers alike. Students and researchers will be introduced in a structured way to the research process while lecturers will gain a useful teaching resource. Its success is evident: first published in 1983 this is the third revised edition. It does exactly what it says on the packet –it “focuses on the day-to-day requirements of project managing a piece of research right through from the formulation of the initial idea, to the development of a research proposal and then to the writing up and dissemination of results”. In order to achieve this the book is divided into two sections: the research process and methods.
The section on the research process leads the new researcher through the business of defining a research question – the issue, aims and objectives of the research – adopting an appropriate methodology, managing the research itself and writing it up and disseminating results. It also includes guidance on writing research proposals and on obtaining funding to support research.
The second section provides more detailed guidance on the technicalities of research methods, offering a brief description of available research techniques,and taking the reader through desk research, the collection and analysis of quantitative and qualitative data generated mainly through questionnaires and interviews and offering guidance on sampling and statistical analysis. Four pages of “further reading” are supplied. Finally a useful case study is provided. This is an example of an actual proposal submitted by the author when a member of the Policy Studies Institute, the aim of which was to identify the range of skills that would be required by future information professionals.
This book is most useful to those engaged in social science research: indeed it is clearly directed toward those researching “people and institutions and the relationships between them”. It identifies a range of funding bodies, with the ESRC (Economic & Social Research Council) as the most appropriate research council (the Arts & Humanities Research Council is not mentioned). While it recognises the needs of those undertaking research as part of undergraduate, master’s and doctoral degrees – and indeed much of the methodology outlined in section 2 will be extremely valuable to them –it is perhaps those aiming to secure funding for applied research that are the main audience. As such it concentrates on the requirements of applied and policy, rather than theoretical research arguing that while “theory”is useful for explaining things, and more likely to be undertaken as part of a qualification, the need to provide practical solutions “means that strategic research tends to place more reliance on empirical data and evidence than it does on theories and concepts”.
Given that the focus is on social science research it follows that the description of methodologies concentrates on the collection of data about people and their behaviour. Since this is best extracted via questionnaires and interviews, the main sources of raw data for social research, discussion of these methods predominate. Examples within these are centred on the selection and quantitative and qualitative analysis of data generated through samples of human populations. There is less direct guidance for those engaged on research into other humanities-related issues using inanimate sources. Records managers or archivists might want to investigate standards, systems, processes, records,finding aids or historical archives for example. While the overall content of the book will be tremendously helpful to them they should not expect to find examples or recommendations relating to research in these kinds of areas or resources.
This volume maintains discussion at the basic introductory level throughout. This serves to present the whole business of research as less daunting than it might otherwise appear, and this is ideal both for the novice researcher and as a check for the more experienced. It would have been good to have had more specific pointers to further sources, so that once confidence has been gained or when exploration in more depth (sampling, for example) is required there were more ready access to these. While the book list in Chapter 16 is helpful, a fuller bibliography (even the occasional footnote) would have been helpful.
This book is highly recommended. It is – like the research methods it advocates – well structured, with clear aims and objectives that are undoubtedly achieved, well written and accessible to its readers.
Caroline Williams University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
