The PhD Writing Handbook by
This is an invaluable guide to developing the writing skills needed to succeed at every stage of postgraduate research. It provides useful guidance on writing clearly and coherently, and covers core topics such as exploring key concepts through writing, building a structured chapter framework and completing a first draft. Each chapter features insights from researchers along with hands-on tasks and self-evaluation exercises to help readers develop their own strategies for success. This detailed, step-by-step guide to the secrets of successful PhD writing will be essential reading for PhD students and their supervisors across a wide range of disciplines.
Hot to Get a PhD by
It provides a practical, down-to-earth and realistic approach to studying for a PhD and offers support and reassurance for both students and supervisors.This brand new sixth edition has been thoroughly updated and revised throughout, and includes:
New material on how PhD students can make use of online forums, social media, online survey tools and other technologies throughout the PhD process
A new Chapter 10, 'Some challenges you may encounter throughout your PhD' includes practical advice for tackling prejudice and dealing with the pressures that can face early career researchers
Expanded material on avoiding plagiarism and poor academic practice and increased coverage of issues faced by part-time PhD students
The book retains its focus on delivering clear and practical advice, including tips for writing proposals and applying for funding, managing your time, writing an engaging PhD, and handling the viva.
Long regarded as the PhD 'bible', this edition is brought right up-to-date for today's student, retaining the straightforward and practical approach that has made it indispensable for students and supervisors across all academic disciplines.
Writing for Academic Success by
Writing for Academic Success is a vital practical guide for any ambitious student. If you seek to manage your writing effectively, reduce stress, and improve your confidence and efficiency, this book is for you. The authors show you how to acquire communicative rigor in research essays, reports, book and article reviews, exam papers, research proposals, and literature reviews, through to thesis writing, posters and papers for presentation and publication. This second edition has been fully revised to reflect the online learning explosion. The authors provide insightful new material about how to work productively in different online contexts such as with blogs and wikis, setting up an e-portfolio, and raising an online profile. They also set out a focused guide to issues unique to digital communication, and working with and across different media and technologies. The book includes advice on common writing concerns, cross-cultural and inter-disciplinary practices, a list of helpful words and phrases, and subject-specific examples of writing ranging from economics to philosophy to medicine. Writing for Academic Success is essential for undergraduate and postgraduate students both in taught courses and conducting research. The Student Success series are essential guides for students of all levels. From how to think critically and write great essays to planning your dream career, the Student Success series helps you study smarter and get the best from your time at university. Visit the SAGE Study Skills hub for tips and resources for study success!
The Unwritten Rules of PhD Research by
"I feel grateful to have found this book only a year into my PhD. It has opened my eyes to the world of academia. There is more to a PhD than just research in the sense of working on a problem, getting some results and publishing your findings. This book has allowed me to open my eyes and see all the other things I should be doing to fully succeed at my endeavour of becoming a researcher myself." Dominic Hosler, University of Sheffield This bestselling book on the process of PhD research provides readers with engaging discussion and comprehensive guidance on aspects that other books don't usually mention. Covering all the key topics of the previous edition, including what a PhD is really about, how to do one well, how to decipher what your supervisor actually means by terms like 'good referencing' and 'clean research question', and how to design, report and defend your research,the authors continue to offer an accessible, down-to-earth, and insightful account of the whole PhD process. Their advice addresses how to avoid some of the pitfalls en route to a successful submission. Updated throughout, the new edition includes new material on: Critical thinking Research skills The route to research independence Different models of study The Unwritten Rules of PhD Research is essential reading for anyone considering a PhD or embarking on one. It will tell you the things many students wish someone had told them before they started.
Defeating self-sabotage : getting your PhD finished by 
The Routledge Doctoral Student's Companion by
In the contemporary world it is clear that the need to study beyond Masters Level is increasing in importance for a wide range of practitioners in diverse professional settings. Students across the world are choosing doctorates not only to become career academics, but to go beyond the academic arena, in order to make a personal and educational, as well as an economic investment, in their workplace careers and their lives. However for many doctoral students, both full-time and part-time, navigating the literature and key issues surrounding doctoral research can often be a challenge. Bringing together contributions from key names in the international education arena, The Routledge Doctoral Student's Companionis a comprehensive guide to the literature surrounding doctorates, bringing together questions, challenges and solutions normally scattered over a wide range of texts. Accessible and wide-ranging, it covers all doctoral students need to know about: what doctoral education means in contemporary practice forming an identity and knowledge as a doctoral student the big questions which run throughout doctoral practice becoming a researcher the skills needed to conduct research integrating oneself into a scholarly community. Offering an extensive and rounded guide to undertaking doctoral research in a single volume, this book is essential reading for all full-time and part-time doctoral students in education and related disciplines.
The PhD Viva : How to Prepare for Your Oral Examination by The seven secrets of highly successful research students by Turbocharge your writing : how to become a prolific academic writer by Time for research : time management for PhD students 2nd ed. by 
Introduction to Social Research by 
Big Data? by
This volume seeks to address the emerging relationships between qualitative research and digital data. At the present time, ubiquitous digital data is altering the foci of research, the contexts in which research takes place, and the methods and tools available for qualitative research. Alongside new challenges and opportunities, there are many ways in which established qualitative methods are being used to situate and interpret digital phenomena. This book examines and engages with the ambivalence of digitization, illuminating the diverse ways in which researchers approach, negotiate, understand and interpret objects and practices of digital research. The chapters in this volume are organized around four key themes: researching impacts of digitization on social worlds; researching uses of digital data within social worlds; researching digital visualization of social worlds; researching with digital data and methods. The volume is designed to appeal to qualitative researchers seeking to study processes of digitization, adjust existing methodologies for digital worlds, and develop new ways of examining and using digital research.
Understanding and Applying Research Design by
A fresh approach to bridging research design with statistical analysis While good social science requires both research design and statistical analysis, most books treat these two areas separately. Understanding and Applying Research Design introduces an accessible approach to integrating design and statistics, focusing on the processes of posing, testing, and interpreting research questions in the social sciences. The authors analyze real-world data using SPSS software, guiding readers on the overall process of science, focusing on premises, procedures, and designs of social scientific research. Three clearly organized sections move seamlessly from theoretical topics to statistical techniques at the heart of research procedures, and finally, to practical application of research design: Premises of Research introduces the research process and the capabilities of SPSS, with coverage of ethics, Empirical Generalization, and Chi Square and Contingency Table Analysis Procedures of Research explores key quantitative methods in research design including measurement, correlation, regression, and causation Designs of Research outlines various design frameworks, with discussion of survey research, aggregate research, and experiments Throughout the book, SPSS software is used to showcase the discussed techniques, and detailed appendices provide guidance on key statistical procedures and tips for data management. Numerous exercises allow readers to test their comprehension of the presented material, and a related website features additional data sets and SPSS code. Understanding and Applying Research Design is an excellent book for social sciences and education courses on research methods at the upper-undergraduate level. The book is also an insightful reference for professionals who would like to learn how to pose, test, and interpret research questions with confidence.
The Oxford Handbook of Multimethod and Mixed Methods Research Inquiry by
Offering a variety of innovative methods and tools, The Oxford Handbook of Multimethod and Mixed Methods Research Inquiry provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date presentation on multi- and mixed-methods research available. Written in clear and concise language by leading scholars in thefield, it enhances and disrupts traditional ways of asking and addressing complex research questions. Topics include an overview of theory, paradigms, and scientific inquiry; a guide to conducting a multi- and mixed-methods research study from start to finish; current uses of multi- andmixed-methods research across academic disciplines and research fields; the latest technologies and how they can be incorporated into study design; and a presentation of multiple perspectives on the key remaining debates. Each chapter in the volume is structured to include state-of-the-art research examples that cross a range of disciplines and interdisciplinary research settings. In addition, the Handbook offers multiple quantitative and qualitative theoretical and interdisciplinary visions and praxis. Researchers,faculty, graduate students, and policy makers will appreciate the exceptional, timely, and critical coverage in this Handbook, which deftly addresses the interdisciplinary and complex questions that a diverse set of research communities are facing today.
The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research by 
Qualitative Research Practice by
′This book is jam-packed with a wide range of material related to qualitative research.... [T]his is a quality text and has much to offer the reader, especially the novice researcher′ - Nurse Researcher `This comprehensive collection of almost 40 chapters - each written by a leading expert in the field - is the essential reference for anyone undertaking or studying qualitative research. It covers a diversity of methods and a variety of perspectives and is a very practical and informative guide for newcomers and experienced researchers alike′ - John Scott, University of Essex `The best ways in which to understand the issues and processes informing qualitative research is to learn from the accounts of its leading practitioners. Here they come together in what is a distinctive and wide-ranging collection that will appeal to postgraduates and social researchers in general′ - Tim May, University of Salford `This excellent guide engages in a dialogue with a wide range of expert qualitative researchers, each of whom considers their own practice in an illuminating and challenging way. Overall, the book constitutes an authoritative survey of current methods of qualitative research data collection and analysis′ - Nigel Gilbert, University of Surrey This concise paperback edition of the best selling handbook, Qualitative Research Practice, is particularly aimed at the student reader. The chapters are written by leading, internationally distinguished qualitative researchers who recount and reflect on their own research experiences as well as others, past and present, from whom they have learned. It demonstrates the benefits of using particular methods from the viewpoint of real-life experience. This is also a good philosophy for students to adopt in planing research work: to begin from a practical conception of the research process and to treat a book like this as an opportunity to learn a valuable craft. From the outside, good research seems to be produced through practitioners learning and following standard theoretical, empirical and procedural formats. But from the inside we learn that qualitative research (like other forms of scientific endeavour) is also a biographical engagement, rendering its scholarly and practical contributions in its own terms. Standards take on practical meaning as the distinct activities of qualitative research resonate throughout the enterprise, complicating its accountability to itself and to others. In an authoritative yet accessible manner, Qualitative Research Practice reveals the special features of this engagement, teaching us that qualitative research is as much a craft and practice as it is a way of knowing. Presenting a comprehensive examination of contemporary and traditional varieties of qualitative research practice, Qualitative Research Practice will be an invaluable resource for advanced students and researchers in any discipline. It is an essential and definitive guide to the major forms of qualitative methods in use today, written by leaders in the relevant fields of research practice.
Using Mixed Methods by
Using Mixed Methods argues for research from a holistic perspective, integrating different methods, different data and overall research strategies. It provides innovative and ground-breaking in their implications for undertaking social and educational research. The author offers ways of justifying undertaking integrated approaches and offers an underlying rationale for the practices of social and educational research. The author aims to help readers understand how to approach research using an integrated methodology, based on a pragmatic philosophy underpinned by an empirical epistemology. It provides an opportunity to develop an understanding of how to use an integrated methodology that meets the needs of the post-graduate researcher who wants to challenge the traditional paradigmatic view of research. The book explores:The traditional epistemological positions associated with different research approachesFramework for an integrated methodologyMain explanations and justification for carrying out research using the FraIMEthical approach to researchWritten in an easily accessible style, this book is for postgraduate students in education and social science courses.
The Students' Guide to Research Ethics by
""This compact book is intended as a practical guide for students involved in research, and it fulfils that goal well. ...The chapter on 'The funding and sponsorship of research' is an excellent example of the author's willingness and ability to include relevant, sensitive and practical content that is often left out of texts on ethics. ...This is an easy book to read, it is concise and keeps to relevant content. ...It would make an excellent text for a course in research ethics and/or research methods, and it will also provide an excellent planning and self-review guide for a practising researcher." Higher Education Review "The book is aimed primarily at higher education students in education and the social sciences who are conducting a (typically small scale) research project. That is not to say that the publication is of little value to the supervisors of such projects or to experienced researchers as a resource. ...the successful integration of a wide range of theoretical perspectives on ethics in the text is... one of the main accomplishments of this publication" RTI Resource Centre" This essential guide examines the ethical issues and questions which occur in university and professional research. The book helps both beginning and experienced researchers to identify ethical issues when they are conducting research, and attempt to resolve those issues. * Examines ethical issues which arise throughout research, from the design stage through to data collection and analysis * Investigates topical issues including consent, confidentiality, ethical questions in the dissemination of research * Discusses ethical theories and how these may be applied towards resolving ethical problems * Provides examples of ethical dilemmas and case studies throughout the text Insightful, wide-ranging and accessible, this guide is an invaluable tool for both undergraduate and postgraduate students and professionals who research as part of their jobs.
Ethics in Qualitative Research by
This fresh, confident Second Edition expands its focus on the theoretical and practical aspects of doing qualitative research in light of new ethical dilemmas facing researchers today.In a climate of significant social and technological change, researchers must respond to increased ethical regulation and scrutiny of research. New sources, types of data and modes of accessing participants are all challenging and reconfiguring traditional ideas of the research relationship. This engaging textbook explores key ethical dilemmas - including research boundaries, informed consent, participation, rapport and analysis - within the context of a rapidly changing research environment. The book effectively covers the ethical issues related to the data collection process, helping readers to address the ethical considerations relevant to their research. This fully updated new edition:Maps the changing and increasingly technology-reliant aspects of research relationships and practices Provides researchers with guidance through practical examples, enabling those engaged in qualitative research to question and navigate in ethical ways This book is essential reading for all those engaged in qualitative research across the social sciences.
Ethical Decision Making in Social Research by
This practical, user-friendly guide examines ethics in research. It helps researchers to manage ethical dilemmas that arise while research is being planned, conducted and reported and includes a unique 'ethical review checklist', as well as other useful features, to aid ethics in practice.
