The Foundations of Research

This book will continue to provide advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students with an accessible overview of the 'nuts and bolts' of research. The Foundations of Research 2e covers the tools, terminology and research perspectives students need to know in order to (i) engage in academic debates; (ii) successfully complete their long essays, dissertations and theses, and (iii) familiarise themselves with the roots of research, preparing them for further research.

The new edition will take account of the new developments that have taken place since the book first appeared five years ago. Many of the examples in the current edition will be updated using debates and examples from current research. Furthermore, the author has added more examples in order to clarify some of his original arguments. Since the book was first published, no significant competitor has entered the market place, whilst the plethora of specialist books – to which Palgrave has contributed – offering help with your 'dissertation', 'thesis', 'supervisor relationship', 'research methods', 'successful project' and so on, has surged. There is still no other text which does what Foundations of Research does: offer the advanced undergraduate/postgraduate an accessible overview of the 'hard stuff' in and around research. The author has used the feedback he received on the first edition to help him shape his proposal for a second edition, to ensure it is as relevant as possible for the wide variety of markets that the first edition appealed to. He has included entirely new sections on plagiarism web-based research, and added a new example which demonstrates how to set up a hypothesis.

This early graduate text clearly describes the nomenclature, nature and mechanics of research from the ground up, including providing definitions for different types of approaches to research and the methods associated with them. Grix (German studies and research methodology, U. of Birmingham) covers the decisions on tools, models, typology and ideal type that haunt early research and new researchers, goes through the ontology and epistemology of research and key paradigms, and introduces qualitative and quantitative methods. He also addresses academic standards, plagiarism and ethics in research, and includes in an appendix the stages of doctoral research. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Jonathan Grix is Assistant Director of the Institute for German Studies; Senior Lecturer German Studies and Research Methodology, University of Birmingham.