The essential guide to doing your research project / Zina O'Leary.

1st published 2004 as: Essential guide to doing research.

Includes bibliographical references (pages[ 297]-304) and index.

The Essential Guide to Doing Your Research Project aims to arm students with the knowledge and skills needed to get them from 'clueless' to 'completed'. This is a highly accessible text which takes students through all aspects of conducting a research project, from conception to dissemination, with chapters sequenced to mirror research processes. In this fully revised and expanded edition, The Essential Guide retains the warmth, wit and grounded nature of the original, while incorporating even more features designed to successfully guide students through ins and outs of conducting their own research project. The book also has an accompanying website. The Essential Guide addresses the key question students need to tackle in when conducting research, such as: what is this thing called research and why do it; how can I assure that my research project has integrity; how to I develop a researchable question; how do I construct a winning proposal; what exactly is expected in a literature review; what options are there in qualitative, quantitative, mixed and more purposive methodological designs; is it best to work with a sample, key informants, or a case; what data collection options are there and how do I choose; how should I work with my quantitative data; what should I do with my qualitative data; and, how in the world will I capture this on paper. This is an inspiring book full of down to earth advice, illuminating figure and diagrams and engaging real life examples. With this book acting as a personal mentor, a successfully completed research project is well within reach. Zina O'Leary is an applied social scientist and senior lecturer at the University of Western Sydney. She is the author of Researching Real-World Problems and The Social Science Jargon Buster.

Taking the leap into the research world -- Getting started -- Striving for integrity in the research process -- Developing your research question -- Crafting a research proposal -- Working with literature -- Designing a research plan -- Understanding methodologies: quantitative, qualitative, and 'mixed' approaches -- Understanding methodologies: evaluative, action-oriented, and emancipatory strategies -- Seeking 'respondents' -- Direct data collection: surveys and interviews -- Indirect data collection: working with observations and existing text -- Analysing quantitative data -- Analysing qualitative data -- The challenge of writing up.