books on research project

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Where Research Begins: Choosing a Research Project That Matters to You (and the World) (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing) First Edition

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Plenty of books tell you how to do research. This book helps you figure out WHAT to research in the first place, and why it matters.

The hardest part of research isn't answering a question. It's knowing what to do before you know what your question is . Where Research Begins tackles the two challenges every researcher faces with every new project: How do I find a compelling problem to investigate—one that truly matters to me, deeply and personally? How do I then design my research project so that the results will matter to anyone else?

This book will help you start your new research project the right way for you with a series of simple yet ingenious exercises. Written in a conversational style and packed with real-world examples, this easy-to-follow workbook offers an engaging guide to finding research inspiration within yourself, and in the broader world of ideas.

Read this book if you (or your students):

Under the expert guidance of award-winning researchers Thomas S. Mullaney and Christopher Rea, you will find yourself on the path to a compelling and meaningful research project, one that matters to you—and the world.

• ISBN-10 022681744X
• ISBN-13 978-0226817446
• Edition First Edition
• Publisher University of Chicago Press
• Publication date April 1, 2022
• Part of series Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing
• Language English
• Dimensions 5.5 x 0.7 x 8.5 inches
• Print length 218 pages
• See all details

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From the Publisher

Plenty of books tell you how to do research. this book helps you figure out what to research in the first place, and why it matters.

• have difficulty choosing a research topic
• know your topic, but are unsure how to turn it into a research project

• feel intimidated by or unqualified to do research
• worry that you’re asking the wrong questions about your research topic

• have plenty of good ideas, but aren’t sure which one to commit to
• feel like your research topic was imposed by someone else

• want to learn new ways to think about how to do research

This book is designed to be practical, first and foremost, providing specific and tested techniques to help you:

• choose a research topic;
• transform this topic into a set of concrete and compelling questions;
• identify the underlying problem motivating the questions you’re asking;
• deal with the assumptions, biases, and preconceived notions you might have about your topic;
• articulate the stakes involved in this problem and prioritize competing interests and concerns;
• approach and navigate the broader community of researchers who work on the same “topic” as you (that is, your “major” or “field”);
• discover and map out relevant researcher communities that exist beyond your field;
• find sources that will be useful to your research project;
• use the sources you find to refine your questions further (especially during the preliminary research stage);
• deal with mental roadblocks and keep up your momentum during the critical early stages of your project, when it’s easiest to feel lost;
• remain flexible, nimble, astute, and motivated as a researcher.

One of the many exercises you'll find inside:

Editorial Reviews

About the author, product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ University of Chicago Press; First Edition (April 1, 2022)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 218 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 022681744X
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0226817446
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.6 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.7 x 8.5 inches
• #36 in Research Reference Books
• #45 in Reference (Books)
• #1,081 in Unknown

About the authors

Christopher g. rea.

Christopher Rea is Professor of Chinese and former Director of the Centre for Chinese Research at the University of British Columbia.

Learn about his books and research at: https://asia.ubc.ca/profile/christopher-rea/

He is the creator of the Chinese Film Classics project, the world's largest collection of early Chinese films with English subtitles: chinesefilmclassics.org

Subscribe to his YouTube channel @ModernChineseCulturalStudies

"Where Research Begins," co-authored with Thomas S. Mullaney, is a guide for the researcher starting a new project. Editions forthcoming in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Thai.

"Chinese Film Classics, 1922-1949" is an essential guide to 14 Chinese cinematic masterworks of the black-and-white era. Chinese edition forthcoming.

"The Book of Swindles" is a 400-year-old Chinese collection of stories about fraud, and especially the perils faced by merchants traveling in the southern reaches of empire during the late Ming dynasty. A second volume is under contract with Columbia University Press.

"The Age of Irreverence" is a history of how China laughed its way into the modern age. It traces an unruly current in modern Chinese culture, following the stories of whimsical poets, vaudevillian entrepreneurs, renowned revilers, twee essayists, winking farceurs, and self-promoting jokesters--as well as the vocal opponents who tried to tame them. The Association of Asian Studies awarded "The Age of Irreverence" the Joseph Levenson Book Prize (Post-1900 China) in 2017. A Taiwan edition was published by Rye Field (Maitian) in 2018; a PRC edition is forthcoming from Peking University Press.

"The Business of Culture" is a study of cultural entrepreneurship that traces the rise of cultural personalities, tycoons, and collective cultural enterprises in China and Southeast Asia, from Tianjin and Shanghai to Hong Kong and Singapore.

"Humans, Beasts, and Ghosts," is a translated collection of stories and essays by Qian Zhongshu, twentieth-century China's paragon of urbane wit and acerbic satire.

"China's Literary Cosmopolitans" offers a comprehensive survey of the literary oeuvres of two of China's leading scholar-writers, Qian Zhongshu and Yang Jiang, and explains their contributions to the notion of literary cosmopolitanism.

"Imperfect Understanding: Intimate Portraits of Modern Chinese Celebrities" features fifty witty and idiosyncratic pen sketches, written in English by a Cambridge-educated author born in the Dutch East Indies, of Chinese cultural celebrities in the 1930s.

"China's Chaplin: Comic Stories and Farces by Xu Zhuodai" is a humor anthology that will answer the questions that have been keeping you up at night, such as: What is a father’s duty when he and his son are courting the same prostitute? And why should you never, never, never pull a hair from a horse’s tail?

Thomas S. Mullaney

Thomas S. Mullaney is Professor of History at Stanford University, a Guggenheim Fellow, and the Kluge Chair in Technology and Society at the Library of Congress.

He is the author or lead editor of 7 books, including Where Research Begins: Choosing a Research Project that Matters to You (and the World), The Chinese Deathscape, The Chinese Typewriter (winner of the Fairbank prize), Your Computer is on Fire, Coming to Terms with the Nation: Ethnic Classification in Modern China, and the forthcoming The Chinese Computer—the first comprehensive history of Chinese-language computing.

His writings have appeared in dozens of outlets, including MIT Technology Review, The Boston Globe, Fast Company, South China Morning Post, the Journal of Asian Studies, Technology & Culture, Aeon, Foreign Affairs, and Foreign Policy, among others, and his work has been featured in the LA Times, The Atlantic, the BBC, and in invited lectures at Google, Microsoft, Adobe, and more.

He holds a PhD from Columbia University.

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• Managing Your Academic Research Project
• © 2020
• Jacqui Ewart 0 ,
• Kate Ames 1

Griffith University, Nathan, Australia

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Central Queensland University, Brisbane, Australia

• Provides academics with a road map to manage large and diverse projects
• Contains interviews with project managers and industry partners
• Offers handy tips and hints in breakout boxes so that readers can see and absorb them at a glance
• Presents insights from professionals and practitioners into the project management process

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Table of contents (8 chapters)

Front matter, introduction to managing your academic research project.

• Jacqui Ewart, Kate Ames

Working with the Right Team on Academic Research Projects

Approaching a multi-year or large academic research project, research, data and milestones, setting up for success: contracts, accountability and budgets, relationships, outputs versus outcomes.

• Project Management for Academics
• Academic Research Project Management
• Negotiating Industry and Academic Relationships
• Project Management Framework
• Funding Bodies for Research
• Stakeholder Relationship
• Research Project Management
• Research and Data
• Multi-Year Research Project
• Budgets and Reporting for Project Management
• Research Team
• research ethics

About this book

This book is an essential resource for academics managing a large and complex research project. It provides important practical insights into the processes that inform such research projects and delivers insights into the delicate balance between industry, stakeholder and academic needs. It gives practical advice about developing relationships with diverse partners and colleagues and managing the expectations of the various parties involved and on avoiding pitfalls. This book uses examples from Australian research projects, but it contains insights relevant to researchers all around the world.

Authors and Affiliations

Jacqui Ewart

About the authors

Jacqui Ewart is a Professor of Journalism and Media Studies at Griffith University in Australia. Jacqui’s main research interests focus on news media representations of Muslims and disasters communication. After working as a journalist and communications manager for more than a decade, she moved into academia where she has led several large research projects with multiple industry government partners and has worked with industry and academic colleagues internationally. She has authored, co-authored and edited five books and published in international journals in a wide range of fields.

Kate Ames has a background in media and communication, having worked as a journalist and editor before a long career in military public affairs. She has been an academic since 2001 and more recently, has led complex innovation projects in learning design at CQUniversity. Her research interests are in storytelling in the public sphere, encompassing broadcast talk, regional media, disastercommunication, health promotion, and distance learning.  

Bibliographic Information

Book Title : Managing Your Academic Research Project

Authors : Jacqui Ewart, Kate Ames

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9192-1

Publisher : Springer Singapore

eBook Packages : Education , Education (R0)

Copyright Information : Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020

Hardcover ISBN : 978-981-15-9191-4 Published: 02 October 2020

Softcover ISBN : 978-981-15-9194-5 Published: 03 October 2021

eBook ISBN : 978-981-15-9192-1 Published: 01 October 2020

Edition Number : 1

Number of Pages : XVII, 125

Number of Illustrations : 1 b/w illustrations

Topics : Research Skills , Project Management , Research Methodology , Research Ethics , Higher Education

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How to Do Your Research Project: A Guide for Students

Student resources, welcome to the digital roadmap and resources.

Work your way through  interactive exercises  for each stage of the research project roadmap and watch  videos   from your pocket supervisor, Gary Thomas. Explore real-world practice through  case studies   and  journal articles . Reflect, revise, and take your learning on the go with  worksheets  and get to grips with key terms and concepts using digital  flashcards .

Click a base camp below to get started.

For lecturers:

Teach the book in a way that suits your lecturer hall and classroom by modifying and adapting PowerPoint templates that include the key points of each chapter. Log in using the tab at the top for access.

For instructors

Access resources that are only available to Faculty and Administrative Staff.

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10 Best Research Books For Qualitative And Quantitative Research

Are you looking for the best research books? Take a look at some of the best books on research methods below.

Research methodology comes in many shapes and forms. Regardless of whether you are interested in qualitative or quantitative research, it is essential to find a book that can help you plan your research project adequately. Research design can vary from hard sciences to social sciences, but data analysis following a case study is usually similar. Therefore, you need a practical guide that can help you complete a research project and finish your research paper.

1. Qualitative Research: A Guide To Design And Implementation, 4th Edition

2. research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches, 4th edition, 3. the research methods knowledge base, 3rd edition, 4. the craft of research, 5. doing your research project: open up study skills, 5th edition, 6. qualitative inquiry and research design: choosing among five approaches, 3rd edition, 7. the essential guide to doing your research project, 2nd edition, 8. introducing research methodology: a beginner’s guide to doing a research project, 2nd edition, 9. the sage handbook of qualitative research, 5th edition, 10. research methods in education, 7th edition, the final word on the best research books, what is the difference between quantitative research and qualitative research, how do i figure out which academic journal to publish my research in, further reading.

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When someone talks about qualitative research in academia, they refer to research that focuses on overall concepts and takeaways instead of complex numbers. For those conducting academic research, understanding the basics of this process is critical. Qualitative Research: A Guide to Design and Implementation, by Sharan B. Merriam and Elizabeth J. Tisdell, 4th edition, is one of the best books available because it focuses on action research, mixed methods, online data sources, and some of the latest technology that people can use to complete their projects.

A significant portion of this book focuses on data analysis software packages, which have become critically important in an era where publishing in the best academic journals is critical for every successful researcher. Finally, this book explains topics so that nearly everyone can understand.

• Merriam, Sharan B. (Author)
• English (Publication Language)
• 368 Pages - 08/24/2015 (Publication Date) - John Wiley & Sons (Publisher)

Suppose you are looking for a book that can teach you the best research methodology. In that case, you will want to check out Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches by John W. Creswell, 4th edition. John Creswell is one of the most well-respected writers in case study research.

As books on how to research go, this one on quantitative and qualitative research methods is a great tool that will help you learn the basics of forming a research project in every field. This book covers philosophical assumptions and research projects, theory and research approaches, and conducts an effective literature review. These elements are also crucial in helping you form a step-by-step guide for your upcoming research project, and this book will teach you the basics of data analysis.

• Research Design
• Creswell, John W. (Author)
• 273 Pages - 03/23/2024 (Publication Date) - SAGE Publications, Inc (Publisher)

The first two editions were already solid, but the third edition of The Research Methods Knowledge Base, by William M.K. Trochim and James P. Donnelly, features many updates to quantitative and qualitative research methods, teaching graduate students the basics of data collection before diving into the details for more advanced learners.

One of the significant advantages of this text is that it is a comprehensive tool that can be used for both undergraduate and graduate-level courses. It has a relatively informal style and conversational feel, which means readers will not be intimidated by walls of text. The research methods it teaches are straightforward, applicable, and relevant to anyone looking to complete a research project in the current era.

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The Craft of Research, by Wayne C. Booth, Gregory C. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams, covers various research approaches that teach everyone the basics of forming a solid research project. In particular, this book focuses on what to do with the data after it has been collected.

People need to think about how their readers will interpret the structure of the paper, proactively anticipating questions they might have. By answering the reader’s questions in the initial version of the paper, it is easier to hold their attention from start to finish.

Of course, one of the most critical questions that must be asked when writing a research paper is, “so, what? Why does this information matter?” Researchers can keep this in mind while writing the introduction and conclusion of the paper so they will have an easier time constructing a powerful academic manuscript that is more likely to be accepted into the top academic journals.

• Booth, Wayne C. (Author)
• 336 Pages - 10/18/2016 (Publication Date) - University of Chicago Press (Publisher)

Doing Your Research Project: Open Up Study Skills, by Judith Bell, is a must-read for new researchers looking to make their way in academic research. This book is helpful because it teaches people how to conduct a research project using step-by-step advice. A research project can be daunting for new learners because it’s easy to focus on the final project and feel intimidated before taking the first step.

This book is indispensable because it teaches people everything they need to know to develop a research project, draft a hypothesis, carry out the project, and finalize a research paper after conducting detailed data analysis. Furthermore, this text will dive into common mistakes, pitfalls, and obstacles researchers need to overcome. Time is your most valuable resource, and nobody wants to spend time on trials that will not be relevant to the final project.

• Bell, Judith (Author)
• 296 Pages - 05/01/2010 (Publication Date) - Open University Press (Publisher)

Qualitative Inquiry And Research Design: Choose Among Five Approaches, 3rd Edition, Is The Latest In A Line Of Best-Selling Research Books From Creswell. This Book Ties Into People’s Philosophical Underpinnings When Developing A Research Project. It Also Looks At The History Of Various Research Projects, Which Serve As An Example For The Reader.

Overall, there are five traditions in qualitative research; grounded theory, phenomenology, narrative research, case study, and ethnography. Creswell uses an accessible writing style to help the reader understand when to use each of these narratives. Then, he dives into strategies for writing research papers using each of these approaches.

• Used Book in Good Condition
• 472 Pages - 03/14/2012 (Publication Date) - SAGE Publications, Inc (Publisher)

The Essential Guide To Doing Your Research Project by Zina O’Leary is geared more toward young learners. As books on how to research, it focuses on how to develop a research project, analyze data, and write up the results. Every stage of the book is clearly explained, with the author specifying why it is essential to carry out that step correctly.

It also focuses on practical tips and tricks that learners can use to successfully carry out their research projects. The book includes helpful chapter summaries, a complete glossary, and boxed definitions for essential terms that should not be overlooked. The author also has a variety of suggestions for further reading, which is helpful for more advanced learners who may want to pick up a text that is a bit more detailed. Finally, the book also comes with access to a companion website. The website includes journal articles, real projects, worksheets, and podcasts.

• O′Leary, Zina (Author)
• 384 Pages - 12/20/2013 (Publication Date) - SAGE Publications Ltd (Publisher)

Introducing Research Methodology: A Beginner’s Guide to doing a research project, by Uwe Flick is ideal for new researchers. the author guides readers through the fundamentals that underpin a strong research project. He focuses on essential steps, common mistakes, and ways to expedite the research process.

Then, the author dives into some of the most critical skills readers need to have if they want to collect and analyze data properly. he goes into basic organizational tactics that make data easier to interpret, explains how to shorten the analytical process, and dives into real-life quantitative and qualitative research methods. He uses his research as an example, explaining to people how to pull out the essential parts of the research project before writing them up.

• Flick, Uwe (Author)
• 320 Pages - 04/14/2015 (Publication Date) - SAGE Publications Ltd (Publisher)

The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research by Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln focuses on global research. this text teaches readers how to synthesize existing literature, identify current research, and focus on caps that can be filled. the authors gather contributions from some of the most well-renowned researchers, addressing issues in research projects today. this text focuses more on research regarding social justice. therefore, this is better for people in the social sciences.

• Hardcover Book
• 992 Pages - 02/15/2017 (Publication Date) - SAGE Publications, Inc (Publisher)

Research Methods in Education, by Louis Cohen, Lawrence Manon, and Keith Morrison, is essential for students and professional researchers who want to learn how to create a comprehensive research project. It’s broken up into helpful chapters wrapped up by a convenient summary at the end, explaining to readers how to hit the high points.

Research Methods in Education also comes with a helpful companion website that contains PowerPoint slides for every chapter. This book can be read independently and discussed with a classroom full of students. The book has been written at a level that is accessible even to high school students, but the basics can be a helpful review for graduate researchers.

• Cohen, Louis (Author)
• 944 Pages - 10/27/2017 (Publication Date) - Routledge (Publisher)

Academic research comes in many shapes and forms, with qualitative and quantitative research having high points; however, the basics are the same across all fields. Researchers need to learn how to develop a hypothesis, put together a research methodology, collect their data, interpret it, and write up their findings.

It can be helpful to use the books about research above to refine your research methods . Each book focuses on a slightly different facet of academic research, so readers need to find the right book to meet their needs. With a substantial text, readers can avoid common mistakes, follow in the footsteps of successful researchers, and increase their chances of writing a solid research paper for school or getting their paper accepted into an academic journal.

Books About Research FAQs

Quantitative research focuses more on numbers and statistics. This type of research is more common in hard sciences such as biology, chemistry, and physics.

Qualitative research focuses more on overall meanings and concepts. This type of research is more common in social sciences such as anthropology, archaeology, and research topics focusing on social justice.

It would help compare prior articles in that academic journal to the article you have written. Most academic journals focus on a specific field, and you need to submit your article to a publication that shares research articles similar to your own. Be sure to consider the prestige of the journal before submitting your paper.

If you enjoyed this round-up of the best research books, you might also like our top 11 essay writing tips for students . 

You might also find our guide on essay topics for students  helpful. 

Bryan Collins is the owner of Become a Writer Today. He's an author from Ireland who helps writers build authority and earn a living from their creative work. He's also a former Forbes columnist and his work has appeared in publications like Lifehacker and Fast Company.

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