The Essential Guide to Doing Your Research Project

Doing a research project or dissertation can be daunting. This practical book will help you dive straight in, driving each step of the process with confidence. Packed with features to support your learning, this guidebook gives you invaluable advice at each stage, from picking a topic, designing your study and navigating ethics to collecting and analysing data then sharing your findings.

This fifth edition:

• Empowers you to be critical and self-reflective when consuming and doing research, with 19 critical thinking challenges.
• Equips you with the skills to make good decisions, prepare effectively, and take charge of your own project.
• Draws on case studies of real-world research to inspire your creativity and curiosity.

This popular, down-to-earth guide is a must-have for undergraduate and postgraduate students embarking on research projects across the social sciences.

Really useful text, accurate, brief and clear direction for students and staff. I do not manage research but supervise researchers and this is an excellent framework for creating excellence in this essential discipline. -- David Charles Bates
This is an awesome account, taking the reader from first thoughts of becoming a researcher through to how best to disseminate the findings. All presented in a casual and reader friendly style, which I thoroughly recommend. -- Ciaran McAleenan
Praise for the fourth edition:

The writing style is appropriate to all levels and is totally accessible to the students I teach. Overall, this is a very welcome book for research. -- Louise Fenton

Zina O’Leary is an internationally recognized leader in research methodologies and has a keen interest in the application of research to evidence-based decision-making. Zina is an Adjunct Professor at the Joseph R. Biden Jr, School of Public Policy and Administration at the University of Delaware as well as a Senior ­Fellow at the Australia and New Zealand School of Government where she coordinates research and project units for their Executive Masters and Executive Education Programmes. Zina also has an extensive history as a consultant to both government and the private sector and was the research coordinator for the Centre for Environmental Health Development at the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre. She is the author of Researching Real World Problems, The Social Science Jargon Buster, Workplace Research and three books in Sage’s Little Quick Fix Series: Research Questions; Research Proposals; and Presenting Your Research. Emma Tennent is a senior lecturer at Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington. She has experience teaching research methods and research paradigms to undergraduate and postgraduate students across a range of disciplines. She is the recipient of an Early Career Teaching Excellence Award and an accredited Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She works with Zina at the Australia and New Zealand School of Government as a research project advisor for the Executive Master of Public Administration. She has co-published with students and academic colleagues in the open-access book The Power of Partnership: Students, Staff, and Faculty Revolutionizing Higher Education.

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