Hi undergrads!
This book was written for you. Lots of textbooks claim that. When they do, they mean, they saw a market that they wanted to exploit. When I say that, I mean, I started with undergraduate students who had to write a paper. I saw their struggles. I saw their successes. I wanted to see more successes, so I started producing memos to cover things we didn’t have time for in class. What did we mean by ‘science’ in the social sciences? How do we think about measuring stuff we can’t see? When might we want to use a simpler analysis tool like chi squared or t-test even though a ‘better’ tool is available? Most of the first draft of this book came together, a thousand words at a time, during that first year.
ERW emerged from the real-life experiences of actual students. You’ll see some of their names in the book, in the Peer Pointer boxes. I welcome your input at the end of your research experience – tell me what worked for you, what you learned, what you wish someone had told you when you started. There’s a contact form linked at the bottom of every page.
When you use this book for the first time, read broadly but actively. Keep your research question in mind and work with the pieces as they come to you. It’s OK to jump around or reverse course; there’s no rule of writing that you have to go through the project in a linear manner.
Use this website to supplement your reading of the book. Each chapter’s page is accessible from the left menu. It contains a chapter summary, a quick chapter quiz to test your comprehension, and vocab flashcards where you can review. Chapter pages also contain links to helpful outside resources as well as extra essays of related content that got cut from the original manuscript. They tend to be pretty short and address stuff that some but not most students will need. Depending on what your peers are doing, you might find yourself a popular (or at least helpful) person if you know what’s on here and can direct others to it.
As you might have guessed, I have a lot to say about research methods and research projects and I totally ran out of space in the book. That’s why there’s so much on the website. If there’s something that would really help you, though, feel free to use the contact form to drop me a line. I can’t promise that I can post stuff in response to every question, but where I can, I’ll see what I can do.
Happy researching!
PS: If you find a typo or other error (known collectively as Errata), use the contact form to send it to me. If you’re the first, I’ll send you a signed ERW bookmark back!