This book provides an engaging, innovative, and accurate introduction to social research for students who need to understand how social research is done and appreciate the results, but may never do research themselves in the professional lives. Like the more comprehensive version of Russell Schutt's Investigating the Social World, it presents research methods as an integrated whole, with balanced treatment of qualitative and quantitative methods, integration of substantive examples and research techniques, and consistent attention to the goal of validity and the standards of ethical practice.

Key Features and Updates to the Second Edition:

A major re-organization of material from Investigating the Social World has resulted in a briefer, more accesible treatment appropriate for a lower division audience

Expanded coverage of validity, causation, experimental and quasi-experimental design, and techniques of analysis in the Second Edition; these are the topics reviews cited as the most difficult for their students in their research methods classes

Expanded Student Study Site with SAGE journal articles and online exercises

New examples will be used in each chapter, many of them drawn from everyday experiences and current newsworthy issues

Greater use and emphasis on using the Web for research