How to Do Your Social Research Project or Dissertation

How to do your Social Research Project or Dissertation provides a straight-talking, easy-to-navigate, and reassuring guide to support final-year social science undergraduates. Uniquely shaped by real social science undergraduates from a range of institutions, the book includes their advice to help you through with what can be a daunting, but rewarding stage of your degree. From the look and feel of the book, to the development of the chapter content and the advice it provides, students have been involved at every stage of the book's development to ensure it is focused on what's important to you.

Expert advice from real supervisors across the subject disciplines in the 'Working with your supervisor' feature also helps you to make the most of research supervision, and learn from the experience of real researchers in your chosen field. By providing anecdotes, words of wisdom, scenarios, or simply reminders, hints, and tips on how best to prepare for meetings, and communicate effectively, How to do your Social Research Project or Dissertation is the most complete guide to facilitate the student-supervisor working relationship.

Dedicated chapters cover all the typical stages of a research project or dissertation in the social sciences, while their carefully constructed structure allows you to quickly and efficiently navigate the content. Throughout the book, you'll focus on three key questions: 'What do I need to know?', 'What do I need to think about?' and 'What do I need to do?'. In so doing, each chapter gives you a clear and direct checklist of actions as you progress through your dissertation or research project, keeping you organized, motivated, and confident.

The book's online resources include a wealth of free-to-access materials, including:

DT Author-led videos for each chapter of the book focussing on key areas of social research including supervision, thinking up research questions and ethical challenges in social research among others.
DT Student videos focussing on key issues in undertaking a research project or dissertation and how these have been overcome.
DT 'Finding your Way' research pitfalls and how to avoid them.
DT General dissertation template.
DT Good and bad examples of various research tools: questionnaires, interview questions, observation plans.
DT Good and bad examples of extracts from literature reviews.
DT Downloadable research checklist.
DT Further reading/research suggestions, broken down by chapter.
DT A list of links to online time-management tools.
DT Research plan templates.
DT Links to freely available datasets.
DT Tips on increasing your sample size.
DT SPSS/NVIVO links/resources.
DT Interactive activity to help narrow down research topics.
DT Mind-mapping tool.
DT Interactive editing exercise to practise writing-up, and making efficient use of word count.