The Craft of Research - spbu.ru

1 The Craft of ResearchOn Writing, Editing, and Publishingjacques barzunTricks of the Tradehoward s. beckerWriting for Social Scientistshoward s. beckerThe Craft of Translationjohn biguenet and rainer schulte, editorsThe Craft of Researchwayne c. booth, gregory g. colomb, and joseph of Typesetting Termsrichard eckersley, richard angstadt, charles , richard hendel, naomi b. pascal, and anitawalker scottWriting Ethnographic Fieldnotesrobert m. emerson, rachel i. fretz, and linda l. shawLegal Writing in Plain Englishbryan a. garnerGetting It Publishedwilliam germanoA Poet s Guide to Poetrymary kinzieMapping It Outmark monmonierThe Chicago Guide to Communicating Sciencescott l. montgomeryIndexing Booksnancy c.

2 MulvanyGetting into Printwalter w. powellA Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertationskate l. turabianTales of the Fieldjohn van maanenStylejoseph m. williamsA Handbook of Biological Illustrationfrances w. zweifelChicago Guide for Preparing Electronic Manuscriptsprepared by the staff of the university of chicago pressThe Craft of Researchsecond editionWAYNE C. BOOTHGREGORY G. COLOMBJOSEPH M. WILLIAMSTHE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESSC hicago & Londonwayne c. boothis the George Pullman Distinguished Service Professor Emeritusat the University of Chicago. His many books includeThe Rhetoric of FictionandFor the Love of It: Amateuring and Its Rivals,both published by the University ofChicago g.

3 Colombis professor of English language and literature at the Univer-sity of Virginia. He is the author ofDesigns on Truth: The Poetics of the m. williamsis professor emeritus in the Department of English Languageand Literature at the University of Chicago. He is the author ofStyle: Toward Clar-ity and Colomb and Williams have writtenThe Craft of Argument,published by the University of Chicago University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London 1995, 2003 by The University of ChicagoAll rights reserved. Published 2003 Printed in the United States of America12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 031 2 3 4 5 ISBN: 0-226-06567-7 (cloth)ISBN: 0-226-06568-5 (paper)Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataBooth, Wayne Craft of Research / Wayne C.

4 Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, Joseph 2nd cm. (Chicago guides to writing, editing, and publishing)Includes bibliographical references and 0-226-06567-7 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 0-226-06568-5 (paper : )1. Research Methodology. 2. Technical writing. I. Colomb, Gregory Williams, Joseph M. III. Title. IV. B66 2 dc212002015184! The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of theAmerican National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper forPrinted Library Materials, ANSI ,RESEARCHERS,ANDREADERS1 PROLOGUE: STARTING A Research PROJECT31 Thinking in Print: The Uses of Research , Public and What Is Research ? Why Write It Up? Why a Formal Report? Conclusion152 Connecting with Your Reader: (Re)Creating Your Self andYour Creating Roles for Writers and Creating a Relationship with Your Reader: Your Creating the Other Half of the Relationship: The Reader s Role Writing in Managing the Unavoidable Problem of Inexperience30 Quick Tip: A Checklist for Understanding Your Readers32II A S K I N G Q U E S T I O N S , F I N D I N G A N S W E R S35 PROLOGUE: PLANNING YOUR PROJECT373 From Topics to From an Interest to a From a Broad Topic to a Focused From a Focused Topic to From a Merely Interesting Question to Its Wider Significance49 Quick Tip.

5 Finding Topics534 From Questions to Problems, Problems, The Common Structure of Finding a Good Research Summary: The Problem of the Problem70 Quick Tip: Disagreeing with Your Sources725 From Problems to Screening Sources for Locating Printed and Recorded Finding Sources on the Gathering Data Directly from Bibliographic What You Find886 Using Three Uses for Reading Generously but Preserving What You Getting Help104 Quick Tip: Speedy Reading106 III M A K I N G A C L A I M A N D S U P P O R T I N G I T109 PROLOGUE: PULLING TOGETHER YOUR ARGUMENT1117 Making Good Arguments: An Argument and Basing Claims on Basing Reasons on Acknowledging and Responding to Warranting the Relevance of Building Complex Arguments Out of Simple Arguments and Your Ethos122 Quick Tip: Designing Arguments Not for Yourself but for YourReaders: Two Common Pitfalls1248 What Kind of Claim?

6 Evaluating Your Claim129 Quick Tip: Qualifying Claims to Enhance Your Credibility1359 Reasons and Using Reasons to Plan Your The Slippery Distinction between Reasons and Evidence vs. Reports of Selecting the Right Form for Reporting Reliable Evidence145 Quick Tip: Showing the Relevance of Evidence14910 Acknowledgments and Questioning Your Finding Alternatives to Your Deciding What to Responses as Subordinate Arguments159 Quick Tip: The Vocabulary of Acknowledgment and Response16111 How Warrants What Warrants Look Knowing When to State a Testing Your Challenging the Warrants of Others177 Quick Tip: Some Strategies for Challenging Warrants179IV P R E P A R I N G T O D R A F T , D R A F T I N G , A N D R E V I S I N G183 PROLOGUE: PLANNING AGAIN185 Quick Tip: Outlining18712 Planning and Preliminaries to Planning.

7 Four Traps to A Plan for The Pitfall to Avoid at All Costs: The Next Step204 Quick Tip: Using Quotation and Paraphrase20513 Revising Your Organization and Thinking Like a Analyzing and Revising Your Overall Revising Your The Last Step218 Quick Tip: Titles and Abstracts21914 Introductions and The Three Elements of an Establishing Common Stating Your Stating Your Fast or Slow? Organizing the Whole Conclusions236 Quick Tip: Opening and Closing Words23815 Communicating Evidence Visual or Verbal? Tables vs. Constructing Constructing Visual Communication and Using Graphics as an Aid to Thinking26116 Revising Style: Telling Your Story Judging A First Principle: Stories and A Second Principle: Old Before Choosing between Active and A Final Principle: Complexity Spit and Polish280 Quick Tip.

8 The Quickest Revision281 VSOMELASTCONSIDERATIONS283 The Ethics of Research285A Postscript for Teachers289An Appendix on Finding Sources297 General Sources298 Special Sources299A Note on Some of Our Sources317 Index325 PrefaceWe intend that, like the first edition ofThe Craft of Research ,thissecond edition meet the needs of all researchers, not just begin-ners, or advanced graduate students, but even those in businessand government who are assigned Research on any topic, techno-logical, political, or commercial. Our aim is to guide you through the complexities of organizing and draft-ing a report that poses a significant problem and offers aconvincing solution; show you how to read your drafts as your readers might sothat you can recognize passages they are likely to find unnec-essarily difficult and then revise them handbooks touch on these matters, but this one differs inmany ways.

9 Most current guides agree that researchers nevermove in a straight line from finding a topic to stating a thesis tofilling in note cards to drafting and revision. Real Research loopsback and forth, moving forward a step or two, going back andmoving ahead again, anticipating stages not yet begun. But sofar as we know, no previous guide has tried to explain how eachpart of the process influences all the others how asking ques-tions about a topic prepares the researcher for drafting, how draft-xixiiprefaceing reveals problems in an argument, how writing an introduc-tion can send you back to the COMPLEXITIES OF THE TASKB ecause Research is so complex, we have tried to be explicit aboutit, including matters that are usually left implicit as part of a mys-terious creative process, including these: how to turn a vague interest into a problem worth posingand solving; how to build an argument that motivates readers to acceptyour claim.

10 How to anticipate the reservations of thoughtful but criticalreaders and then respond appropriately; how to create an introduction and conclusion that answerthat toughest of questions,So what?; how to read your own writing as others may, and therebylearn when and how to revise in every chapter is our advice to side with your readers,to imagine how they judge what you have written. Meeting theirexpectations is not, however, the only reward for mastering theformal elements of a Research report. When you learn those for-mal matters, you are better able to plan, conduct, and evaluatethe process that creates one. The elements of a report its struc-ture, style, and methods of proof are not empty formulas forconvincing readers to accept your claims.