Political Science

The Craft of Research by Wayne C Booth, Gregory G Colomb and Joseph M Williams, 3rd edition, Chicago The University of Chicago Press, 2008. 317 Pages. ISBN-100-226-06566-9

Finding answers to almost any question in any field requires a strict research methodology to arrive at the correct conclusions. Research is a rigorous scientific discipline which has a number of defined steps, the understanding of which is a prerequisite for conduct of successful research. This book review examines the essence of the book, The Craft of Research by Wayne C Booth, Gregory G Colomb and Joseph M Williams to answer the many queries associated with research methodologies.

The authors very clearly lay down the aim of their work that is to meet the needs of all researchers, not just first-year undergraduates and advanced graduate students, but even those in business and government who do and report research on any topic, academic, political, or commercial (Booth, Colomb,  Williams, 2008, p. xi) in the preface  titled The Aims of This Edition that reflect the clear thinking, intent and complete understanding of the subject by the authors.

The book therefore is structured into chapters that deal with the methodology of conducting research in a logical manner starting with selection of topics. The authors start by defining research and what research is used for. Then they build their treatise by concentrating on the first step arriving at a focused topic. The authors then explain how even more important it is to derive a specific question to research upon (Booth, Colomb,  Williams, pp. 40-41). The authors next provide a detailed explanation on how to use and organize primary, secondary and tertiary sources (Booth, Colomb,  Williams, pp. 68-103) to arrive at a tentative answer also called as a claim (Booth, Colomb,  Williams, pp. 103-120). The authors then give a budding researcher the methodology for supporting the claim by arranging the reasons and evidences gathered, acknowledgement and responses to the argument being developed, in a manner that a plan can be created for producing the draft of the research paper. The authors then advise how a draft is to be revised and re-revised in accordance to a given methodology and how to use graphical and visual representations to add clarity to the research paper. The importance of having a clear introduction and a comprehensive conclusion is stressed by the authors as most readers usually concentrate on these two parts of any research. This is true especially with top executives who have very little time and thus are looking for clarity and brevity wherein the main essence of the research becomes evident to them in the shortest possible time and least amount of reading. The authors also advise a researcher how to avoid plagiarism and the need for adhering to ethical norms while producing a research paper.

The book is well laid out, comprehensive and it describes how to write a research paper with clinical precision. No aspect of writing or researching is left to chance and every little bit is addressed in sequence so that even a beginner can conduct professional research work. The book is a useful guide even for professional researchers, a sort of the check-off list for the practitioners of the craft who may at times take their past experience to be sufficient and forget a few essential steps that may lead to incomplete or dishonest research. This book is strongly recommended for all researchers irrespective of their disciplines as the steps outlined by the authors can be applied universally to any kind of research.