pkb contents > research | just under 678 words | updated 05/21/2017

1. What's the scientific method?

... the quest to produce useful, high-quality knowledge.

1.1. Institutions of scientific knowledge production

What are major institutions of knowledge production, and how well are they working?

1.1.1. Academic apprenticeship

1.1.1.1. How does disciplinary training impact knowledge?

1.1.2. Peer review & replicability

1.1.3. Libraries & the accumulation of knowledge

1.2. Academic vs. practitioner knowledge

1.3. Expert vs. crowdsourced knowledge

2. The research process

2.1. Generating questions

2.2. Operationalizing concepts

2.3. Reviewing literature

2.3.1. Strategies for finding articles

2.3.2. Strategies for reading well

Adler, M. J. (). How to read a book.

2.3.3. What is a literature review?

The important thing to understand is that a literature review proper is a research method; it is not peripheral to research.

2.3.4. What types of literature reviews exist?

2.4. Sampling

2.5. Choosing a research method

What are major study designs and purposes? E.g. experiment, difference-in-differences, etc. What exists; how things are connected; what might happen.

Qualitative methods are premised on the ontological position that the world is multifaceted; the epistemological position that one explores a multifaceted world through people's subjectivities; and the political position that including a wider range of subjectivities in knowledge production leads to more just, effective decision-making. See GEOG 425 - Final paper.

2.6. Analyzing data

See notes on qualitative methods, , data analysis and models .

2.7. Communicating results

See Miller (2005).

3. Sources

3.1. Cited

Miller, J. E. (2005). The Chicago guide to writing about multivariate analysis. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

3.2. References

3.3. Read

3.4. Unread