The Craft of Research, Third Edition (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing)

I read this book about a month before I submitted my dissertation (in U.S. history) and it convinced me to completely rewrite my introduction. That experience left me kicking myself for thinking I was too advanced for these sorts of guides and for not consulting this book earlier. The sections on formulating a topic (how to turn a general interest into a question/problem to be researched) and warrants (how to match claims to evidence) are especially helpful. Make no mistake about it, this book can help researchers at all levels, and I have had many students, both undergraduate and graduate, tell me how happy they were that they took my advice to read this book.

Although there are many books on writing research or term papers, I have not found anything else which brings together material on planning, reasoning and writing the research paper as well as this book. Ignore any reviewers who make this book out to be a simplistic text. It is an excellent work on well reasoned writing that even most graduate students can benefit greatly from reading. As a professor of a graduate class on Research and Writing, I have recommended and required this book for several years. The book guides the reader from an idea of a topic, to defining a question, to formulating the conceptually signifcant research problem. It briefly covers finding, evaluating and using primary, secondary, and tertiary sources. Then a major portion of the book is devoted to understanding effective reasoning in the writing process. This is based quite a bit on professor Stephen Toulmin's practical approach to effective reasoning and argumentation. The Craft of Research diagrams and explains claims, reasons, evidence and warrants. It has detailed illustrations of warrants and when to use them, as well as how to challenge them. The book has other sections on organizing, drafting,and revising a paper. It also has a chapter on communicating information visually using tables, graphs and charts. Rather than focusing on the simple mechanics or obvious steps in writing a serious research paper, this book concentrates on the more difficult tasks of clearly defining the conceptual problem and addressing it with in depth, effective reasoning.

This book provides a wonderful introduction for graduate students embarking on their first research project. I use it every year in my classes. No matter what the field, students will find helpful advice on how to pick a research question and how to evaluate evidence. Invaluable!

The internet has utterly revolutionized the art of scholarship. Seeking a cicerone through the electronic morass, I lighted on this book, as a colleague assured me it was "a classic in its field."

What I thought this book was, then, was a guide on various websites, the ins and outs of the many publication styles, databases, catalogs, and other information that was previously in-print only but now can be accessed at home. So I assumed this book would have subsections on the different databases and resources available for geology, psychology, French literature, etc. It would discuss and review -- essentially guide you through -- in an over-arching way, the avalanche of resources that have now come online.

This book is nothing like that.

Instead, this book is intended, it seems, to get you in the proper frame of mind for doing research, to get you in the research "spirit." I found the whole thing so obvious and general as to be useless -- even for a first-year college student.

In this volume you can find such helpful suggestions as:

"Look for problems as you read." (p. 69)

"In a research report, your goal is not to stuff your claim down your readers' throats, but to start where they do, with what they know and don't know." (p. 113)

"Once you state your claim, say why it's significant." (p. 236)

"Your report will only be accurate only if you double-check your notes against your sources." (p. 103)

"Avoid using an Internet source unless you know that it is reliable and can persuade your readers to think so too." (p. 84)

"You need a problem to focus your attention on those particular data that will help you solve your problem." (p. 60)

The thing I would like to know is, what moron is out there writing research papers who isn't aware of this stuff? The writing is only a notch above such statements as,

"Libraries usually have many books and journals that can help you."

"The more carefully you read a source, the sharper your understanding will be."

"Capitalize the first letter of every sentence."

"Make sure your name is on the first page."

I mean, how dumb are we gonna get?

(citations are from the Second Edition)