Doing excellent social research with documents: practical examples and guidance for qualitative researchers

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Documents, Documents Everywhere
2. How to Do EXCELLENT Research with Documents: General Principles
Section I: Documents Found in Isolation from Their Authors
3. Traditional Media: Investigating the Construction of Societal Norms
4. Historical and Official Documents: Moving Beyond Simple Interpretations
5. Documents Created by Individuals: Collection and Analysis of Multi-Modal Content
Section II: Documents as An Addition to Existing Qualitative Research Methods
6. Triangulation of Findings from Primary Research: Things We Might Not Have Otherwise Been Able to Establish
7. Documents in Ethnographic Research: Things We Might Not Have Been Able to Observe
8. Participant Created Documents as An Elicitation Tool: Things We Might Not Have Otherwise Been Told
9. Reviewing and Applying Concepts to Your Research Project

In today’s society, we increasingly create and consume written content and images. This includes a range of sources, from social media posts to records held within organizations, and everything in between, including news articles, blogs, shopping lists and official government documents. Critically reading these ‘documents’ can help us to understand a huge amount about society. Doing Excellent Social Research with Documents includes guidance on how to ‘read between the lines’, and provides an overview of six research projects which use documents as data.

https://www.routledge.com/Doing-Excellent-Social-Research-with-Documents-Practical-Examples-and/Grant/p/book/9781138038660