Doing Your Research Project with Documents

“This is a fantastic guide for any dissertation student wanting to work with documents in their research. It will help them to successfully navigate the process from start to finish.” Victoria Foster, Edge Hill University

“This book should be essential reading for any student embarking, or thinking about embarking, on a dissertation project using qualitative research, as well as their supervisors.” Jennifer Leigh, University of Kent

“Textual analysis can reveal much about social phenomena and, in an era where text appears in multiple forms, there is an ever-pressing need to develop and advance methodological capabilities here. This book provides an incredibly helpful and ‘hands on’ resource to get to grips with this challenge. It is an essential resource for those getting started with researching the social world through documents.” Michael Donnelly, University of Bath

Aimee Grant is a qualitative researcher with a long-standing interest in documentary analysis. She is based at Swansea University’s Centre for Lactation, Infant Feeding and Translational Research.

Introduction

PART I: GETTING GOING

Working productively

Working with your supervisor

Working ethically

Working reflexively and safely

PART II: MAKING DECISIONS

Reviewing literature and writing your literature review

Finding sources

Choosing an analysis approach

Writing research questions and your methods chapter

PART III: GETTING IT DONE!

Collecting and analysing data and writing your results chapter

Assessing data quality and writing your discussion chapter

Creating the final dissertation

Concluding remarks