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Tricks of the Trade
that kept me in bed till 2pm is a great book, written by Howard S. Becker. Once you start reading, you can’t get a hold of yourself anymore. It makes me laugh out loud on every second or third page with his witty remarks about himself or other social scientists or social science in general. In chapter one, for example, when he tries to explain what kind of tricks he is going to teach the reader, he says:
“… others may think I mean technical tricks of writing or computing or “methods” or statistics (though not many expect statistical tricks from me)”
or another laughing material, when he argues why it is not always advisable just to adopt conventional ideas that have been praised by people that studied the same phenomenon before as the uninspected premises of our research:
“The estimable activity of “reviewing the literature,” so dear to the hearts of dissertation committees, exposes us to the danger of that seduction.”
Anyway, beside a good laughter it also made me think about the way I or people around me conduct our research. I literally ate the chapter about the researcher’s imagery, that is how we think of what we are going to study before we actually start the study, how we picture the social setting or a group in our head, what kind of stereotypes we have about them, how we think we know their experience etc. The question that very much intrigues me here is whether a researcher who has no first hand experience with the phenomenon under study, can make accurate and adequate conclusions about it. It is just what I heard three weeks ago from a friend who asked me what is my opinion on using sex as a method in order to acquire a full understanding of experiences and meanings of the practices of informants. This friend was against it and had very good arguments for that. I agreed but now, having read the issues Becker rises up, I am not so sure anymore. I as a person possess too many stereotypes and assumptions in my own head plus a set of my own experiences which I can’t get completely free of as a researcher when trying to explain someone else’s behaviour. Becker tells a few tricks how to deal with it.
I am in a sampling section now, when he goes about how to deal with probabilistic and non probabilistic sampling and why the later is no less good as the former.
Really a must read material, especially for people like I, who are still a beginners on their research journey.
By Nana | February 5, 2006 | Topics: Academic books |
February 5th, 2006 at 5:33 pm
You omitted the subtitle! Tricks of the Trade: How to Think about Your Research While You’re Doing It, - it’s all much clearer to me now. I didn’t read it, but it sounds interesting. On this note, I read Umberto Eco’s treatise on writing the graduate and other kinds of theses, which was a mostly stimulating read. I am just wondering whether this Becker’s guide is suited for the social and natural scientists alike, or is it just for “you”.
February 5th, 2006 at 5:43 pm
Hey Bo;))
I omitted on purpose, cos it can be understood in two ways, if you see what i mean;)
Yeh, sure is suitable for you, too. Tho mainly deals with problems in social sciences but it can widen your horizon anyway:)