Academic books
Book Networking
Amongst all the rest of social networking sites, to which I am moderately reluctant, we can even network thru books online.
What I am talking about is not new, as Shelfari exists already over a year, but I was out for the last year;) so it is new to me. Shelfari enables us to make our private online library with all the books we own, the books we want to own and the books we are reading. We can network thru these book lists with friends we invite or with other people profiling in Shelfari (depend of a level of a privacy we set).
I had a bit of a fun this afternoon and started to put the books I own on my virtual shelfs. Every book has a number and it tells how many other Shelfari readers chose that book to put on one of their lists. Even more, one click on that number shows all other readers of the book. You can then leave them a note. It is an amusing task this shelf business, I must admit. Tho I will not use it for networking. However, I am sure it will be useful to keep the record of all the book I want to buy and also a very nice image-like way of going thru the books I own. It suits nicely to my EndNote library.
P.S.
Speaking of books (and because I was absent and didn’t share this yet), I have to say that this year my best book buy was at AAPOR conference in Los Angeles in May. Wow, what a book selling system;). There was a great discount to start with, then after a while they reduced all the books to a half price (had I known that from the beginning!!) and finally, all the books without prices on them were sold for 10$. I got the Handbook of Ethnography this way, YAY!
So I bought a great amount of books and was seriously concerned with how to get them to the beautiful Slovenia. I managed to pack them all up but the luggage was heavy as hell. Luckily, my luggage got lost (first time and it transpired just the right time) so I got it delivered straight to my door;)))). I looove books!
By Nana | October 30, 2007 | Topics: Academic books, Books | 1 Comment »
Buy This Book!
I am most happy to announce the forthcoming book:
Bruff, Ian (forthcoming): Culture and Consensus? A neo-Gramscian Analysis of the Dutch and German Political Economies (tho the title might be a bit different, author says). Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Very proud of you, Ian! I will take your book proposal as a template;)))
By Nana | November 15, 2006 | Topics: Academic books | 1 Comment »
A Big Thank You
Some time ago, I found an online paper on combining methods, written by Katrin Niglas. I didn’t know how to quote it, so I dropped her an email.
When I returned home last week, a book was waiting for me. She sent me her book, which title is: The combined use of qualitative and quantitative methods in educational research. She couldn’t make me happier.
So, BIG thank you, Katrin!
By Nana | February 20, 2006 | Topics: Academic books | 5 Comments »
A Story Of a Poor Book
I have just borrowed a book that nobody has borrowed it for the last eight years. The book was published in 1986, which probably means that the library got it in 1987, which probably means that in those 11 years was borrowed maybe once or twice, if we follow the logic for its probability to be choosen.
Poor book, actually a very tiny useful one: Fielding, N. and Fielding, J. L. (1986). Linking data. Beverly Hills; London: Sage
So people, go to your libraries and borrow it, I don’t want a poor book be left alone for so long in other libraries as well.
By Nana | February 7, 2006 | Topics: Academic books | No Comments »
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 | 2 Comments »
Working Sunday
My initial plans for today were visiting Brussels but as I was quite productive yesterday I thought I should have continued working. Now, I partly regret and partly not regret the decision. I have boiling water under way again - I guess I need some balance. When I really feel the heat for work, then it is absolute. Yesterday, after about 9 hours of work I went home and continued reading - it was the new edited book of Christine Hine. I got stuck with the epilogue, written by Nicholas W. Jankowski and Martine van Selm. The authors discuss about agenda for Internet research and in accordance with methodological innovation concept, they report a gap exactly on the spot where my PhD could come in - the lack of research designs for incorporating three major paradigms within social science, or on a method level the lack of mixed methods designs suitable for Internet research. And this is exactly the thing I have been dealing with in the last year.
So, I put the book aside, tried to fall asleep but didn’t work. The ideas inside my head were chasing my sleep, questions kept popping up. Awful. Now, I am sleepy and much less productive then yesterday.
I took a walk around the lake, which is only a few minutes away from my office. The proof that Louvain-la-Neuve is a lot of nature, too;)
The ducks
Trees in the water
By Nana | January 15, 2006 | Topics: Academic books, Les Voyages, PhD | 3 Comments »
Heaven For Writing
If I had this library in Ljubljana … if I only had it for the next year or so …
By Nana | August 11, 2005 | Topics: Academic books, Les Voyages, PhD | No Comments »
Current Readings
or better the books bought in the last three weeks, some of which I already finished reading, am reading or just quickly scanning thru (or should be reading;)):
- Systematic empiricism: critique of a pseudoscience (David and Judith Willer, 1973);
- Quantity and Quality in Social Research (Alan Bryman, 2000);
- The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research: Third Edition (Norman K. Denzin, Yvona S. Lincoln - eds., 2005);
- Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative and Mixed Methods Approaches (John W. Creswell, 2003);
- Social Research Methods: A Reader (ed. Clive Seale, 2004);
- Key Problems of Sociological Theory (John Rex, 1961).
I am very happy I bought every single one of them, they make a very interesting reading. But most proud I am of buying the big handbook, as I had been wanting to buy in for the last few years, but had always found it too expensive. But this new edition has really gotten into me, and it is worth every penny.
I very much like also Bryman’s and Creswell’s books, both are really top readings for my PhD.
My temperature came back a few days ago, only this time in a more elaborated edition: I have a sore throat and a running nose as well. I think I am over sensitive on air conditioning in the library or something. I really don’t find any other feasible explanation to this. Or maybe it’s just sadness, knowing that I will be leaving London and this wonderful LSE library quite soon. Too soon. I wish I had a few more weeks, ah … months even!
By Nana | July 31, 2005 | Topics: Academic books, PhD, Research | No Comments »
Cues Filtered Out, Cues Filtered In
Last week I came across Handbook of Interpersonal Communication, edited by Mark L Knapp and John A. Daly. First I was attracted to it cos I like handbooks per se and also because it appears intriguing for someone from communication studies. But when I took a closer look, I immediately realised I need to read at least half of it. It starts with some methodological perspectives on how to research the interaction processes, contexts, meanings, social cognition within interpersonal communication. It provides a detailed description on hypothesis testing and structural equation modelling. But … in the conclusion of methodology section they emphasise the importance of overcoming the “greatly overestimated gap between qualitative and quantitative approaches” (Poole at al in Knapp and Daly 2002, 62). I must admit I felt relieved after reading this as I was expecting it to be just another QUAN praising. But authors recognise the benefits of interpretative research – going below surface phenomena to uncover the underlying meanings and focusing on the meanings of the phenomena rather then objectifying them. So the next section delivers comprehensive overview of narrative inquiry as a paradigm for the study of interpersonal communication. And I really love how the author of this section, Arthur P. Boncher, describe the paradigm war:
“To quarrel over method is to have a goal in common but to disagree about how best to achieve the goal. But empiricists and interpertivists do not agree on the goal. Empiricists usually want to predict and control human behaviour whereas interpretivists want to understand human beings and help them decide what to do.”
It is important to acknowledge that there is more than one legitimate goal to which inquiry (on interpersonal communication) can be addressed and with doing so, we free ourselves from the chains of monolithic model of research practices. I think this could be considered one of the best arguments to undermine the incompatibility thesis.
But to move on from methodology, (which btw includes also a section on discourse analysis – quite impressing) the next few sections draw on conceptual perspectives and themes for interpersonal communication (e.g. culture and meaning). Then, slightly towards the end of a handbook, I discovered the “Cues Filtered Out, Cues Filtered In”, a contribution on computer mediated communication and relationships. An amazing piece of writing, written by Walther and Parks. I did read some stuff on Walther’s work before and I was astonished at his Social Information Processing theory (SIP), which greatly departs from all other theories (social presence theory, media richness theory, theory of electronic propinquity, SIDE theory), dealing with CMC and CMR. SIP theory explicitly rejects the view that the absence of nonverbal cues restricts communicator’s capability to exchange individuating information. Walther suggests that uncertainty reduction and social penetration can ultimately be as effective in CMC as in FtF interaction. An interesting point, with which I couldn’t agree more.
Oh yeah,this Walther and Parks section definitely worth reading, if you are even slightly interested in CMC.
By Nana | December 29, 2004 | Topics: Academic books, PhD, Research | No Comments »