This is the book which everybody doing a research project has been waiting for. Writing in an informal and accessible style, David Silverman offers the reader an entry into the broader issues of qualitative research that many textbooks gloss over - the underlying arguments of qualitative research and the key debates about its future direction.
Silverman shows how good research can be methodologically inventive, empirically rigorous, theoretically-alive and practically relevant. Using fascinating materials, ranging from photographs to novels and newspaper stories, this book demonstrates that getting to grips with these issues means asking ourselves fundamental questions about how we are influenced by contemporary culture.
David Silverman provides an antidote to the boring textbook, which is relevant to any degree course on research methods. Brilliantly written and always challenging and entertaining, this book will challenge your perceptions and help you think `out of the box′ about the nature and process of doing qualitative research.
David Silverman trained as a sociologist at the London School of Economics and the University of California, Los Angeles. He taught for 32 years at Goldsmiths, University of London, where he is now Emeritus Professor in the Sociology Department as well as Visiting Professor in the Business Schools, King’s College, London, Leeds University and University of Technology Sydney and Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Education, Queensland University of Technology. He is interested in conversation and discourse analysis and he has researched medical consultations, shelters for homeless people and HIV-test counselling.
He is the author of Doing Qualitative Research (sixth edition, 2022) and A Very Short, Fairly Interesting, Reasonably Cheap Book about Qualitative Research (second edition, 2013c). He is the editor of Qualitative Research (fifth edition, 2021) and the Sage series Introducing Qualitative Methods. In recent years, he has offered short, hands-on workshops in qualitative research for universities in Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia.
Now retired from full-time work, he aims to watch 100 days of county cricket a year. He also enjoys spending time with his grandchildren and great-grandsons as well as voluntary work in an old people’s home where he chats and sings with residents.