A thoroughly updated edition of a beloved classic that has guided generations of researchers in conducting effective and meaningful research.
With more than a million copies sold since its first publication, The Craft of Research has helped generations of researchers at every level—from high-school students and first-year undergraduates to advanced graduate students to researchers in business and government. Conceived by seasoned researchers and educators Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams, this fundamental work explains how to choose significant topics, pose genuine and productive questions, find and evaluate sources, build sound and compelling arguments, and convey those arguments effectively to others.
While preserving the book's proven approach to the research process, as well as its accessible voice and general structure, this new edition acknowledges the many ways research is conducted and communicated today. Thoroughly revised by Joseph Bizup and William T. FitzGerald, it recognizes that research may end in a product other than a paper—or no product at all—and includes a new chapter about effective presentations. It features fresh examples from a variety of fields that will appeal to today's students and other readers. It also accounts for new technologies used in research and offers basic guidelines for the appropriate use of generative AI. And it ends with an expanded chapter on ethics that addresses researchers' broader obligations to their research communities and audiences as well as systemic questions about ethical research practices.
This new edition will be welcomed by a new and more diverse generation of researchers.
Preface: The Aims of This Edition Introduction: Your Research and Your Audience I.1. What Is Research? I.2. Connecting with Your Audience I.3. Understanding Your Role I.4. Imagining the Role of Your Audience I.5. How to Use This Book Quick Tip: A Checklist for Understanding Your Audience Part I. Asking Questions, Seeking Answers Prologue: Planning Your Project—An Overview Quick Tip: Sustaining a Writing Project Alone and in Groups 1. From Topics to Questions 1.1. From an Interest to a Topic 1.2. From Focused Topic to Research Question 1.3. The Most Significant Question: So What? Quick Tip: Finding Topics 2. From Questions to a Problem 2.1. Understanding Research Problems 2.2. Distinguishing “Pure” and “Applied” Research 2.3. Connecting Research to Practical Consequences 2.4. Finding a Good Research Problem 2.5. Learning to Work with Problems Quick Tip: Making an Opportunity of Inexperience Part II. Sources and Resources Prologue: Sources and Authentic Research 3. Finding and Evaluating Sources 3.1. Understanding Three Types of Sources 3.2. Making the Most of the Library 3.3. Locating Sources Online 3.4. Evaluating Sources for Relevance and Reliability 3.5. Looking Beyond Predictable Sources 3.6. Using People to Further Your Research Quick Tip: Using Generative Artificial Intelligence 4. Engaging Sources 4.1. Recording Complete Bibliographic Information 4.2. Engaging Sources Actively 4.3. Reading for a Problem 4.4. Reading for Arguments 4.5. Reading for Data and Support 4.6. Taking Notes Systematically 4.7. Annotating Your Sources Quick Tip: Managing Moments of Uncertainty Part III. Making Your Argument Prologue: Assembling a Research Argument 5. Making Good Arguments: An Overview 5.1. Argument as Conversation 5.2. Assembling the Core of Your Argument 5.3. Explaining Your Reasoning with Warrants 5.4. Acknowledging and Responding to Anticipated Questions and Objections 5.5. Planning Your Research Argument 5.6. Creating Your Ethos Quick Tip: A Common Mistake—Falling Back on What You Know 6. Making Claims 6.1. Determining the Kind of Claim You Should Make 6.2. Evaluating Your Claim 6.3. Qualifying Claims to Enhance Your Credibility Quick Tip: Make Your Claim Contestable 7. Assembling Reasons and Evidence 7.1. Using Reasons to Plan Your Argument 7.2. Distinguishing Evidence from Reasons 7.3. Determining the Kind of Evidence You Need 7.4. Distinguishing Evidence from Reports of It 7.5. Evaluating Your Evidence Quick Tip: Assess Your Evidence as You Gather It 8. Warrants 8.1. Warrants in Everyday Reasoning 8.2. Warrants in Research Arguments 8.3. Testing Warrants 8.4. Knowing When to State a Warrant 8.5. Using Warrants to Test Your Argument 8.6. Challenging Others’ Warrants Quick Tip: Reasons, Evidence, and Warrants 9. Acknowledgments and Responses 9.1. Questions about Your Research Problem 9.2. Questions about the Soundness of Your Argument 9.3. Imagining Alternatives to Your Argument 9.4. Deciding What to Acknowledge 9.5. Framing Your Responses as Sub-arguments 9.6. The Vocabulary of Acknowledgment and Response Quick Tip: Three Predictable Disagreements Part IV. Delivering Your Argument Prologue: Planning, Writing, and Thinking 10. Planning and Drafting 10.1. Why a Formal Paper? 10.2. Planning Your Paper 10.3. Avoiding Three Common but Flawed Patterns 10.4. Turning Your Plan into a Draft Quick Tip: Managing Anxiety as a Writer 11. Revising and Organizing 11.1. Thinking Like a Reader 11.2. Revising Your Frame 11.3. Revising Your Argument 11.4. Revising Your Organization 11.5. Checking Your Paragraphs 11.6. Letting Your Draft Cool, Then Revisiting It Quick Tip: Abstracts 12. Incorporating Sources 12.1. Summarizing, Paraphrasing, and Quoting 12.2. Creating a Fair Summary 12.3. Creating a Fair Paraphrase 12.4. Using Direct Quotations 12.5. Mixing Summary, Paraphrase, and Quotation 12.6. Showing Readers How Evidence Is Relevant 12.7. The Social Importance of Citing Sources 12.8. Four Common Citation Styles 12.9. Guarding against Inadvertent Plagiarism Quick Tip: Indicating Citations in Your Paper 13. Communicating Evidence Visually 13.1. Choosing Visual or Verbal Representations 13.2. Choosing the Most Effective Graphic 13.3. Designing Tables, Charts, and Graphs 13.4. Specific Guidelines for Tables, Bar Charts, and Line Graphs 13.5. Representing Data Ethically Quick Tip: Look for Opportunities to Include Visual Evidence 14. Introductions and Conclusions 14.1. The Common Structure of Introductions 14.2. Step 1: Stating a Context 14.3. Step 2: Stating Your Problem 14.4. Step 3: Stating Your Response 14.5. Setting the Right Pace 14.6. Finding Your First Few Words 14.7. Writing Your Conclusion Quick Tip: Use Key Terms in Titles 15. Revising Style: Telling Your Story Clearly 15.1. Judging Style 15.2. The First Two Principles of Clear Writing 15.3. A Third Principle: Old before New 15.4. Choosing between the Active and Passive Voice 15.5. A Final Principle: Complexity Last 15.6. Editorial Polish Quick Tip: The Quickest Revision Strategy 16. Research Presentations 16.1. Presenting to Auditors 16.2. Giving a Preliminary Presentation 16.3. Giving a Final Presentation Quick Tip: Treat Your Presentation as a Performance Part V. Some Last Considerations 17. The Ethics of Research 17.1. Ethical Obligation to Yourself 17.2. Ethical Obligation to Your Audience and Fellow Researchers 17.3. Research and Social Responsibility 17.4. A Final Thought 18. Advice for Teachers 18.1. The Risks of Imposing Formal Rules 18.2. On Assignment Scenarios: Creating a Ground for Curiosity 18.3. Recognizing and Tolerating the Inevitable Messiness of Learning Our Debts Appendix: A Brief Guide to Bibliographic and Other Resources Index
Wayne C. Booth (1921–2005) was the George M. Pullman Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in English Language and Literature at the University of Chicago. His many books include The Rhetoric of Fiction and For the Love of It:Amateuring and Its Rivals, both published by the University of Chicago Press. Gregory G. Colomb (1951–2011) was professor of English at the University of Virginia and the author of Designs on Truth: The Poetics of the Augustan Mock-Epic. Joseph M. Williams (1933–2008) was professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Chicago and the author of Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace. Joseph Bizup is associate professor in the Department of English at Boston University. He revised the last three editions of Williams’s Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace. William T. FitzGerald is associate professor in the Department of English and Communication at Rutgers University–Camden and has published widely on writing and research, the rhetoric of prayer, and style.
