9780226065687

Since 1995, students, researchers, and professionals have turned to The Craft of Research for clear and helpful guidance on how to conduct research and report it effectively. Now, master teachers Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams have completely revised and updated their classic handbook. The new edition will continue to help thousands of students and writers plan, carry out, and report on research to produce effective term papers, dissertations, articles, or books -- in any field, at any level.

Wayne C. Booth is the George Pullman Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus 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 is a professor of the English language and literature at the University of Virginia. He is the author of Designs on Truth: The Poetics of the Augustan Mock-Epic.

Joseph M. Williams is a professor emeritus in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Chicago. He is the author of Style: Toward Clarity and Grace. Together Colomb and Williams have written The Craft of Argument.

Preface

xi

I RESEARCH, RESEARCHERS, AND READERS

1

(34)

Prologue: Starting a Research Project

3

(6)

Thinking in Print: The Uses of Research, Public and Private

9

(8)

What Is Research?

10

(2)

Why Write It Up?

12

(1)

Why a Formal Report?

13

(2)

Conclusion

15

(2)

Connecting with Your Reader: (Re)Creating Your Self and Your Audience

17

(18)

Creating Roles for Writers and Readers

17

(2)

Creating a Relationship with Your Reader: Your Role

19

(3)

Creating the Other Half of the Relationship: The Reader's Role

22

(4)

Writing in Groups

26

(4)

Managing the Unavoidable Problem of Inexperience

30

(5)

A Checklist for Understanding Your Readers

32

(3)

II ASKING QUESTIONS, FINDING ANSWERS

35

(74)

Prologue: Planning Your Project

37

(3)

From Topics to Questions

40

(16)

From an Interest to a Topic

41

(2)

From a Broad Topic to a Focused One

43

(2)

From a Focused Topic to Questions

45

(4)

From a Merely Interesting Question to Its Wider Significance

49

(7)

Finding Topics

53

(3)

From Questions to Problems

56

(19)

Problems, Problems, Problems

57

(3)

The Common Structure of Problems

60

(8)

Finding a Good Research Problem

68

(2)

Summary: The Problem of the Problem

70

(5)

Disagreeing with Your Sources

72

(3)

From Problems to Sources

75

(15)

Screening Sources for Reliability

76

(3)

Locating Printed and Recorded Sources

79

(4)

Finding Sources on the Internet

83

(2)

Gathering Data Directly from People

85

(3)

Bibliographic Trails

88

(1)

What You Find

88

(2)

Using Sources

90

(19)

Three Uses for Sources

91

(4)

Reading Generously but Critically

95

(1)

Preserving What You Find

96

(8)

Getting Help

104

(5)

Speedy Reading

106

(3)

III MAKING A CLAIM AND SUPPORTING IT

109

(74)

Prologue: Pulling Together Your Argument

111

(3)

Making Good Arguments: An Overview

114

(13)

Argument and Conversation

114

(2)

Basing Claims on Reasons

116

(1)

Basing Reasons on Evidence

117

(1)

Acknowledging and Responding to Alternatives

118

(1)

Warranting the Relevance of Reasons

119

(2)

Building Complex Arguments Out of Simple Ones

121

(1)

Arguments and Your Ethos

122

(5)

Designing Arguments Not for Yourself but for Your Readers: Two Common Pitfalls

124

(3)

Claims

127

(11)

What Kind of Claim?

127

(2)

Evaluating Your Claim

129

(9)

Qualifying Claims to Enhance Your Credibility

135

(3)

Reasons and Evidence

138

(13)

Using Reasons to Plan Your Argument

138

(2)

The Slippery Distinction between Reasons and Evidence

140

(2)

Evidence vs. Reports of Evidence

142

(2)

Selecting the Right Form for Reporting Evidence

144

(1)

Reliable Evidence

145

(6)

Showing the Relevance of Evidence

149

(2)

Acknowledgments and Responses

151

(14)

Questioning Your Argument

152

(2)

Finding Alternatives to Your Argument

154

(3)

Deciding What to Acknowledge

157

(2)

Responses as Subordinate Arguments

159

(6)

The Vocabulary of Acknowledgment and Response

161

(4)

Warrants

165

(18)

How Warrants Work

166

(2)

What Warrants Look Like

168

(1)

Knowing When to State a Warrant

168

(2)

Testing Your Warrants

170

(7)

Challenging the Warrants of Others

177

(6)

Some Strategies for Challenging Warrants

179

(4)

IV PREPARING TO DRAFT, DRAFTING, AND REVISING

183

(100)

Prologue: Planning Again

185

(4)

Outlining

187

(2)

Planning and Drafting

189

(19)

Preliminaries to Drafting

189

(2)

Planning: Four Traps to Avoid

191

(2)

A Plan for Drafting

193

(8)

The Pitfall to Avoid at All Costs: Plagiarism

201

(3)

The Next Step

204

(4)

Using Quotation and Paraphrase

205

(3)

Revising Your Organization and Argument

208

(14)

Thinking Like a Reader

209

(1)

Analyzing and Revising Your Overall Organization

209

(7)

Revising Your Argument

216

(2)

The Last Step

218

(4)

Titles and Abstracts

219

(3)

Introductions and Conclusions

222

(19)

The Three Elements of an Introduction

222

(3)

Establishing Common Ground

225

(3)

Stating Your Problem

228

(4)

Stating Your Response

232

(2)

Fast or Slow?

234

(1)

Organizing the Whole Introduction

235

(1)

Conclusions

236

(5)

Opening and Closing Words

238

(3)

Communicating Evidence Visually

241

(22)

Visual or Verbal?

244

(1)

Tables vs. Figures

244

(1)

Constructing Tables

245

(3)

Constructing Figures

248

(12)

Visual Communication and Ethics

260

(1)

Using Graphics as an Aid to Thinking

261

(2)

Revising Style: Telling Your Story Clearly

263

(20)

Judging Style

263

(2)

A First Principle: Stories and Grammar

265

(9)

A Second Principle: Old Before New

274

(1)

Choosing between Active and Passive

275

(2)

A Final Principle: Complexity Last

277

(3)

Spit and Polish

280

(3)

The Quickest Revision

281

(2)

V SOME LAST CONSIDERATIONS

283

(42)

The Ethics of Research

285

(4)

A Postscript for Teachers

289

(8)

An Appendix on Finding Sources

297

(20)

General Sources

298

(1)

Special Sources

299

(18)

A Note on Some of Our Sources

317

(8)

Index

325

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The Craft of Research

The Craft of Research

0226065685

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials