Doing Qualitative Research: A Practical Handbook

This hugely popular textbook has been fully revised and updated and is one of the few books available that can claim to be essential reading for anyone planning their own research project.

Written in a lively, accessible style, this step-by-step guide provides answers to all the questions students ask when beginning their first research project. Silverman demonstrates how to learn the craft of qualitative research by applying knowledge about different methods to actual data. He provides practical advice on key issues, such as: defining `originality′ and narrowing down a topic; keeping a research diary and writing a research report; and presenting research to different audiences.

Features of Doing Qualitative Research: Second Edition include:

- six new chapters

- case studies of students′ own experiential accounts of doing research

- essential guidance on practical issues such as working with your supervisor or writing up your research

- end-of-chapter ′researcher′s checklists′

- a range of examples from across the full range of social science disciplines, including sociology, education, health studies and business studies

- the latest discussions of CAQDAS and E-research

- an all new and extended methods glossary

Doing Qualitative Research: Second Edition retains Silverman′s uniquely accessible, hands-on style, walking the student through every aspect of the process of actually doing a qualitative research project.

Packed with case studies and examples of students′ experiences, the book has many features to aid study, including overviews, summaries of key skills and a glossary of terms. Each stage in the research process is grounded in worked examples based on the experiences of real students, with exercises designed both to test readers′ knowledge and to encourage the development of practical skills.

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. He is interested in conversation and discourse analysis and he has researched medical consultations and HIV-test counselling.

He is the author of Interpreting Qualitative Data (Seventh Edition, 2024) and A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book about Qualitative Research (Second Edition, 2013). He is also the editor of Qualitative Research (Sixth Edition, 2026) and the Sage series, Introducing Qualitative Methods. In recent years, he has offered short, hands-on workshops in qualitative research for research students and faculty at universities in Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia.

Now retired from full-time work, David aims to watch one hundred days of cricket a year. He also enjoys voluntary work in an old people’s home where he sings with residents with dementia and strokes.