Working with Paradata

This book asks the important question; Can the by-products of research activity be treated as data and of research interest in themselves?

This groundbreaking interdisciplinary volume considers the analytic value of a range of 'by-products' of social research and reading. These include electronically captured paradata on survey administration, notes written in the margins of research documents and literary texts, and fieldnotes and ephemera produced by social researchers. Revealing the relational nature of paradata, marginalia and fieldnotes, contributions examine how the craft of studying and analyzing these by-products offers insight into the intellectual, social and ethical processes underpinning the activities of research and reading.

Unique and engaging, this book is a must read for social researchers and sociologists, narrative analysts, literary scholars and historians. Bridging methodological boundaries, it will also prove of great value to quantitative and qualitative methodologists alike.

Contributors include: K. Bell, J. Boddy, R.G. Burgess, G.B. Durrant, R. Edwards, H. Elliott, E. Fahmy, J. Goodwin, H.J. Jackson, D. Kilburn, O. Maslovskaya, H. O'Connor, A. Phoenix, W.H. Sherman

Edited by Rosalind Edwards, Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology, University of Southampton, John Goodwin and Henrietta O’Connor, Department of Sociology, University of Leicester and Ann Phoenix, Thomas Coram Research Unit, Department of Social Sciences, UCL Institute of Education, UK and Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki, Finland