Customer Reviews
Very Detailed ..... - By: James Wilson, 25 Jan 2006 
Looking for as much help as I can, I needed to purchase a book that gave enough guidance for me to complete my dissertation. This certainly was the book, very detailed & thorough.
I will say it is a little complicated as I read in one review. However, thinking about it, you are completing your masters dissertation, it in essence should not be easy, it might take a little bit of work!!!
Its not the type of book that you can flick to a page & find out what you need. You need to read the book from cover to cover. Mainly because the author often talks about issues that are related to previous issues you need to read etc.
Good book Mr. Hart, but please improve the research methodology section!
Cheers,
James Wilson
Excellent text book - By: , 29 Nov 2005 
This isn't the simple 'how to do book' for dummies who ought not to be on a Masters level course. It's a long book yes but crammed full of good advice & knowledge. It's for the serious postgraduate student whether Masters or Doctorate. Chapters on finding a topic, developing a research proposal, sampling & research methods are invaluable. The chapter on methodological assumptions is one of the few in the literature to make sense of ‘theories’. The chapter on methodological consequences shows what we commit ourselves to when we make choices about what methodological position to take: the examples from sociology, psychology & anthropology are fascinating. The chapter on different types of dissertation made me see there are choices. This is a pedagogical textbook that refuses to ‘dumb-down’, that uses lots of diagrams to explain complex ideas, issues & debates in the social sciences. The appendices list sources on different research methods – very useful. The skills it embraces are those recommended by the UK research councils that alll postgraduate students should acquire.
Far too cerebral for me. Is there a MSc for dummies? - By: , 09 Aug 2005 
I don't have time to be exhaustive, but this book was for me a complete waste of money. I wanted a book that would tell me how to write my Masters Dissertation..... The title kinda fits, does it not? What I reallly needed was a prescriptive, write this section (in this way for most marks) & then this section.
etc. etc. This is one of the most unreadable text books out there. OK quantum mechanics for russian cosmology professors is a little trickier, but I have just totallly wasted £20.
This reads more like a PhD thesis, loosely hung around the pretence of a text book. Rubbish. Nice door-stop though
