Doing Document Analysis

Uniting methods from disciplines across the social sciences and humanities, this hands-on guide develops a novel approach to doing document analysis. The authors present a framework for studying documents that enables you to conduct a rich and systematic analysis of documents in all their diversity. Focussing on document analysis both in practice and as practice, the book provides you with an innovative and versatile toolkit for analysing print and digital documents. It also: Highlights the impacts of digitalisation on documents themselves and the methods used to study them Has a strong focus on research ethics and critical engagement with digital sources Offers practical guidance on preparing and doing a document analysis research project. The book offers insightful perspectives both on the indispensable role of documents in our society and practical advice on how you can best analyse documents and their significance.

Grounded in real examples, this book gives you the skills and confidence to conduct rich, systematic analysis of print and digital documents.

Encouraging critical consideration of research design, the book guides readers step-by-step through the process of planning and undertaking a research project based on documentary analysis. It covers selecting a research topic and sample through to analysing and writing up the data.

In today’s society we increasingly create and consume written content and images. This includes a range of sources, from social media posts to records held within organisations, and everything in between, including news articles, blogs, shopping lists and official government documents. Critically reading these ‘documents’ can help us to understand a huge amount about society. Doing Excellent Social Research with Documents includes guidance on how to ‘read between the lines’, and provides an overview of six research projects which use documents as data. The substantive chapters are organised in two sections, with each chapter focused on a specific type of data. Section one focuses on documents that are found in isolation from their authors, including official and historical documents, traditional media, diaries and online content. Section two focuses on using documents in addition to existing data from primary research, including the role of documents in ethnography and visual research methods. In each chapter, you will be guided through the process of: Developing research questions, and how this impacts on which documents are selected; Considering aspects of bias and quality within the documentary sources; Undertaking analysis using six different strategies including thematic analysis, framework analysis, content analysis, discourse analysis and narrative analysis. Drawing on research projects which reflect real world situations, you will be methodically guided through the research process in detail, enabling you to examine and understand the practices and value of a range of documentary analysis approaches. Doing Excellent Social Research with Documents is a practical how-to guide for students (final year undergraduates onwards) and researchers using documents as data.

"This is an impressive collection that will form a must-have resource for those undertaking, teaching or studying qualitative research. It is nicely balanced to include practical advice and methodological discussion on a range of issues, including research design, data collection, analytical approaches and the political economy of contemporary qualitative research practice." - Amanda Coffey, Cardiff University The SAGE Qualitative Research Kit is a major event in the world of Research Methods publishing. The kit comprises eight quality volumes that provide practical and accessible advice on how to conduct state-of-the-art qualitative research. This is an ideal toolkit for students and researchers for use in planning and carrying out research in a variety of academic and professional environments. Each short text is written by leading researchers in each field, and provides the reader with a hands-on guide to what it is really like to do qualitative research in the field. Each book cross-references the other books in the kit, making this an invaluable tool for both teaching and for self-learning. Ideal for anyone in the social, health and educational studies fields, this is the perfect all-encompassing and detailed introduction to the practicalities of qualitative research. The SAGE Qualitative Research Kit contains the following titles Designing Qualitative Research Uwe Flick Designing Qualitative Research provides a comprehensive guide to devising an effective research design. Uwe Flick discusses each stage of the process of designing qualitative research in detail, including formulating a research question, selecting an appropriate strategy, conceptual framework and data source, and collecting and analyzing data. 1. What is qualitative research 2. From an idea to a research question 3. Sampling, selecting and Access 4. Qualitative research designs 5. Resources and stepping stones 6. Quality in qualitative research 7. Ethics in qualitative research 8. Verbal data 9. Ethnographic and visual data 10. Analysing qualitative data 11. Designing qualitative research - Some conclusions Doing Interviews Steinar Kvale Interviewing is an invaluable tool for the qualitative researcher. Steinar Kvale provides coverage of both the theoretical background and the practical aspects of the interview process, incorporating discussion of the wide variety of methods in interview based research and the different approaches to reading the data. Consideration is also given to the crucial issue of how to ensure scientific rigor. 1. Introduction to Interview Research 2. Epistemological Issues of Interviewing 3. Ethical Issues of Interviewing 4. Planning an Interview Study 5. Conducting an Interview 6. Interview Variations 7. Interview Quality 8. Transcribing Interviews 9. Analysing Interviews 10. Validation and Generalisation of Interview Knowledge 11. Reporting Interview Knowledge 12. Enhancing Interview Quality Doing Ethnographic and Observational Research Michael Angrosino Doing Ethnographic Research guides the reader through the whole research process, from site selection through the production of a final report, and provides an introduction to the variety of data collection techniques associated with ethnographic research. Illustrative case material is provided throughout to demonstrate how the guidelines set out here translate into real-life research situations. 1. Ethnography and Participant Observation 2. What Kinds of Topics Can Be Effectively and Efficiently Studied by Ethnographic Methods? 3. Selecting a Field Site 4. Data Collection in the Field 5. Focus on Observation 6. Analyzing Ethnographic Data 7. Strategies for Representing Ethnographic Data 8. Ethical Considerations 9. Ethnography for the Twenty-First Century Doing Focus Groups Rosaline Barbour Focus groups are an increasingly popular method for collecting qualitative data in the social sciences. Doing Focus Groups provides practical advice on planning and running such group successfully. Rose Barbour discusses the advantages and limitations of using group discussion and demonstrates effective methods for collecting and analysing data. 1. Introducing Focus Groups 2. Uses and Abuses of Focus Groups 3. Underpinnings of Focus Group Research 4. Research Design 5. Sampling 6. Practicalities of Planning and Running Focus Groups 7. Ethics and Engagement 8. Generating Data 9. Starting to Make Sense of Focus Group Data 10. Analytical Challenges in Focus Group Research Using Visual Data in Qualitative Research Marcus Banks Using Visual Data in Qualitative Research examines the wide range of uses of paintings, photographs, film, drawings and a host of other images in qualitative research. Marcus Banks discusses visual data produced by the researcher, and that produced by those under study, and provides a comprehensive introduction to the practice of visually-orientated research. 1. The place of visual data in social research: a brief history 2. Approaches to studying the visual 3.Visual methods and field research 4. Presenting visual research 5. Conclusion: images and social research Analyzing Qualitative Data Graham Gibbs Analyzing Qualitative Data outlines how to select the most appropriate tool for analysis and provides the reader with an awareness of the various challenges that are unique to interpreting the conceptual and subjective data generated in qualitative research. Graham Gibbs covers preparation of data, coding and categorizing, analyzing biographies and narratives, and discusses the use of computer assisted qualitative data analysis. 1. The Nature of Qualitative Analysis 2. Data preparation 3. Writing 4. Thematic coding and categorizing 5. Analysing biographies and narratives 6. Comparative Analysis 7. Analytic Quality and Ethics 8. Getting started with computer assisted qualitative data analysis 9. Searching and other analytic activities using software 10. Putting it all together Doing Conversation, Discourse and Document Analysis Tim Rapley Doing Conversation, Discourse and Document Analysis demonstrates how language-in-use can be researched, looking at a wide range of sources, including official documents, political debate, casual conversations, interviews and internet chat rooms. The issues that might be faced by those undertaking such research are tackled and practical solutions are explored. 1. Studying discourse 2. Generating an archive 3. Ethics and recording 'data' 4. The practicalities of recording 5. Transcribing audio and video materials 6. Exploring conversations 7. Exploring conversations about and with documents 8. Exploring conversations and discourse: some debates and dilemmas 9. Exploring documents 10. Studying discourse: some closing comments Managing Quality in Qualitative Research Uwe Flick The issue of quality in qualitative research is one that is often neglected. In Managing Quality in Qualitative Research attention is given to the fundamental question of how to define and assess the quality of research. Uwe Flick examines how to distinguish good research from bad research when it comes to teaching, planning, evaluating and publishing qualitative research. 1. How to manage, address and assess the quality of qualitative research 2. Standards, criteria, checklists and guidelines 3. Strategies of managing diversity 4. Concepts of Triangulation 5. Methodological Triangulation in Qualitative Research 6. Triangulation in Ethnography 7. Triangulation of Qualitative and Quantitative Research 8. How to Use Triangulation for managing quality - Practical Issues 9. Quality, Creativity, and Ethics: Different ways to ask the question 10.Managing Quality in qualitative research - a focus on process and transparency

From diaries and letters to surveys and interview transcripts, documents are a cornerstone of social science research. This book guides you through the documentary research process, from choosing the best research design, through data collection and analysis, to publishing and sharing research findings. Using extensive case studies and examples, it situates documentary research within a current context and empowers you to use this method to meet new challenges like digital research and big data head on. In a jargon-free style perfect for beginner researchers, this book helps you to: · Interrogate documentary material in meaningful ways · Choose the best research design for your project, from literature reviews to policy research · Understand a range of approaches, including quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods. Accessible, clear and focused, this book gives you the tools to conduct your own documentary research and celebrates the importance of documentary analysis across the social sciences.

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This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 14th IAPR International Workshop on Document Analysis Systems, DAS 2020, held in Wuhan, China, in July 2020. The 40 full papers presented in this book were carefully reviewed and selected from 57 submissions. The papers are grouped in the following topical sections: character and text recognition; document image processing; segmentation and layout analysis; word embedding and spotting; text detection; and font design and classification. Due to the Corona pandemic the conference was held as a virtual event .