ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the research process as an integrated whole. The steps have seen separated by chapter boundaries are, in practice, interwoven and interdependent. Research begins with a research question that asks why things are as we observe them to be. The place to start looking for an explanation is in the social science literature pertaining to our general subject. In explanatory research, data collection and analysis are carried out in order to test hypotheses. Researchers may, for example, use focus groups to determine the nature of people's concerns about a set of political issues, and then use survey research to estimate the distribution of those concerns among the general population. Sampling and data management provide less complete guides because those processes are both more technical and more closely tied to the situations encountered in individual research projects.
