Summary of Gary King, Robert O. Keohane & Sidney Verba's Designing Social Inquiry

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 This book is about research in the social sciences. It is not a guide to specific research tasks such as the design of surveys, conduct of field work, or analysis of statistical data. Rather, it focuses on the essential logic underlying all social scientific research. #2 The styles of quantitative and qualitative research are very different. Quantitative research uses numbers and statistical methods, and it tends to be based on numerical measurements of specific aspects of phenomena. Qualitative research, in contrast, covers a wide range of approaches, and it relies on intensive interviews or depth analysis of historical materials. #3 The difference between quantitative and qualitative research is only stylistic. All good research can be understood to derive from the same underlying logic of inference. Both quantitative and qualitative research can be systematic and scientific. #4 The rules of scientific inference are the same for all types of research, even nonstatistical research. They are often more clearly stated in the style of quantitative research, since the abstract, and even unrealistic, nature of statistical models makes the rules of inference stand out.