Babbie organizes his textbook around three themes: understanding the theoretical principles on which scientific research is based, seeing how those principles are reflected in the established techniques for doing research, and being prepared to make appropriate compromises whenever the field conditions do not permit the routine applications of established techniques. He had sociology courses in mind, but finds that the book is also used in other social sciences. For this edition he has revised his use of the words gender and sex for rigor and consistency, dropped the box series and incorporated most of the examples into the text, updated GSS and other data, and added color. Annotation ©2015 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)