This article explores the proposition that the appropriate use of suitable forms of graphic communication can improve the formulation and presentation of hypotheses in quantitative social science research. The creative nature of scientific diagrams is discussed and the technological advances in computer graphic media are seen as part of a ‘visual revolution’ which is markedly changing not only the way we see things but also the way we think and do things today. Brief historical views on the use of hypotheses and diagrammatic languages in science are given. The restricted use of graphic communication tools in social research academic documents is discussed and the importance of using well-designed data graphics in the production and transmission of scientific knowledge is highlighted. Hypotheses are conceptualised and their importance within social research is emphasised. A methodological approach for formulating hypotheses graphically is proposed based on the use of three types of language: notation, statement (ordinary language) and diagram. Some criteria are suggested for the selection of diagram type dependent on the related variables. Several examples are given covering the different models proposed.

This article analyzes the main challenges involved in the ethical review of social research projects that use qualitative techniques for gathering data. The Brazilian ethical review system was constructed having biomedical sciences as the main reference. This article goes over some of the main points of ethical tension in social research by discussing five classic cases in human and social sciences. It supports the possibility of social research being included in the current ethical review system, as long as there is a sensitization of the ethics committees regarding the methodological particularities imposed by qualitative techniques. Finally, the need for specific ethical guidelines for social research is also considered.

Few pieces of social research outside of social psychology are based on experiments, but the experimental model looms large in social science research methodology. It is a staple of social research methods textbooks both as a method and as a model for more commonly used methods. The experimental ideal of controlled comparisons motivates the selection of observations in quasi-experimental research and the statistical analysis of nonexperimental data from sample surveys. Methodologists prefer simple experimental designs (e.g., Hausman and Wise 1985; Campbell and Stanley 1963). There is

The distinction between basic and applied social research continues to be influential. Problems with this distinction are identified, and an alternative typology is presented. This distinguishes, first of all, between scientific and practical research, in terms of their audience and mode of validation. Further distinctions are then made within each of these categories, between theoretical and substantive scientific research, and between contract-based versus autonomous, and dedicated versus democratic, practical research.

I am a social researcher who uses both theoretical and empirical enquiry not so much to describe the social as to understand the conflicts involved in constructing an order that appears to us as ‘social’. I seek to address the paradox of doing social research: for the social is not something concrete at which we can point, but a dimension of how whatever in our life is concrete holds together as a world. Media are crucial to what hangs together as a world – and in ways that much social research to this day still ignores. Media are in the contemporary era irrevocably ‘digital’: they take forms that automatically bring possibilities for recombination, retransmission, and reworking by multiple actors. As such, and unavoidably, digital media can be woven tight into the fabric of social life much more than previous media. But what does this mean for the social world, that is, for our possibilities to enhance or undermine how we live together today?

Includes photo. Review(s) of: Matt Henn, Mark Weinstein and Nick Foard, A Short Introduction to Social Research, Sage, Llondon, 2006, ISBN 0761944842, 285 pages, paperback.

Weber's earliest involvement in empirical social research included three investigations of agricultural and industrial labor conditions, workers' attitudes and work histories, using both questionnaires and direct observation. Weber used a relatively modern statistical approach in his fourth study, concerning psychological aspects of factory work, and in a fifth episode, a critique of another person's study of workers' attitudes, he advocated a quantitative or typological approach to qualitative data. In all his work Weber was explicitly concerned with quantitative techniques and with the notion that the meaning of social relationships can be expressed only in probabilistic terms. Nevertheless he was ambivalent about the value of quantitative methods and about the role of empirical research in sociology. The sources of this ambivalence include two contemporary issues that Weber never resolved in his own work: the debate as to whether sociology and psychology should be sharply distinguished, and the action-language then current in German social science as a conceptual device, to be used deductively without reference to empirical research.

Journal Article Economic and Social Research Council Grants-Completed Projects Get access The Economic Journal, Volume 95, Issue 378, 1 June 1985, Pages 568–571, https://doi.org/10.1093/ej/95.378.568 Published: 01 June 1985

Journal Article The Regional Laboratory for Social Research and Planning Get access Katharine Jocher Katharine Jocher Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Social Forces, Volume 23, Issue 3, March 1945, Pages 285–290, https://doi.org/10.2307/2572293 Published: 01 March 1945

Journal Article Some Notes on the Planning of Social Research Get access Harry H. Moore Harry H. Moore Bronxville, New York Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Social Forces, Volume 14, Issue 2, December 1935, Pages 227–231, https://doi.org/10.2307/2571254 Published: 01 December 1935