For convenience of discussion, it is useful to separate (a) general approaches or methods of gathering and presenting information from (b) specific techniques and instruments of data collection. We are using the term general method or general approach in reference to a principal type and source of information, whereas the term techniques and instruments refers to the specific steps and devices used in compiling the information.

The following overview assumes the form of a cafeteria of informationcollection methods from which researchers might choose one or more that suit their needs. Every method is described in a pattern intended to facilitate readers' quickly scanning the approaches to find answers to their questions. That is, almost all descriptions address the same eight elements:

Method label : a typical title for the method.

Method definition : a typical description of the method.

Purpose : the intent of the method, and kinds of research questions for which it can provide answers.

Procedure : a typical sequence of steps followed in employing the method. Sample projects: titles of theses or dissertations in different academic disciplines for which the approach is well suited.

Advantages : Strengths of the method in regard to (a) how effectively it can furnish answers to the research questions, (b) how easy it is to gather data, (c) how acceptable the method is likely to be for potential readers, and (d) how broadly the generalizations drawn in a study can be extended to other groups and settings.

Limitations : Weaknesses of the method in regard to the same characteristics as those listed under Advantages.

Resources : Books, journal articles, and other materials that (a) describe, analyze, or evaluate the approach or (b) illustrate its use.

The types of methods surveyed in this section are subsumed under six major headings--(a) historical accounts, (b) case studies and ethnographies, (c) experience narratives, (d) surveys, (e) correlation analyses, and (f) experiments. Subtypes are identified under several of these headings.

Even a casual inspection of the types reveals that they are not mutually exclusive but, rather, they often overlap. A particular thesis or dissertation may employ several of the types as dictated by the research questions to be answered.

Historical Accounts

Four kinds of historical methods are described--descriptive chronicles, interpretive histories, biographies, and autobiographies.

Descriptive chronicles

Defined. A descriptive chronicle traces events over a period of years in the life of a family, organization, ethnic group, region, kind of occupation, social movement, or the like. Authors of descriptive chronicles attempt objectively to depict what occurred, sticking to the facts without speculating about why events happened as they did.

Purpose : The dual aim of a descriptive chronicle is (a) to record a succession of events so they will not be lost to posterity and (b) to inform readers of what actually took place, showing which conditions changed and which conditions stayed the same with the passing of time.

Advantages : By compiling and ordering events from the past, chronicles preserve information that otherwise would be lost to future generations. Chronicles that are strictly descriptive are easier to produce than interpretive histories because they do not require theoretical analyses, estimates of cause, or the evaluation of events.

Limitations : Many readers are not satisfied with only a retelling of events. They want the author also to suggest what the affairs mean, such as (a) why events occurred as they did, (b) how events might have happened in some other manner if conditions had been different, (c) who was affected by the happenings, or (d) what the recounted events portend for the future.

Interpretive histories

Defined : An interpretive history not only traces incidents over a period of years, but it includes the author's estimate of what that collection of happenings means. Various kinds of meaning can be assigned to the data. One popular kind is explanatory, an estimate of what caused events to occur in the pattern reflected in the author's narrative. Another is evaluative, a judgment of whether events produced good or bad outcomes, whether people behaved responsibly or irresponsibly, whether organizations were efficient or inefficient, and the like. A further kind of meaning assumes the form of inferred lessons, which are generalizations derived from a historical account that can serve as guiding principles for the future, on the assumption that history repeats itself--at least partially.

Purpose : Like descriptive chronicles, interpretive histories are intended (a) to record a succession of events so they will not be lost and (b) to inform readers of what actually took place, showing which conditions changed and which ones stayed the same with the passing of time. However, as suggested above, interpretive histories include a substantial measure of the author's beliefs about what the events signify. Authors differ markedly in the amounts and types of interpretation they include. Some histories are long on description and short on interpretation, leaving to the reader the task of estimating what the events "mean." Other histories are quite the reverse, with authors suggesting at great length what the recounted happenings disclose.

Procedure : Here is one series of stages in the preparation of an interpretive history. The author

Advantages : Interpretive histories provide the researcher an opportunity to speculate about why events happened as they occurred. That opportunity includes the chance to apply the writer's particular conception of historiography, to illustrate the application of a novel theory, or to correct earlier versions that the author believes were flawed.

Limitations : Perhaps the most serious shortcoming of interpretive histories is their heavy dependence on sources of information that can be incomplete or badly biased. When the data on which researchers base their conclusions are not complete or are fraudulent, the validity of those conclusions is obviously in doubt. Thus, authors of historical studies face the challenge of ensuring that the account they write is an accurate portrayal of what happened in the past. That challenge derives from the fact that historians are limited to the accounts of the past they happen to find. How authentically such materials represent the events they depict may be open to serious question. And the farther back in historical time that the events occurred, the greater the question about the accuracy of the records that remain.

A variety of factors contribute to the distortion and loss of records. Over the centuries, valuable books and letters are destroyed by fire, flood, and invading armies. Victors in revolutions and political elections replace the defeated side's accounts of events with their own version of what happened. Manuscripts, letters, books, and periodicals are lost through the neglect or ignorance of people who fail to recognize the potential future importance of those materials. And the absence of scholars in certain cultures or in illiterate segments of the social-class structure results in a lack of records of happenings in such people's lives.

Finally, researchers themselves can be at fault, either by failing to search thoroughly for records or by manipulating the records in a manner that favors a bias they bring to their task.

In view of the risks to the authenticity and balance of available knowledge about the past, conscientious historians adopt several safeguards to promote the accuracy of their work. One way is to obtain multiple accounts of an event to determine how closely different versions match. Another is to locate the account within the sociopolitical atmosphere of its day; the researcher attempts to find convincing evidence that a given description of an incident reasonably reflects what would be expected to occur in the context of those times. A third method is to estimate the reliability of a source by its status as an official document or by the reputation of its author.

Resources : Conceptions of interpretive history include

Biography--descriptive and interpretive

Defined : A biography is a written account of another person's life. Like chronicles and interpretive histories, biographies can be solely a description of incidents in an individual life, or they can include the author's interpretation of those incidents. Various sorts of interpretation can be offered, such as (a) an estimate of themes, interests, or problems that figured prominently in the person's life, (b) judgments about how other people affected the biographee's development, (c) appraisals of the person's decisions at key junctures in his or her life, and (d) speculation about how the biographee was affected by the physical environments that she or he inhabited. In effect, interpretive biography refers to the studied use of documents that describe critical incidents or defining moments in people's lives--including such documents as autobiographies, biographies, letters, diaries, oral and personal histories, and obituaries ( Denzin, 1989, 1997).

Procedure : The stages in writing a biography can be much the same as those followed in producing an interpretive history.

Sample projects : Project titles can include the following:

Advantages : Perhaps the most important advantage of biographies is their ability to display the unique character of the biographee's life--a life which, in its details and pattern of development, is unlike anyone else's. A biography can serve readers by identifying persistent themes, consistencies, and inconsistencies in the subject's life and by illuminating the historical and cultural contexts in which the subject's life took place. Readers may also derive lessons about life that are inferred from behavior revealed in a biographer's account.

The process of writing a biography may also contribute to authors' own lives by obliging them to clarify their own historiographical persuasions, that is, their beliefs about the worth of different styles of analyzing and presenting historical accounts. In addition, the process may further biographers' inter-generational and intra-generational understandings and, perhaps, promote their self-understanding by comparing their own lives with those of the people they write about.

Limitations : Because interpretive biography involves researchers drawing inferences about the intentions, goals, beliefs, values, and feelings of the people they write about, there is the danger that those inferences may be in error. It's not unusual for a biographer to miss finding all of the evidence needed to support conclusions. As a result, the author may be criticized for being too subjective, basing interpretation on inadequate sources or--out of an ulterior motive-adopting a biased perspective that results in an account that is unduly favorable to the subject (too "soft") or unreasonably critical (too "harsh"). If the author is hasty, thereby drawing conclusions from an incomplete search for evidence, critics may charge that he or she has produced "blitzkrieg ethnography," a lightning exploratory account of a misleading nature.

There also is the danger of authors using conclusions drawn from studying a single life as the basis for generalizing about other people's lives, thereby regarding one person as an exemplar of a group of people, when in fact the person studied is unique and not representative.

Resources: Approaches to writing biographies are reflected in

Defined: An autobiography is a person's written account of her or his own life. Two sorts of autobiography can be distinguished--the traditional and the mediated.

A traditional autobiography is entirely the work of the person whose life is depicted. Examples would be Benjamin Franklin Autobiography ( 1951) and Winston Churchill Memories and Adventures ( 1989).

A mediated autobiography is a cooperative effort that involves the person whose life is being depicted and a writer responsible for casting the work in a suitable form. Sometimes the writer--as the mediator between the person and the reading audience--is identified and sometimes not. Thus, a collaborator may be relegated to the silent-partner role of ghost writer. Usually the collaborator has been asked to participate in the venture because the person whose life is being portrayed lacks the time, patience, or expertise to create a well-crafted narrative. Examples of mediated autobiographies are Gretzky: An Autobiography ( 1990) by Wayne Gretzky with Rick Reilly and I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala ( 1984) by Rigoberta Menchú with Elisabeth Burgos- Debray.

Theses and dissertations are rarely in the form of autobiographies. There apparently are two main reasons for the paucity of such works. First, within the tradition of positivism that dominated academic research throughout the 20th century, a person writing about himself or herself does not fit the image of a proper scholar who objectively analyzes events from an outsider's vantage point. Consequently, the subjective introspection that permeates autobiographies has generally not been seen as respectable thesis and dissertation fare. Second, the content of a graduate student's life, or the manner of presenting that life, is usually not seen by faculty advisors as sufficiently interesting or instructive to serve as the focus of scholarly attention. However, in the postmodern atmosphere within certain realms of academia over recent decades, autobiographical theses or dissertations are not merely tolerated but warmly welcomed.

Purpose: The typical intent of autobiography is to furnish readers an insider's view of a life by describing how events are interpreted by the person who has lived those events and who is the product of their influence. Hence, autobiographies are intentionally subjective, designed to reveal the motives, plans, ambitions, values, joys, disappointments, fears, and sorrows that help explain the author's behavior.

Procedure: In one apparently common approach to writing a traditional autobiography, authors search through their memories of the past to locate key events (critical incidents) and influential people that affected the course of their lives. The autobiographer's task becomes one of linking together those incidents and people to form a chronological chain of cause and effect intended to explain why such a life assumed its observed pattern.There are several ways that mediated autobiographies can be fashioned. As one alternative, the collaborator brings to the task a structure for the narrative that consists of a pattern of topics or questions that define the matters to be addressed in the work. The autobiographee's role is then one of providing answers to the questions, either orally or in written form. Answering the questions may also include furnishing letters, diaries, newspaper clippings, photographs, and memorabilia from which the writer can draw information.A different approach to mediated autobiography consists of the writer intentionally avoiding to prepare a structure of questions ahead of time but, instead, asking the person whose life is being depicted to talk or write at great length about her or his life history, describing the incidents and people that come to mind as significant influences. The collaborator then searches through this wealth of raw material to locate distinctive themes, decision points, and strands of cause which characterize that life. In short, the writer does not come to the project with a preconceived structure but, rather, "follows the data." Finally, the writer creates a narrative that enables readers to understand the themes and influences.

Sample projects: Traditional autobiographies accepted as thesis or dissertation proposals are ones submitted by graduate students (a) whose lives have been sufficiently unique to warrant scholarly attention or (b) whose manner of depicting their lives represents a theoretical or methodological contribution to the professional literature.

Mediated autobiographies that serve as the objects of theses or dissertations are usually about the lives of prominent individuals or ones who typify a culture or way of life is not generally well understood. The task of the graduate student is that of collecting and organizing the individual's life story, then presenting it in a readable form, adding little or no interpretation. Thus, if the person whose life is being described contributes the great majority of the content in his or her own words, then the product qualifies as mediated autobiography. But if the product contains a significant amount of the graduate student's phrasing and interpretation, the work is more accurately labeled biography.

Advantages: The value of autobiographies lies in their depicting an individual's life from the writer's own perspective, thereby revealing motives, goals, beliefs, emotional reactions, and interpretations of events that might not be discovered by an outsider functioning as a biographer.

Limitations: A threat to the validity of autobiographies derives from the fact that they are likely to be self-serving. An autobiography gives its author a chance to concoct a partially fictional account, portraying the author as a more adventuresome, noble, influential creative, or self-sacrificing individual than is deserved. Thus, the vision of reality conveyed in the narrative may, either intentionally or unwittingly, be somewhat at odds with the truth.

Case Studies and Ethnographies