Research Methods (Vol. 1)

Quest of knowledge has played an important role in the advancement of human civilisation. The journey from the stone-age to space age bears testimony to untiring and continuous efforts for revealing the unknown mysteries of nature and human life. This activity with the object of seeking the truth, known as research has been an unending process, as each success became a landmark in advancement of knowledge and leads to fresh efforts with greater vigour to probe deeper and deeper. While nature has been the subject of inquiry in physical sciences, human beings, individual and group behaviour, social life, social systems have been the subjects of inquiry in social sciences.
Success in research requires elaborate, painstaking and systematic work using appropriate research methods and techniques. Spread over 16 chapters the book ‘Research Methods’ comprehensively covers all essential methods and techniques in research from development of research proposal to presentation of research report. Chapters on Research Standards and Research Ethics, Research Environment and Resources for Research in India, Methods of Citation and Referencing and Development of Research Report have been included to meet the requirement of young researchers. Main emphasis in the present work has been on systematically explaining with illustrative exercises the subject matter in simple language.
The present work is a humble effort to serve the research community. Suggestions and observations are invited from scholars to make the work more useful for researchers.