Basic Themes
Use, Production and Content
Producing Facts
Documents in Action I
Documents in Organizational Settings
Documents in Action II
Making Things Visible
Texts, Authors, Identities
Content, Meaning and Reference
Doing Things with Words
Documents as Evidence
Researching the Inert Text
Production, Consumption and Exchange

Using Documents in Social Research offers a comprehensive, yet concise, introduction to the use of documents as tools within social science research. The books argues that documents stand in a dual-relation to human activity, and therefore by transmitting ideas and influencing the course and nature of human activity they are integral to the research process.

Key features of the book include:

· Alerts students to the diversity of social scientific research documents.

· Outlines the various strategies and debates that need to be considered in order to integrate the study of documents into a research project.

· Offers a number of examples where documents have been used within a variety of research contexts.

The book is written in an easy and engaging style which makes it accessible to undergraduates and postgraduate students. It will be essential reading for students and researchers across a range of social science disciplines.

Lindsay Prior is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Queen's University, Belfast, and visiting Professor in the School of Public Health. He is the author of Using Documents in Social Research (SAGE, 2003) and editor of the 4-volume Using Documents and Records in Social Research (SAGE, 2011). His most recent journal publications-in, Social Science & Medicine, Critical Public Health, Sociology of Health & Illness, have focused on various aspects of public health practice and policy.