INTRODUCTION1. HYPOTHESES, LAWS, AND THEORIES: A USER'S GUIDE
What Is a Theory?
What Is a Specific Explanation?
What Is a Good Theory?
How Can Theories Be Made?
How Can Theories Be Tested?
Strong vs. Weak Tests: Predictions and Tests
Helpful Hints for Testing Theories
How Can Specific Events Be Explained?
Methodology Myths2. WHAT ARE CASE STUDIES? HOW SHOULD THEY BE PERFORMED?
Case Studies in Perspective
Testing Theories with Case Studies
Creating Theories with Case Studies
Inferring Antecedent Conditions from Case Studies
Testing Antecedent Conditions with Case Studies
Explaining Cases
Strong vs. Weak Tests: Predictions and Tests
Interpreting Contradictory Results
Case-Selection Criteria3. WHAT IS A POLITICAL SCIENCE DISSERTATION?4. HELPFUL HINTS ON WRITING A POLITICAL SCIENCE DISSERTATION
Topic Selection
Organization
Your Dissertation Prospectus
Your Introductory Chapter
Your Concluding Chapter
Study Design and Presentation
Writing
Style
Vetting
Your Abstract
Dealing with your Dissertation Committee
Dealing with Your Head, Your Family, and Your Friends
How to Learn More about How to Write a Dissertation5. THE DISSERTATION PROPOSAL6. PROFESSIONAL ETHICSAPPENDIX: HOW TO WRITE A PAPER
FURTHER READING
INDEX

"Stephen Van Evera's Guide to Methods makes an important contribution toward improving the use of case studies for theory development and testing in the social sciences. His trenchant and concise views on issues ranging from epistemology to specific research techniques manage to convey not only the methods but the ethos of research. This book is essential reading for social science students at all levels who aspire to conduct rigorous research."-Alexander L. George, Stanford University, and Andrew Bennett, Georgetown University

"Van Evera has a keen awareness of the questions that arise in every phase of the political science research project-from initial conception to final presentation. Although others may not agree with all of his specific advice, all will appreciate his user-friendly introduction to what is sometimes seen as an abstract and difficult topic."-Timothy J. McKeown, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

For the last few years, Stephen Van Evera has greeted new graduate students at MIT with a commonsense introduction to qualitative methods in the social sciences. His helpful hints, always warmly received, grew from a handful of memos to an underground classic primer. That primer has now evolved into a book of how-to information about graduate study, which is essential reading for graduate students and undergraduates in political science, sociology, anthropology, economics, and history-and for their advisers.

Stephen Van Evera is Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Associate Director of the MIT Center for International Studies. He is the author of Causes of War: Power and the Roots of Conflict, also from Cornell.