JONATHAN GRIX is Senior Lecturer in Political Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK. He is the author of Information Skills: Finding and Using the Right Resources (with Gerald Watkins) and Demystifying Postgraduate Research. From MA to PhD.

This book will continue to provide advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students with an accessible overview of the 'nuts and bolts' of research. The Foundations of Research 2e covers the tools, terminology and research perspectives students need to know in order to (i) engage in academic debates; (ii) successfully complete their long essays, dissertations and theses, and (iii) familiarise themselves with the roots of research, preparing them for further research.

The new edition will take account of the new developments that have taken place since the book first appeared five years ago. Many of the examples in the current edition will be updated using debates and examples from current research. Furthermore, the author has added more examples in order to clarify some of his original arguments. Since the book was first published, no significant competitor has entered the market place, whilst the plethora of specialist books – to which Palgrave has contributed – offering help with your 'dissertation', 'thesis', 'supervisor relationship', 'research methods', 'successful project' and so on, has surged. There is still no other text which does what Foundations of Research does: offer the advanced undergraduate/postgraduate an accessible overview of the 'hard stuff' in and around research. The author has used the feedback he received on the first edition to help him shape his proposal for a second edition, to ensure it is as relevant as possible for the wide variety of markets that the first edition appealed to. He has included entirely new sections on plagiarism web-based research, and added a new example which demonstrates how to set up a hypothesis.