Sociologists are often concerned with issues that are often similar to those that worry many other people. How can mass starvation exist in a world that is far wealthier than it has ever been before? Is family beginning to disintegrate as an institution? Do films and television encourage violent crimes? These are some of the problems and questions which sociologists try to provide answers.

It is always the aim of sociological theorizing and research to breakaway from the speculative or ill-informed manner in which an ordinary person usually considers these questions. Good sociological work tries to make questions asked as precise as possible. It seeks to assess factual evidence before coming to conclusions.

To achieve these aims, we must use sound research procedures and be able to analyze the material accurately. We have to know the most useful research methods to apply in a given study. There are four main methods used in sociological research. Research can be carried out by means of participation observation or fieldwork, surveys, documentary research and conducting of experiments. It is important know to the strengths and limitations

Fieldwork or Participant Observation

An experiment is defined as the study within artificial structured conditions in a controlled and systematic way to establish cause-effect relationship among the variables being studied. It is to test the influence of one or more variables on others.

There are several issues or questions that always arise when considering a research method. They are mainly reliability, validity, generalizabilty and ethicality of the method in consideration.

Generalizability - The results of a research method is generalizable if a sample is representative of the population under study and this depends on the sampling method employed.

Documentary research is one of the most widely used of all methods of gathering sociological data. It is the systematic use of public and personal documents for investigation. Government documents, church records, letters and judicial records are some of the documents most often consulted in sociological research. Many investigations are much concerned with collecting together and analyzing materials from the work of others and generating wholly new data.

Some common words found in the essay are:
Limitations Documentary, Research Methods, Introduction Sociologists, Limitations Fieldwork, Surveys Interpreting, Limitations Surveys, Erving Goffman's, Advantages Limitations, Research Documentary, Participant Observation, documentary research, research method, advantages limitations, research methods, sociological research, fieldwork participant observation, participant observation, representative population, fieldwork participant, research procedures, method validity, method reliability generalizability, crime rates country,
Approximate Word count = 1383
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)