In his signature pragmatic and friendly style, David Silverman acts as your stand-in supervisor in the seventh edition of this book, taking you step-by-step through different methods for making sense of qualitative data.

Whether you are interested in analysing visual images, interviews, focus groups or online data, this book provides a clear framework for using qualitative data to answer your research questions.

The book provides:
. A strong grounding in research design principles so you can embed best practice into your research project.
. Diverse real-world examples so you can see how principles are applied in practice.
. Coverage of new developments in qualitative research including working with online data.

If you are new to qualitative research or conducting your first research project in the social sciences, this book gives you the practical grounding in qualitative methods you need to get started.

David Silverman trained as a sociologist at the London School of Economics and the University of California, Los Angeles. He taught for 32 years at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is interested in conversation and discourse analysis and he has researched medical consultations and HIV-test counselling.

He is the author of Interpreting Qualitative Data (Seventh Edition, 2024) and A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book about Qualitative Research (Second Edition, 2013). He is also the editor of Qualitative Research (Sixth Edition, 2026) and the Sage series, Introducing Qualitative Methods. In recent years, he has offered short, hands-on workshops in qualitative research for research students and faculty at universities in Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia.

Now retired from full-time work, David aims to watch one hundred days of cricket a year. He also enjoys voluntary work in an old people's home where he sings with residents with dementia and strokes.