By popular demand, here is my online bookshelf, a place where I recommend the best books I’ve read in the course of my work.
You might also be interested in my:
- Computer Science & Programming Bookshelf - coming soon!
- Computer & Electronics Bookshelf - coming soon!
- Aquarium Bookshelf - comming soon!
Research Methodologies
Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches Third Edition
This is the book to read if you want to learn more about research methodologies in general and how to pick the right methodology for your problem. The book covers and compares many qualitative and quantitative methods and it also explains how to mix these methods in a rigorous way.
Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Approaches
If you decided that you want to follow a qualitative method, than this book will help you pick the best method for your study. It compares five qualitative approaches (grounded theory, ethnography, case study, phenomenology, and narrative research): the type of questions each approach can answer, how data is usually collected, how the analysis is done, and how the results are evaluated.
Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory
I have used grounded theory in two recent studies and this book helped me a lot. Following grounded theory requires a leap of faith (as with any qualitative methodology) and this book reassured me in many many many occasions. It walks you through all steps, from performing theoretical sampling, to interviewing, analyzing your data, formulating a theory, evaluating your results, and writing about them.
Interviewing as Qualitative Research: A Guide for Researchers in Education and the Social Sciences
Interviewing is difficult (to me at least, especially because I am not a native English speaker). Conducting semi-structured and unstructured qualitative interviews is even more difficult! This book will provide you with many tips and tricks on how to prepare for an interview, how to conduct an interview, and also, how to analyze it. The book is written from a phenomenological perspective, but I believe most of what is said in this book apply to any semi-structured and unstructured interviews.
Improving Survey Questions: Design and Evaluation
Let’s get quantitative. I don’t know how you can design a survey without reading this book. Well, I know, because I have, but then, you will regret that you did not read this book before designing your survey. It is compact and contains tons of examples on how to improve your questions, how to improve the choices you give to participants, how to evaluate your questions, etc.. It is well written, but also quite shocking because it makes you realize how difficult it is to write a “good” survey question and how most surveys are badly written…
On Writing
The Elements of Style
This is Barthélémy Dagenais’s favorite English book. Hey, you put a ‘s beside a word ending with a s. Why? Read this book to know why. Seriously, this is a very compact book that teaches you how to keep a good, concise style. The book gives many examples of bad sentences that can be corrected using simple rules.
The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th Edition
If you write professionally, then there is no reason to not buy this book. Which word takes a capital letter? How do you write inline lists? All possible questions you may have on the English language have an answer in this book.
Critical Thinking
Innumeracy
I confess, I am innumerate. Every time I see some statistical techniques (e.g., linear regression), I feel like I’m going to spend some time in the desert without water. If you talk about probability, my brain reboots. Well, it happens less since I have read this book. The author addresses many topics that look difficult (probability, statistics, geometry) and then presents realistic problems that he solves using math. The author also shows the consequences of being innumerate and this had a profound impact on how I approach numbers now.