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Question 1

What is rhetoric?

a) The type of rapport that is usually established in in-depth interviews

b) An ancient form of poetry

c) A technique used to assess the external reliability of a data source

d) The attempt to persuade or convince an audience, often through writing

Question 2

Which of the following is not usually found in a report of a quantitative study?

a) Measurement

b) Introduction

c) Confession

d) Results

Question 3

The introductory section of a research report should aim to:

a) Identify the specific focus of the study

b) Provide a rationale for the dissertation, or article

c) Grab the reader's attention

d) All of the above

Question 4

What is the purpose of the conclusion in a research report?

a) It explains how concepts were operationally defined and measured

b) It summarizes the key findings in relation to the research questions

c) It contains a useful review of the relevant literature

d) It outlines the methodological procedures that were employed

Question 5

In a report of quantitative research, an empiricist repertoire serves to:

a) Confuse the reader with long and technical words

b) Demonstrate the researcher's reflexivity about their role in the research process

c) Give the impression that the results were objective and logically inevitable

d) Provide a confessional tale of what went wrong in the procedure

Question 6

Which of the following is not normally included in a written account of qualitative research?

a) An introduction, locating the research in its theoretical context

b) An explanation of the design of the study

c) A discussion of the main findings in relation to the research questions

d) A decision to accept or reject the hypothesis

Question 7

Postmodernist theorists challenge the idea of objective truth by arguing that:

a) There are many possible ways of interpreting and representing social reality

b) It is important to uncover the social laws that operate in an external reality

c) Only women have the unique standpoint needed to be able to make universal truth claims

d) All of the above

Question 8

Apart from postmodernism, what other intellectual trend has stimulated an interest in the way social scientists use rhetorical devices in their writing?

a) Positivism

b) Social studies of science

c) Traditional ethnography

d) Existentialist philosophy

Question 9

A reflexive social researcher will be inclined to write about:

a) The effects that their values, biases and theoretical leanings might have had upon the data collection and analysis

b) The way in which their findings unfolded naturally and inevitably through logical deduction

c) The way in which their findings are objectively truthful and valid

d) The unproblematic and straightforward procedures of designing research, building a rapport with participants and interpreting the findings

Question 10

The three forms of ethnographic writing that Van Maanen (1988) identifies are:

a) Positivist stories, interpretivist stories and realist stories

b) Native accounts, tourist accounts and voyeuristic accounts

c) Realist tales, confessional tales and impressionist tales

d) Feminist accounts, ethnomethodological accounts and postmodern accounts

Oxford University Press, Online Resource Centre, Chapter 27.

Chapter 27

Instructions