The primary purpose of this textbook is to introduce students to communication research methods by meeting two objectives. The first objective is to help students become better consumers of the communication research literature by emphasizing effective methods for finding, consuming, and analyzing communication research. This objective is important because students are consumers of the communication literature through their participation in communication courses. The second objective is to provide a path for students who wish to develop and conduct research projects. To those ends, this book provides coverage of the entire research process: how one conceptualizes a research idea, turns it into an interesting and researchable question, selects a methodology, conducts the study, and writes up the study’s findings. I believe that students who can effectively navigate, select, and use the communication research literature can become effective researchers, and, reciprocally, that students engaged in communication research will be able to more effectively use the existing research literature. Regardless of the role in which students use their research knowledge, they must be able to read and understand the communication research literature.

This book provides several features to help students succeed in both roles.

1. The research process is situated in communication research about symbols, messages, and meanings.
2. 161 new research and reference source citations were added; these new citations were pulled from the 2011 through 2013 published communication and communication-related journals found on Communication and Mass Media Complete.
3. Examples cover the breadth of the discipline (for example, persuasion, interpersonal, group, health, organizational, and mass communication and public relations).
4. A boxed feature labeled Design Check alerts students to the practical and logistical issues that student researchers should consider when designing a study. These are the same issues that students should ask of the research studies they read, as how these issues are addressed by researchers influences study outcomes and data interpretations.
5. A boxed feature labeled An Ethical Issue alerts students to issues of research ethics and integrity. Not only must researchers balance practical and logistical issues, they must do so while addressing ethical issues that occur when people and their communication artifacts are used as the basis of research. Chapter Checklists begin each chapter to highlight for students the essential learning objectives for each chapter. End-of-chapter summaries provide point-by-point summaries of information presented in the chapter. Stated simply, these factual statements can help direct students’ study of the material. Key terms are boldfaced within the text and listed at the end of chapter. Key term definitions can be found in the glossary at the end of the book.
6. Continuing the active pedagogy approach of the book, Try this! boxes are placed throughout the chapters to engage students in short research activities that can be used in the classroom with individuals or groups, or as short homework assignments. Finally, the book focuses on students. It is written for them—to their level of knowledge and understanding about human communication, the communication research literature, and the relative research processes. My goal in writing the chapters was to explain the research steps and identify the steps researchers take in developing and conducting communication research. With study and instruction, students should be able to use this material and integrate it with what they know and are familiar with from their other communication courses to accomplish two objectives: (1) to be more analytical and make more sophisticated interpretations of the communication research they read, and (2) to design and conduct basic quantitative and qualitative research studies.