Material Culture and Electronic Sound

Report from Iron Mountain

Page dim. 204 x 126 x 11 Weight: 162 grams

Karin Gwinn Wilkins

Questioning Numbers: How to Read and Critique Research

Questioning Numbers: How to Read and Critique Research is a critical companion for students in research methods courses in any of the social sciences. This book helps teach students how to read and critique research that employs numbers in the course of empirical argument. Author Karin Gwinn Wilkins provides a list of guidelines for reading research and also presents a critical approach to judging and using numbers in navigating and changing social worlds. Illuminating the agendas and politics that can inform how research is conducted and interpreted, this text shows readers how to read and critique research contexts, research design, sampling strategies, definitions, research implementation, data analysis, and interpretation. It also provides strong pedagogical support, including key terms, review exercises, and end-of-chapter reflection questions. A flexible supplement to more comprehensive research texts, Questioning Numbers helps students to become more critical consumers and producers of quantitative research across the social sciences.

Ted Conover

Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR NONFICTION - An acclaimed journalist sets a new standard for bold, in-depth reporting in this first-hand account of life inside the penal system at Sing Sing. "Newjack is about as good as it gets--by turns gripping, funny, frightening, and sad." --The Washington Post Book World When Ted Conover's request to shadow a recruit at the New York State Corrections Officer Academy was denied, he decided to apply for a job as a prison officer himself. The result is an unprecedented work of eyewitness journalism: the account of Conover's year-long passage into storied Sing Sing prison as a rookie guard, or "newjack." As he struggles to become a good officer, Conover angers inmates, dodges blows, and attempts, in the face of overwhelming odds, to balance decency with toughness. Through his insights into the harsh culture of prison, the grueling and demeaning working conditions of the officers, and the unexpected ways the job encroaches on his own family life, we begin to see how our burgeoning prison system brutalizes everyone connected with it. An intimate portrait of a world few readers have ever experienced, Newjack is a haunting ...