Explore – Smartphone-based Activities: Put your investigative skills to the test with these quick interactive activities. Dig deeper into key concepts and understand how they might relate to your own research project via guided website searches and online discussion questions.

6.1 Document research

Google ‘secondary data’ and see how documents are defined there as mere background material.

Now read Lindsay Prior’s paper which shows you how to think about using documentary material as basic data:

Prior, L. (2008). Repositioning Documents in Social Research. Sociology, 42(5), 821–836.

What did you find most interesting or surprising in Prior’s paper, and why?

How have you defined secondary data in your research project and how could you use documentary material?