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Social Sci LibreTexts

1: Introduction

  • Page ID
    12544
    • Anonymous
    • LibreTexts
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    Do you like to know things? Do you ever wonder what other people know or how they know what they do? Have you ever made a decision, and do you plan to make decisions in the future? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you will probably find the information in this book—particularly the information on research methods—very useful. If you answered no to all of them, I suspect that you will have reconsidered by the time you finish reading this text. Let’s begin by focusing on the information in this chapter. Here we’ll consider the variety of ways that we know things and what makes social scientific knowledge unique. We’ll also consider why any of this might matter to you and preview what’s to come in later chapters.


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