This course introduces methods and strategies for conducting sociological research. The course surveys issues and principles that apply across methods, how research questions motivate methodological choices, and the tradeoffs involved in selecting methods and data sources. We will begin by discussing research design, sampling, and ethics. We move on to three ways of collecting data: asking people questions (interviews and surveys), observing what people do (ethnography and experiments), and analyzing documents and records (including contemporary and comparative historical research). Next, we will discuss qualitative and quantitative analysis, sociological writing, and the publication process. The goal of the course is to make you an informed consumer of sociological research, regardless of your own methodological approach, and prepare to conduct your own research.