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  • © 2018

Tracing the Life Cycle of Ideas in the Humanities and Social Sciences

Editors:

  • Offers useful insights to perform quantitative analyses in qualitative environments
  • Explains how distant reading can be exploited to answer specific research questions
  • Written in non-technical language to make the discussion accessible to readers without mathematical, computer or statistical backgrounds

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Table of contents (11 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xii
  2. Tracing the Life-Cycle of Ideas

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 23-23
    2. Tracing the Words of the Analytic Turn in the Journal of Philosophy

      • Giuseppe Spolaore, Pierdaniele Giaretta
      Pages 25-44
    3. Exploring the History of American Sociology Through Topic Modelling

      • Giuseppe Giordan, Chantal Saint-Blancat, Stefano Sbalchiero
      Pages 45-64

About this book


This book demonstrates how quantitative methods for text analysis can successfully combine with qualitative methods in the study of different disciplines of the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS). The book focuses on learning about the evolution of ideas of HSS disciplines through a distant reading of the contents conveyed by scientific literature, in order to retrieve the most relevant topics being debated over time. Quantitative methods, statistical techniques and software packages are used to identify and study the main subject matters of a discipline from raw textual data, both in the past and today. The book also deals with the concept of quality of life of words and aims to foster a discussion about the life cycle of scientific ideas.

Textual data retrieved from large corpora pose interesting challenges for any data analysis method and today represent a growing area of research in many fields. New problems emerge from the growing availability of large databases and new methods are needed to retrieve significant information from thoselarge information sources. This book can be used to explain how quantitative methods can be part of the research instrumentation and the "toolbox" of scholars of Humanities and Social Sciences. The book contains numerous examples and a description of the main methods in use, with references to literature and available software. Most of the chapters of the book have been written in a non-technical language for HSS researchers without mathematical, computer or statistical backgrounds.



Editors and Affiliations

  • Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education and Applied Psychology, University of Padova, Padova, Italy

    Arjuna Tuzzi

Bibliographic Information

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access