A Practical Guide to Digital Research: Getting the Facts and Rejecting the Lies

By Mercedes K. Schneider

In A Practical Guide to Digital Research, Schneider draws on her years of experience as an educational researcher to offer an easy-to-read, easy-to-digest, concise tutorial for equipping both novice and more experienced researchers in navigating numerous research sources. These include nonprofit tax form search engines, newspaper archives, social media sites, internet archives, campaign filings/ethics disclosures, teaching credential search engines, and legal filings. Also covered are tips on conducting both email and in-person interviews, filing public records requests, and conducting pointed, fruitful Google searches.

This powerful, practical text is built upon a foundation of actual examples from Schneider’s own research in education—examples that she dissects and explains as a means of teaching her readers how to effectively make these valuable lessons their own. Though Schneider’s own research is chiefly in the education reform arena, the resources, skills and techniques offered in A Practical Guide to Digital Research transcend any single research field and are indispensable for confronting a variety of research queries. Useful as a classroom text or for independent research study, the book provides foundational learning for those new to research investigation as well as surprising, valuable lessons for more experienced researchers challenging themselves to learn even more.

Visit Mercedes Schneider’s website and follow in Twitter @deutsch29blog.

Buy the Book

Amazon (Print & Ebook) | Barnes & Noble (more booksellers coming soon).

Endorsements and Reviews

"While Mercedes Schneider is a full time teacher, she manages to ferret out news those in power would often prefer was not reported. Her new book is a valuable guide for those who want to join her in this quest." – Anthony Cody, The Educator And The Oligarch: A Teacher Challenges The Gates Foundation, winner of the NCTE George Orwell Award.

“A practical guide that lends itself to being used like a handbook or manual; to that end, it is short, clear, and well-organized. It is a series of lessons from a top-notch teacher in book form, as well as a chance to peek over her shoulder and watch her work… You should get a copy and a copy for the other activist in your life. The information is practical and useful and, in this day and age, indispensable.” – Peter Greene, Curmudgucation

“Mercedes is a jewel and a blessing whose research is an education in itself.” – Ira Shor, Professor of Rhetoric/Composition, Department of English at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York.

Amazon (Print & Ebook) | Barnes & Noble (more booksellers coming soon).

About Mercedes K. Schneider

Mercedes K. Schneider, Ph.D., began blogging on educational reform issues in 2013 at deutsch29.wordpress.com. She quickly became a trusted source for data-based analysis of the most provocative issues in education. Schneider has gained a national readership, including educators and scholars in multiple fields, because her blog posts are data-based and fact-checked, and she reaches conclusions and makes bold statements that others who have not analyzed the data cannot make. She is quintessentially one of the best in the field.

Schneider has previously authored three books, all concerning education reform issues: A Chronicle of Echoes: Who’s Who in the Implosion of American Public Education (2014, Information Age Press); Common Core Dilemma: Who Owns Our Schools? (2015, TC Press), and School Choice: The End of Public Education? (2016, TC Press).

She holds degrees in secondary English and German (B.S., Louisiana State, 1991), guidance and counseling (M.Ed., West Georgia, 1998), and applied statistics and research methods (Ph.D., Northern Colorado, 2002). She is an unwavering advocate for public education and teaches high school in her native southern Louisiana. Her 27-year teaching career involves 24 full-time years teaching public school (19 years) and post-secondary (5 years). Visit Mercedes Schneider’s website and follow Mercedes on Twitter @deutsch29blog.

Mercedes Schneider, Book News, Featured Garn Press NewsGarn PressFebruary 17, 2020