empirical approach to political science -- Beginning the research process : identifying a research topic, developing research questions, and reviewing the literature -- building blocks of social scientific research : hypotheses, concepts, and variables -- building blocks of social scientific research : measurement -- Research design : making causal inferences -- Sampling -- Making empirical observations : direct and indirect observation -- Document analysis : using the written record -- Survey research and interviewing -- Making sense of data : first steps -- Statistical inference -- Investigating relationships between two variables -- Multivariate analysis -- research report : an annotated example.