The second edition of the paperback series of the Handbook of Qualitative Research is virtually all new. Over half of the authors from the first edition have been replaced by new contributors - there are 33 new chapter authors or co-authors. There are six totally new chapter topics, including contributions on: queer theory, performance ethnography, testimonios, focus groups in feminist research, applied ethnography, and anthropological poetics. All returning authors have substantially revised their original contributions, in many cases producing a totally new and different chapter.

This third volume, Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials, considers the tasks of collecting, analyzing, and interpreting empirical materials, and comprises the Handbook's Parts Four (`Methods of Collecting and Analyzing Empirical Materials') and Five (`The Art of Interpretation, Evaluation, and Presentation').

Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials introduces the researcher to basic methods of gathering, analyzing and interpreting qualitative empirical materials. Part One moves from interviewing to observing, to the use of artifacts, documents and records from the past; to visual, and autoethnographic methods. It then takes up analysis methods, including computer-assisted methodologies, as well as strategies for analyzing talk, and text. Esther Madriz reads focus groups through critical feminist inquiry, and Erve Chambers discusses applied ethnography.