This seminar has three objectives: 1) to introduce students to different social science research methods (including survey research, experiments, ethnography, historical and comparative analysis, text analysis, and others) and to provide them with an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of those various approaches; 2) to introduce students to the types of research Princeton faculty members are currently engaged in; and 3) to familiarize students with the components of a strong empirical paper and to prepare them to identify a topic and data for their empirical paper.