Ian M. MacFarlanePatricia McCarthy VeachBonnie S. LeRoy

Edited by ISBN: 978-0-19-935909-7 Published by: Oxford University Press USA, 2014 Price: £ 29.99; € 37.45; $ 44.95

The only limiting thing about the book ‘Genetic Counseling Research—A Practical Guide’ is the name. Written by experienced teachers and researchers, it is devoted to research methodology in genetic counseling but should really be on the booklist of everyone planning a scientific research.

Beginning with the most basic question of how to come up with a research question, the chapter goes on explaining how to do so and then provides ideas and worksheets to help.

Keywords are the keys to find articles and the next chapter teaches the researcher how to find the right words to enable others to find the article once it is published. This chapter also shows how to find articles for the literature review described in the next chapter. A thorough guide through the maze of reading articles for the literature review, including how to critique both qualitative and quantitative research with comprehensive worksheets to evaluate them as well as how to write the review.

Designing the study is a difficult task and is well documented in the next chapter, following instruction on how to do different types of studies and analyze their data. Worksheets, to help the researcher, follow the text.

When all the work has been prepared, the study is finished and the analysis is done, it is time to write the article and then prepare the manuscript for publishing. The authors give excellent instructions not only on how to do so but also on how the researcher can prepare for both supervision and peer review and how to reply.

This book is very well organized and the style is accessible and an easy read even for those who are not experienced in research. The authors have done an outstanding work by writing such a comprehensive guide for researchers.