Paltridge and Phakiti’s contribution to the crowded bookshelf on research methods in the study of SLA has distinctive features. First, most of its competitors are single- or co-authored volumes, whereas this is an edited collection of the work of 24 scholars. Each author adheres to an organizational template apparently imposed by the editors, but readers still have a sense of listening to 24 diverse voices. Second, the national affiliations of those 24 scholars is noteworthy: Both editors and 10 contributors are associated with institutions in Australia, 3 in the United Kingdom, 3 in the United States, and 3 each in New Zealand, Canada, and East Asia. Third, the book is not entirely taken over by methods in SLA research. Although this research heavily dominates, some chapters address research methods without reference to language learning: research methods in language and identity, language and gender, and contrastive rhetoric. However, a reader looking for treatment of research methods in other subfields of applied linguistics—translation, lexicography, language planning, forensic linguistics, computer processing of language—may find the title misrepresentative. To Paltridge and Phakiti, applied linguistics essentially means SLA and teaching. Fourth, although Paltridge and Phakiti address the same readership as their competitors—namely, undergraduate and graduate student researchers—they still manage to carve out a niche for themselves in their decisions about coverage. This volume lacks the pedagogical exercises embedded in Brown and Rodgers’s (Reference Brown and Rodgers2002) text or Porte’s (Reference Porte2002) workbook section (Porte’s book ostensibly trains students as consumers of SLA research but also informs them about how to produce research). Unlike either of these two texts—and unlike Seliger and Shohamy (Reference Seliger and Shohamy1989), Mackey and Gass (Reference Mackey and Gass2005), and even the broad-church stance of Dörnyei (Reference Dörnyei2007)—Paltridge and Phakiti give more coverage to qualitative than quantitative research.

This fact is a hallmark of this book. Mackay and Gass (2005), for example, offer 1 chapter out of 10 entitled “Qualitative Research” (including useful definitions of the terms qualitative and quantitative). Paltridge and Phakiti offer 1 chapter out of 24 entitled “Experimental Research” (in a nice turn of the tables, it is authored by Gass) and another chapter entitled “Analyzing Quantitative Research.” Balancing those two are chapters on research methods in surveys, ethnographies, case studies, action research, research synthesis, and critical applied linguistics. These methods typically get backgrounded or packed together under a single umbrella chapter in comparable books, if not placed outside the scope of treatment entirely, as in Blom & Unsworth (Reference Blom and Unsworth2010). In this sense, this book stands out as an unconventional introduction to research methods.

Paltridge and Phakiti organize their text into two parts. After an introduction, Part 1 includes nine chapters (each 13–18 pages) on specific methods and approaches. Every chapter contains a general exposition of the method or approach, often including discussion of ethical issues, and an analysis of a sample study illustrating that method or approach. Part 2, on areas of research, demonstrates how research methods can be brought to bear on particular topics in applied linguistics. The 13 chapters in Part 2, each about 12–19 pages, examine research methods in the study of speaking, listening, reading, writing, grammar, vocabulary, pragmatics, discourse, language classrooms, language testing and assessment, motivation, language and gender, and language and identity. Again, each chapter analyzes a sample study so that readers can examine the application of a method in an actual research context. The level of scholarship is high throughout: The chapters are lucid and authoritative, and their authors use a wealth of appropriate illustrations. The lack of bluster or dogmatism is particularly appreciated in this volume, with authors candidly pointing out limits and weaknesses in their favorite methods alongside their strengths. Each chapter ends with a list of references. A glossary and subject index (but no author index) complete the book.