Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications (Structural Analysis in the Social Sciences) (Paperback)

~ (Author), Katherine Faust (Author) "The notion of a social network and the methods of social network analysis have attracted considerable interest and curiosity from the social and behavioral science..." (more)
Key Phrases: sociometric notation, joint homomorphic reduction, dyad census, Padgett's Florentine, United States, Model Null (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"It should be an invaluable reference for scholars in the field and a critical resource...." Journal of the American Statistical Association

"The long-awaited publication of this volume marks a half-century maturation of social network analysis into a multidisciplinary research specialty with distinctive vocabulary, theoretical principles, and data-analytic techniques. Wasserman and Faust provide a compass by which to steer our path into the next century." Theory and Methods

Product Description

Social network analysis, which focuses on relationships among social entities, is used widely in the social and behavioral sciences, as well as in economics, marketing, and industrial engineering. Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications reviews and discusses methods for the analysis of social networks with a focus on applications of these methods to many substantive examples. As the first book to provide a comprehensive coverage of the methodology and applications of the field, this study is both a reference book and a textbook.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 857 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 1 edition (November 25, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521387078
• ISBN-13: 978-0521387071
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.8 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #57,571 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive Combinatrics, March 14, 2004

By	Guy Hagen, Innovation Insight "innovationinsight" (Tampa, Florida) - See all my reviews

I am a research consultant specializing in SNA. This book is the best in the field, as a reference for those formally trained in the discipline or a self-instruction manual for those who really want to use SNA methodology. It's well written; but the mathematical and combinatric underpinnings of SNA won't make for light reading. This books stands out among others in that each subject area is thoroughly documented and cited for further reading and examples of application, and that the base algorithms are provided for most SNA techniques - useful if you want to learn how to "do" instead of just run a software package, or want to program your own. No SNA analyst should neglect this reference.

19 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not for anyone with Mathematics or Computer Science background, September 3, 2005

By	Steven L. Roberts (San Francisco Bay Area, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is unbelievably tedious and repetitious. There is very little actual content for the length of the book. It takes nearly 200 pages just to define some very basic terms from graph theory. This might have been fine if the space were taken up by some sort of meaningful discussion on the relevance of these graph theory concepts to sociological studies and theory. The book (possibly the field?) has the flavor of "here's a hammer, now what can we hit with it?".

Would have liked to see a format based on justification of the analytic techniques from sociological principles, or something much much more concise. Nothing much to see here, move on.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars social network analysis: a good book, August 28, 2005

By	Tang Yi "boma" (Hong Kong) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

i purchased this book for my research purpose. after reading several chapters, i found this book is really helpful. you can consider it as a handbook for social network analysis, if you want to do some relevant research. you also could use it as an introductory reference, if you want to know something about social network analysis even you have not started such a kind of research yet. anyway, this book is not so expensive, while offering you enough knowledge in this area.