This student friendly book demonstrates how to take a critical approach to the research design process, to create feasible, original, and critical research works. The author uses a unique model that incorporates three critical review cycles: methodological design, epistemology, and completed research plan, in order to ensure that readers have critically engaged with various components of the research proposal. Approaching research design as a coherent whole, this book focuses on critically understanding how the various components come together as a cohesive and interconnected design, as well as to explore how the same basic research idea can lead to a number of different research designs. Including sections on both conceptual and methodological designs, readers are equipped with the skills and knowledge needed to take a basic research idea and conceptualize a complete and organic design for a research based on it that can make an original contribution to the existing body of knowledge. Covering quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods approaches, and addressing the ethical implications of research, this is an essential resource for researchers, instructors, and students across a broad range of disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences and humanities.