What is the literature method? Why does it have a special position in social investigation and research?

Literature method, also known as historical literature method, is a method of collecting, analyzing and studying all kinds of existing relevant literature materials and selecting information from them to achieve certain investigation and research purposes.

It has a special position in social investigation and research because:

First of all, it is the most basic and widely used method to collect information. The selection, determination, exploratory research and scheme design in the early stage of any social investigation must start with literature investigation, so as to make the purpose of the investigation more clear and meaningful and the content of the investigation more systematic, comprehensive and novel. Even after entering the specific investigation stage, literature investigation is still often needed. It can be used to collect materials that are difficult or unnecessary to collect by other methods.

Secondly, literature method is not only an important method to collect data, but also a unique and special research method, which is the most remarkable difference from other investigation methods. Such as questionnaire, measurement, interview, observation, experiment, etc. Their main function is to collect data, and the sorting, analysis and research of the data collected by them are completed by some general special methods. Otherwise, it can independently complete the whole process of some topics from data collection to analysis and research. Those topics aimed at reproducing or analyzing historical phenomena, as well as longitudinal topics with a long time span, can only be completed mainly through literature method.