English Language Teaching; Vol. 12, No. 5; 2019 ISSN 1916-4742 E-ISSN 1916-4750 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education 40 Book Review Creswell, J. W. (2014). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative and Mixed Methods Approaches (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Muhammad Ishtiaq 1,2 1 Department of English, Unaizah Science and Arts College, Al-Qassim University, Saudi Arabia 2 Centre for Modern Languages & Human Sciences, Universiti Malaysia Pahang, Pahang, Malaysia Correspondence: Muhammad Ishtiaq, Department of English, Unaizah Science and Arts College, Al-Qassim University, Saudi Arabia. Received: February 7, 2019 Accepted: April 3, 2019 Online Published: April 6, 2019 doi: 10.5539/elt.v12n5p40 URL: https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v12n5p40 The book Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative and Mixed Methods Approaches by Creswell (2014) covers three approaches— qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods. This educational book is informative and illustrative and is equally beneficial for students, teachers and researchers. Readers should have basic knowledge of research for better understanding of this book. There are two parts of the book. Part 1 (chapter 1-4) consists of steps for developing research proposal and part II (chapter 5-10) explains how to develop a research proposal or write a research report. A summary is given at the end of every chapter that helps the reader to recapitulate the ideas. Moreover, writing exercises and suggested readings at the end of every chapter are useful for the readers. Chapter 1 opens with -- definition of research approaches and the author gives his opinion that selection of a research approach is based on the nature of the research problem, researchers’ experience and the audience of the study. The author defines qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods research. A distinction is made between quantitative and qualitative research approaches. The author believes that interest in qualitative research increased in the latter half of the 20th century. The worldviews, Fraenkel, Wallen and Hyun (2012) and Onwuegbuzie and Leech (2005) call them paradigms, have been explained. Sometimes, the use of language becomes too philosophical and technical. This is probably because the author had to explain some technical terms. Chapter 2 is about the review of the literature. The chapter starts with the identification of the research topic and argues that literature review has central position in research. The author suggests where to place literature review in a study. This chapter is a good guide for novice researchers as it suggests how to review literature, locate a research study in existing body of literature and find a gap in previous research. As expected, this chapter is very descriptive. Some good data bases are suggested by the author in this chapter. The idea of forming a literature map is practical and useful. However, some more explanation and examples on how to review previous studies would have been helpful for readers. Chapter 3 ‘the use of theory’ gives a complete definition of ‘theory’ and its use and forms in quantitative research. The explanation of relationship of variables in visual diagrams is really helpful for new researchers. The chapter gives a step by step procedure to write a theoretical perspective. The chapter explicitly deals with the use of theory in quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods and transformative worldviews or paradigms. Different types of variables used in quantitative research have been elucidated in this chapter. However, a new researcher needs some more examples and illustrations in comprehending the variables. Chapter 4 ‘writing strategies and ethical considerations’ deals with the ethical issues, the structure of a proposal and writing strategies. Different formats for writing a research proposal are presented in detail. These include quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods research. Some basic ideas are discussed in this chapter about designing the sections of a proposal and some writing tips are suggested that can be instrumental in writing a research proposal. Ethical issues in qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods research are explained in detail. A short summary at the end of the chapter well elaborates key suggestions for writing a research proposal. Chapter 5 highlights the importance of writing an introduction to a proposal and suggests how an abstract is