It is my great pleasure to report the arrival of the first issue of the Qualitative Methods newsletter, sponsored by the Organized Section on Qualitative Methods of the American Political Science Association (APSA-QM).

The issue includes a letter from the Transitional President, Andrew Bennett, discussing the formation of the new section; a letter from the editor, describing the goals and organization of the newsletter; and a discussion of the qualitative/quantitative distinction by David Collier (the Founding Transitional President), Jason Seawright, and Henry Brady.

The major portion of the newsletter is devoted to a symposium on Teaching Qualitative Methods, including contributions from Robert Keohane, Gerardo Munck, James Mahoney, Martha Feldman, Ann Chih Lin, David Waldner, Arlene Saxonhouse, Eliabeth Kier, William Barndt, and David Yang.

If you are a member of the section, and/or if you signed the petition for the creation of the section -- and if you live in North America -- you should be receiving a hard copy of the newsletter.

If you live abroad, you may download a copy at:
http://www.asu.edu/clas/polisci/cqrm/Newsletter.html

Please forward this email to others who might be interested in taking a look at the newsletter. The first issue is freely available for downloading, and we'd like to see a wide circulation of the inaugural issue. Future issues (in either 'hard' or 'soft' copy format) will only be available only to members of the organized section.

To join the section, see:
http://www.asu.edu/clas/polisci/cqrm/JoinSection.html
Membership fees are $8.00 annually ($5.00 to APSA and $3.00 to the section).

Please send me any comments and suggestions.

Thanks very much for your support,

John Gerring Editor,
Qualitative Methods
Boston University
Department of Political Science
232 Bay State Road