Book excerpt: This practical guidebook is written for graduate and post-doctoral students, as well as for experienced researchers new to neutron scattering. Introductory chapters summarize useful scattering formulas and describe the components of a spectrometer. The authors then discuss the resolution function and focusing effects. Simple examples of phonon and magnon measurements are presented. Important chapters cover spurious effects in inelastic and elastic measurements, and how to avoid them. The last chapter covers techniques for, and applications of, polarization analysis.