Checking in

For this blog post we are supposed to basically report how are semester research project is going and if there are any areas within the project that we are having trouble with.


The sucesses that I am having with my semester research project are that I for the most part have been able to find really good sources of information on my topic alcoholism. I believe I have found at least one source of informattion in the different formats we needed to cite (web, wiki, journal, blog, book, newspaper, ect) as sources for the information we have gathered which I am happy to have done. 


The only one which I do not have is a documentary since we have not yet gone over how to search for those, so I am a little nervous about that, but I am sure I will be able to find a useful one for my presentation. I am also a little unsure of as to what will go into the presentation I give, because I know we must include the 8 questions that must be addressed in our oral presentation, but not all of the information I gathered goes along with those questions (well it does but.... I may just have to look at where I could place it in the presentation), but I do feel it is interesting and relevant information to know about alcoholism.  So I suppose I will have to find a way in which to add this information to my presentation and hopefully my presenting time will not be to greatly extended from what it should be.


Some success I am having with an Ethnographic research project I am currently conducting in an Anthropology class I am taking is that through what I learned in IM 204, I was able to find an journal on Academic Research Premier that was similar to the Ethnographic research question we (my group) intend to answer through our surveys and interviews we will be conducting in that class.  And had I not taken this class I would not have thought to look on that site for information to help me in my research.


I suppose some challenges I am having with my research project I am doing (in my Anthropology 101 in particular) is finding relevant sources or research questions in books or online sources which are simular to our research question "How do the study habits of college students differ when they live on campus and off campus?" (I've found one as I said above but I would like at least two more) so that we can see if our results differ from this study conducted in the past.  We have to interview two people about their study habits and give 10 individuals surveys (40 in total) with questions on them about their studying habits and various things which maybe a factor which impacts those habits.  The challenge is which questions will we ask, because even though we might tell them that we will not share their identity with anyone else, we do not know for sure they are being truthful, which in some respects is difficult to assess. Because no one really wants to tell you they're failing or are not studying enough. So really we can only hope that the people we interview will be truthful for us and will bare all on the subject. (Such as grades and such in particular being a murky area of research)