Why do I run on so?????

[sarahmichelef]

So I'm in the process of writing up my statement for my department's human subjects committee... I wrote a draft of it yesterday and, despite Bob's telling me to be brief and they would ask me for more info if they needed it, I rambled on and on and on about how big my snowball sample could get, etc. Which, while useful for my actual dissertation prospectus, really has no bearing on whether or not my research design is ethically sound. Maybe it's because I had to fight to be allowed to do my chat paper, but this project could not be more run-of-the-mill in terms of the methods...

So, I give you what I really want to say:

Dear Committee,
I want to study 'bloggers. I promise to treat them nice. Please let me do my dissertation.
Love,
alphasarah

Blargh.

Comments

[irihs.livejournal.com]

Ugh. I hate HS applications. Thankfully, the woman who took care of the psych department at Yale was truly awesome. Well, at least with the labs I worked in, because we were really, really good about submitting things correctly and getting even the tiniest of study changes approved. We had a good reputation, and she treated us very well. That made them a lot less painful than they could have been. (Mostly I hated filling out the forms because they were written as if they expected us to be injecting children full of poison acid and sticking them in a room full of rabid monkeys. Dudes and dudettes, I just want to show them pictures of animals and ask them mundane questions. No poison acid!)

[alphasarah.livejournal.com]

see, since this isn't funded research, I only have to go through the departmental committee, which is lovely because I have good relationships with all three members. And hello. I want to do a survey and then some observations and interviews. It's not like I'm going to be putting on a lab coat and saying "Push the button."

I'm also explicitly not dealing with minors, because then you have to have parental permission, and that's just a pain in the ass.

[irihs.livejournal.com]

"
I'm also explicitly not dealing with minors, because then you have to have parental permission, and that's just a pain in the ass."


yup yup yup yup

uh huh

uh huh

[ellid.livejournal.com]

I spent several weeks obsessing over the abstract for my Kalamazoo paper, mainly because I'm an independent scholar and not affiliated with a university (also, my MA is in religion, not textiles or medieval studies). Turned out the first draft, with minor tweaking, was just fine. Don't worry, and if you need someone to beta it, baronessmartha did a fine job for me (*grins*).

And if you need a subject to study, feel free to use my ravings. Even the fanfiction. I have no shame :D

[baronessmartha.livejournal.com]

thank you!!

[rufinia.livejournal.com]

I'd totally do that.

My thesis may involve politicians in someway. And I'd have to promise to treat them nice. Even if I don't really want to.

[baronessmartha.livejournal.com]

Ethically does not have to mean nice.
Just sayin.

[nalyirri.livejournal.com]

When my mom wrote her sociology dissertation a few years ago, she was looking at how flex time, etc. get implemented and used. So she wanted to do some focus groups. And the HS committee was really really concerned with how the discussions would go, how she'd assemble the groups, what would happen with the results...like *way* concerned with all sorts of beyond-the-appropriate sensitivity/legal kinds of issues. Eventually she found out that the committee had recently dealt with someone doing focus groups of pedophiles...

[cranky-dragon.livejournal.com]

Heh. I'm glad I didn't have to fill out THAT ethics application.

[alphasarah.livejournal.com]

I knew that your mom was a sociology PhD, didn't I? I just didn't remember it.

And yeah. I had a bit of a time convincing one member of the committee that observing in public chat rooms was no different than observing interactions at the mall, and that it did not require informed consent. In the end, I convinced him. His comment to me went something like, "I'm persuaded professionally but uncomfortable personally."

Hrm. Public and private online. Fascinating. Somebody oughta write a book about that. :^D