remember that research paper i was going to write? well, i found that there are several fine reference books on the very subject, which would be good if i wanted to summarize other people's research, but i sort of wanted to write something original... and since the original things have been written... well... i sort of lost my motivation.
not that i even know how to go about doing original research on the history of organized sports for elementary school girls. i read the ymca's "about us" web page, but they didn't exactly specify when they transitioned programs for girls from gray-y cheer squad to soccer. and... that was the extent of my research.
when i was in college, i did this stellar research paper on types of commercials shown during children's cartoons. i literally taped literally hours of cartoon shows, fast forwarded through the shows, and tabulated commercial subject matter. of course, i compiled some of the existing research and whatnot, but the core of the work were these tabulation charts and graphs -- all recorded and plotted and drawn by hand on quadrille paper, mind you. by hand because (in case you didn't pick up on this from the fact that i literally taped the television shows) this research took place back in the day, before literally everyone had a computer at their disposal.
measure. notate. compare. conclude. chart. report.
a reasonable person would sort of think i had enough work at work without making up work hobbies, but there's something rewarding about actual first-hand data collection.
No comments:
Post a Comment