Cory Barnett

I've acquired permission from the Slate to publish my articles. I heard back from Dr. Minnick about the form needed to do student research and it says I need my professor to write a letter saying that they will be monitoring my research and what it pertains to, as well as release forms from the people I intend to survey. I'm not sure how they expect me to do this because the people who get surveyed are supposed to be random.

I'm thinking that my initial idea to survey students about their diets before writing my stories would not necessarily be pointless, but rather unnecessary. With a 500 word limit, I would definitely be pressed for space if I would try to incorporate these findings as well as all the diet and exercise information I intend to include in the stories. This may also solve my release form dilemma because that was the part of my project that would require random participants.

I've decided to drop the SUTV portion of my project and instead add what will be the only survey required of my project. I can find students willing to participate ahead of time, which will allow for me to obtain their consent and thus get approval from the board. I will write two versions of the story, one optimistic and one pessimistic, and then distribute them to two different groups of people. Afterwards I will then survey them about how their intentions may have changed after reading the story and compare the results to measure the success of each version of the story.

I think this change will make my timeline easier to accomplish as well. Now instead of having to wait for the approval to get back before I can begin, I can start my research and write the stories to get that part out of the way. This way I can still be working on my project while I wait for the survey board to approve my research.