Hi folks–it was so great to hear about your projects in class these past few days. Thanks for being willing to share your ideas, and extra-special props to those of you who thought outside the box!
All of you are creating new knowledge through these projects, which is wonderful, but it’s also important to remember that your research was, of necessity, limited in scope (there’s only so much you can do in a semester). So, don’t feel obliged to make huge claims based on your data–you’ll want to keep your claims modest, defensible, and contextualized.
It’s also appropriate to analyze your methods as you write this up. What flaws in your methods did you discover during the process? (No instrument is ever perfect.) What were the limitations? If you had human participants, in what ways were or weren’t they a representative sample? None of this prevents you from making reasonable claims, but you need to acknowledge these limitations as you decide what claims you do want to make.
Please make sure to submit your final drafts to Blackboard by 11:59 pm on Wednesday, May 4 (as usual, no late work accepted without prior arrangements).
Good luck with this and all your end-of-semester work!