Research Project

[Saerphe]

Hi, y'all. Long time no post.

Anyway, let's cut to the chase here. For my big final project in one of my folklore classes, I'm doing a research project on the societal perceptions of the relationship between pet owners and their pets, focusing on pet owners with unusual or exotic pets (which I'm defining as any animal other than cats or dogs for the purposes of this project). Until fairly recently, people who showed a high level of attachment to their pets were seen as ridiculous, perhaps mentally unstable, or even as compensating for a lack of human affection in their lives. Judging by the posts on facebook and the ways I see people interacting with their pets nowadays, this perception doesn't entirely hold true anymore. At least for cat and dog owners.

Not a lot has been written on this subject, and I think it'd be a really interesting project, especially if I can focus on the relationships between owners of non-cat or dog pets, and whether society at large views those relationships as more or less normal or acceptable as compared with relationships between dogs/cats and their owners. However, I need a few more primary research informants, and I just wanted to ask if anyone was interested in relating their experiences with their companion animals and with other people for the sake of my folklore project?

If y'all are interested, please just drop me a PM. It would be better to do this by email so that I can outline the project in more details and send you the release form (so that I can actually use any information you give me in my report), which you can then sign, scan, and email back to me. Interviews will probably be conducted via email, unless anyone knows of a software I can use to record skype calls, in which case I will probably use that to conduct a verbal interview in place of a written one (unless you would prefer otherwise). I would prefer participants to be age 18 or older for this assignment, not for any particular safety precautions (as I can't see this project being particularly harmful), but more because it makes it easier for me to fill out the ethics review form to submit to the university ethics review board.

So yeah, if anyone's interested, please drop me a line. Thanks!

[pennyandrocky]

have you researched the history of ? i found a story online a while back that talked about owners of being burned as witches.

[GreenWing]

Have you tried stopping by your college and public library and visiting with a librarian? They are there to help you find academic resources appropriate for your research subject. Opposing Viewpoints database is a good one that can give you two sides to an issue, which is excellent when writing a college paper. Whatever you do, don't use wikipedia itself as a resource.

Just as some friendly librarian advice, use boolean logic when using databases (AND, OR, NOT).

Examples:

Exotic pets NOT cheetahs

Exotic pets AND parrots

Good luck!

[Saerphe]

Have you tried stopping by your college and public library and visiting with a librarian? They are there to help you find academic resources appropriate for your research subject. Opposing Viewpoints database is a good one that can give you two sides to an issue, which is excellent when writing a college paper. Whatever you do, don't use wikipedia itself as a resource.

Just as some friendly librarian advice, use boolean logic when using databases (AND, OR, NOT).

Examples:

Exotic pets NOT cheetahs

Exotic pets AND parrots

Good luck!

Yes, I've been using various libraries, journals and databases. This project is actually for a class on fieldwork though, so I'm required to conduct at least one interview on the subject. I have one scheduled for this week, but it'd be nice to have a couple more than that if I can. I'm not too worried about it though.