For our Oral History we interviewed Janine Strugis, a junior at Rowan University. The interview took place in the library, surrounded by maybe one or two other people. Janine did not want to be recorded in any form, so we took copious notes on everything that was said. Before going into the interview, we knew that Janine was a vegetarian, and with that fact, we determined to center our questions on organic foods. We held a high interest in what organic foods were and whether or not they were healthy for you, or if they were in fact healthier than non-organic foods. With that, we thought Janine would be a perfect candidate. But after the interview began, we found it hard to incorporate our organic food questions, and found ourselves asking questions that centered around the fact that she is a vegetarian and partial vegan. When we learned that she was a partial vegan, the interview turned more in another direction, since the two of us conducting the interview had no idea what a vegan was, but had heard of the term. And when the organic questions came around, we felt as though they were merely brushed over, forced, and we instantly flipped our attention back to Janine’s eating habits and lifestyle.

    The technologies that I am planning to use for the final project that are new to me aren’t really new for me. MY group has decided to do the paper option rather than the documentary so most of our project will be written as we did our interview through a transcript type of method. To do this we did have to use a computer to keep up with every single word that was spoken between the interviewer and interviewee. What really prompted our group to go the paper route instead of the video or audio method when doing our report was the interviewee. She/he did not seem too thrilled about being videotaped so before we met we offered to do it in an audio type method where we would just ask her/him questions and record her answers.
    When the day finally came to do the interview the interviewee seemed very nervous at the thought of having his/her voice recorded as she/he was afraid they would sound weird or it would not work as we wanted. If the documentary had been required for this project we probably would not have been able to use the same subject for interviewing as they did not feel comfortable with either the video or audio method. We would then have to scour the earth trying to find another person that has some sort of relation with our research subject. Also if the documentary had been required I would have felt a lot more pressure about finding someone who really has a field of expertise on what our research is relating to. Finding someone like this in the amount of time we were given would probably be an incredibly frustrating task because we really wouldn’t know where to start.

My understanding of reflective and reflexive researching is based upon how I use them in my own research. Qualley states reflexivity as “a response triggered by a dialectical engagement with other – an other idea, theory, person, culuture, text, or even another part of ones self.” This makes me think that reflexive researching is basically just me responding to another idea that wasn’t my own. Basically taking someone else’s idea or theory and making it my own by adding my personal take or reflection on it. So as a researcher you’re pretty much reflecting through the means of another persons idea.

Reflection on the other hand Qualley describes as something done by you, independently, without help or any ideas from other people. Which shows me the real difference between the two. Reflective research is something you come up with and create on your own without the help of others. While reflexive researching is when you take another source (not your own) and you use that as a guideline to get your thought process started.

    My understanding of collaboration varies from each class/group that I collaborate with. The general idea of collaboration that I have right now is that two or more people join up to tackle any given topic at hand. By using information that the groups and I have or are about to research, we work together combining ideas and information to better extend the knowledge of our topic. We use each other’s ideas congruently with the topic of an assignment to cause a more abundant storm of progress to our research. By using each other’s ideas and work we can help each other reach a common goal.

    Our current group has collaborated so far by using gmail and iphones to tweet to each other and ask each other ideas. Tweeting has been a big help to our group and even to our interviewee. By contacting our interviewee and each other through twitter we were able to establish a better timeline of what exactly we have to do. Besides gmail and twitter my group has also used our iphones. Iphones have been a huge help in establishing a general idea between my partner and I. We can text back and forth (quite quickly because of Iphones Iphone-to-Iphone texting application) and see what each other are thinking towards a certain subject in our project. In class my group has also collaborated by talking things over and working out certain guidelines; like interview questions and research topics to better assess our topic at hand. We were able to do most of our collaborating in class as we find it a little bit easier and more instantly gratifying. Rather than texting or emailing each other and waiting for an answer to a proposed question.

Anytime I am assigned an assignment that requires my individual attention I will begin my process of writing. First I will pick out a day of the week when I have a lot of free time. From here I will try to map out in my head when exactly I will have time to work on said assignment for that day. When that time comes I will usually hid myself upstairs in my room because that’s where my computer is and it’s the best spot really for me to actually get work done.

 If I chose so, my room has the least amount of distractions, therefore it’s easier for me to focus on my task at hand and get a grip of what I’m going to be doing. From there I look at my assignment, and I set my surroundings up by depending on the level of focus needed to completing the assignment. If it’s a regular blog or short essay I will usually set up some sort of ambiance of music or even have the T.V. playing softly in the background. These subtle things do not distract me as much when I’m not doing a piece of work that needs all my mental faculties.

However, when I am doing a more challenging piece of writing I need COMPLETE silence. No T.V., no music and absolutely no talking, if anyone is, I will make sure I distance myself greatly. I find that I work much better when I can actually concentrate on what I'm doing. Whenever sound is in the background somehow I find myself being attracted to whatever else is going on, like a fly unknowingly traversing into a zap-light.

The rituals I usually follow when writing an essay or report lots of researching. Whenever I get a topic I don’t really comprehend or even if I do, I will research said topic until I really have good understanding of how to work with it. From there I will list out different topics and ways I could go with my paper. I will then chose a topic and begin my first draft from there. It's almost always during the day when I do this because I find it's easier and better for me to get my draft done before hand because if I don't do this, I will procrastinate.

The writing process changes a bit when adding a partner or group to it. In this type of situation I usually find myself procrastinating a bit and putting things off until other group-mates or my partner brings them up. I don't know or understand why I do this but it seems like it may be the same for everyone. When someone is by themselves a person is usually more focused on getting the task at hand done but when with another person they think they will do it for them. They don't mean to think like this but almost everyone does, they think if they stay quiet they wont have to do anything. (even though when in the back of their head they know they will)

     My understanding of narrative inquiry is that it is the meaning you (as the researcher) take from what happened. We may interpret stories, autobiographies, journals, field notes, and interview conversations to better use the narrative inquiry.
    We will apply this to our project by interviewing someone at supermarket or local grocery that has a working knowledge of our subject, organic meats. If we do not decide to interview someone at a local supermarket then the next best subject would be someone who lives a daily life with organic foods. Someone like a vegan or vegetarian would be great because those are the types of people who really have a better working knowledge of healthy foods like organic meats and or other organic products. We will use his interview to better interpret the difference between organic foods and non-oranic and what organic foods really are. By using narrative inquiry we will be able to delve deeper into the real meaning of organic food, and how it thrives in the current world. Interviewing someone would be the best way for our group to take in new information about organic food and how to process it in our project. I believe this would be the best way to provide our group with new and relevant information because interviewing someone who has a better understanding of the topic at hand gives us a fresh take on it. Having pre-thought a question to ask helps our narrative inquiry by giving us a guideline to follow when asking the interviewee questions.

To me, qualitative research is the act of finding out the “how and why” of decision making and really focusing on that more than just what, where, and when.  Qualitative research will, of course, be heavily used in our collaborative project. Since my partner and I are centering our research on organic foods we are going to try to find out what exactly makes something organic. From there we will spread out our questions to go deeper into the “how and why” of our research process. We will ask how exactly animals are classified into being organic and why this process must take place. We want to show how something organic is actually more beneficial to someone, as opposed to non-organic foods. This will then show how meats are separated from organic to non organic, and then sold as such. By doing our qualitative research project like this it will better represent how and why organic food is made and seen in the eye of the public.

Oral history is another huge factor playing out in our collaborative project. Oral history is said to be the “rehearsed accounts of the past” which are given to an interviewer by someone who is well versed in the specific topic from past experience. For my groups project we want to interview an employee of a type of supermarket that deals with organic and non-organic foods. From there we will be able to get the history of organic foods at said store by interviewing the employee. This will then branch out into many different topics pertaining to organic and non-organic foods, which will be discussed between the interviewer and employee. Having an employee speak to us about his/her personal experiences and information on organic foods will help us link their inquiries to our qualitative research.

So far in Writing, Research, and Technology, I have followed the grading contract to a T. Every time that a blog is due I make sure that I take the time out of my weekly schedule (ahead of due date) and go over what I should blog about. I then proceeded to complete the blog before class, as it's asked of me. As for attendance, so far I have missed two days so I believe I still have one more absence before it will start effecting my grade. So far so good on that front.

Anytime the class is designated time to work on a project or blog post I make sure I am doing exactly that. I always try to participate to the best of my abilities when we are having group or in class discussions. I try to interject my opinion whenever it is best suited in class or group participation.

I think I'm doing pretty well in terms of keeping a B average in this class. So far I have completed everything on time and followed instructions for any given assignment. I make sure all homework is done before hand and on time as to not fall behind, keeping up with the grading contracts precise requirements. To improve my grade in this class I could probably raise my hand more and ask more questions about topics discussed in class. If I keep up my current standards in W/R/T I believe I will definitely get at least a B.