Poetry Research Study
 

Hi Everyone,

My name is Eric Heald-Webb, and I am currently a student at Old Dominion University’s MFA in Poetry program. I am conducting research into different ways poets draft their poems.

I would like to invite you to take a short survey. This survey asks questions regarding your poetry experience and writing habits, and should take no more than five minutes.

If you would like to continue to participate via a follow-up interview, you will have the opportunity to do so.

Please be assured that this study has been designed to protect your identity and your rights as much as possible. If you would like to view the research proposal, you may see it here:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12203784/Res...20Approved.pdf

To participate in the survey, click the following link:

https://www.kwiksurveys.com?s=HMHDII_f522edec

Thank you for your participation,

Eric Heald-Webb
Old Dominion University
MFA Student
ewebb002@odu.edu


ps - I know this invite is formal, but it was presented this way to the review board...

anyways, Adam asked whether discussion around this topic would skew my results, and I say no! :)
Please discuss away, it's why I'm doing this.

I will also be posting the results to the board, if you are interested.

I was willing to take the short survey but got this when I clicked on the link so I didn't proceed:

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Jayne, Internet Explorer is ridiculously picky about certain sites. Just choose to proceed in spite of the warning.

For the record, Firefox didn't stop me, I took the survey, it's short, and you can choose or not to go further and be interviewed by e-mail.

Eric,

Good luck with this. An interesting idea.

Ed

Eric,

I took the survey and read your proposal. I was impressed that you went through all the steps for IRB approval, even if merely to obtain exempt status. As a long time member of an IRB, I read your methodology section with interest. I know you can't change your process without going back to the board, but you may have some flexibility on data analysis techniques. Since you've already proposed moving from qualitative to quantitative analysis, you may get more complex results by consulting with some of the experts available to you at the University. If you have any contacts in your departments of Sociology, Social Work, or Psychology, you may find them very helpful with methods of data analysis, and interpretation of results.

Just a suggestion,

Thanks,

Bill

Since Eric has said it's okay to discuss in the open the issues he's studying, and since my brain has been chewing on it this morning, I'll go ahead.

I've been wondering whether people's answers will depend in some measure on whether they distinguish between composing and revising. As I remember them, the survey questions talk about composing, which I do with pen and paper. Once I commit something to the word processor, it's a draft, and changes to it are revisions, and I think of them as a different process, in which my brain operates differently--even though I often scratch handwritten revisions on the printed drafts.

Do others do this?

Maryann,

Thanks for reassuring me it was OK, as I was worried about the security problem, but I've tried again and couldn't access the survey... waited and waited and waited...

... I guess they'll just have to manage without knowing about my writing habits :( (which, btw, are identical to yours, by the sound of it. Can you include me with the same answers as yours???)

Tell us as much as you like about your writing habits, Jayne!
Eric will find your thoughts just as useful for his research if they're here.

Personally I always start on paper, usually a scruffy notebook, and with a pencil.
Then I transfer to the computer. I edit digitally, but I don't do much composing that way - not beyond the occasional discovery of a new line or two.

"Writing" happens in the head. Not on paper. Not on a computer.

Thank you for that, Adam. It was frustrating not being able to do the survey properly.

Like you, I start with paper and pencil. I buy loads of those cheap, lined A4 pads and for each line I write, I leave a line blank above and below it, where I can add alternative words or phrases in brackets.
When the paper is so messy from alterations I write the whole thing out again and repeat the process.
When I'm more-or-less happy with the poem I transfer it to my laptop. Further changes happen days, weeks, months, even years later (because they're never, ever, going to be perfect, to me.)

I wish I knew what the questions on the survey were (sigh).
I have a pad in my handbag at all times, one beside the bed and a dictaphone in the car - for absolute emergency use to record a couple of lines when I'm driving (don't tell the cops!).