During the completion of my research paper, I learned a great deal about formatting, style, conventions, and most importantly, integration of sources. I began the project with a very rigid research question of determining how the internet has affected friendships. I continually revised this question until I reached the question of “how has social networking affected closeness of friendships?” However, I felt that this topic had already been discussed in depth and was known among the general population in a subconscious manner. Therefore, I modified my topic to a new, very narrow, and largely uncharted topic. This of course, is the current research question I proposed: “What are the sociological motivations behind Facebook creeping?” I found that I instantly enjoyed this topic more, because I felt as if I was performing meaningful research. Furthermore, almost no research had been performed on the behavior in question, even though many in college are well aware of its presence and consequences. Having a background in web development and social networking development gave me the inspiration to research the topic even though little direct research had been performed. In fact, only one researcher had actually created a scientific name for the phenomenon, which I utilized throughout my paper.
As far as the research process, I did not find it to be as daunting as one would believe. My previous research questions gave me a lot of background as to privacy violation and online friendship, and I used two of these studies in my final draft. However, it was fairly difficult to separate relevant information from the older articles to apply them to the new topic. I did not encounter many problems until the final stages, after I had received all of the survey responses. I had to creatively separate some of the responses in a manner consistent with current research in order to even consider three of my hypotheses. From there, I also found the analysis difficult; I spent around 2.5 days on-and-off analyzing the data in around 25 Excel spreadsheets. However, with the surprising results, it was well worth it.
I received little feedback about the paper from others before getting into the methodology section. I received help from friends in making sure the survey questions made sense to those not studying the topic. Despite the peer reviews, this help was the most useful feedback I received during the research assignment because it provided consolation that the survey would actually be able to find correlations. In addition, discussing others’ research and thinking about it in comparison to my own topics was also a great help.
The assignment which was the most useful to me during the research process was the close reading of two journal articles. This made me really consider if I wanted to stick with my current topic. Until this point, I had not fully read a journal article; I had only considered certain sections. I would later re-read in full all of the journals I had utilized, which helped me find my new topic and discover the Tufekci study.
The most difficult part of the drafting process was integrating sources from the literature review due to my change in topic. After close reading, I found that I had to eliminate some of the references and incorporate others. Consequentially, this took a large portion of my time. The easiest part of the drafting process was style and word choice. Everyone that has read the paper so far has said it sounds very professional, but I had no difficult in choosing professional language after becoming familiar with the jargon used in previous studies.
While I have written research papers before, I have never written one at the professional level. I would hope that the final essay shows the vast amount of research, time, and effort I put into the paper during the last semester. In addition, I hope that it shows my evolution as a writer as far as style and reader captivation.
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