Comparison of images from three IAMA threads

I am a police officer:

I am a valedictorian and a heroin user:

I hear voices and am doing alright:

Nodes represent authors, edges are reply relationships in the first 100 shown messages in the threads (omitting suppressed low scoring messages).  Dotted line indicates question, solid is non-question;  gray is on topic, red is off.  Size is proportional to the natural log of message karma, and color represents commitment, operationalized as # of trophies (light green low (0-1)), blue is high (about 4or 5).    Nodes are grouped by local network structure and in the case of local isolates, by color also.

Initial thread image

This initial image shows the data we coded from police thread data.  Weight of edge corresponds to size of post.  Off topic comments are indicated with red arrows.  Larger nodes have higher comment karma; green indicates fewer trophies, blue more trophies.

Login Data Collection

Data collection tasks:

1. Collect and code the remaining comment data from the heroin thread.
1. people signed up, but have not gotten them done.  feel free get them done regardless of who signed up before.
2. here is the URL  heroin   http://www.reddit.com/r/iama/comments/a4nuu
3. if your comments involve login names that are not in the login.heroin list, collect the login data also.
2. Collect login data, first come, first served.  
1. There are about 130 login names to be collected. 
2. Just go to one of the data collection spreadsheets and claim and fill in 7 entries.   
1. This means that the first 20 or so folks will get points. . . .
2. We need to get these done soon, so please act soon.
3. How to collect the data
1. Open reddit.com
2. Open one of the login data collection threads (with available logins)
3. type your coder ID into the coder cell for the entries you will collect
4. copy the login name from the first cell in your set
5. paste that login into the search box, press return
1. see example image above
6. click on link for the correct login name
7. record the data for that contributor on the datasheet
8. repeat till you are done
4. Any questions?

351 Share: Organized for Final Exam Review

Hey folks;   in preparation for the final, I have organized all of the Agendas, Slide decks, and homework folders in our 351 share folder.  

Check it out.  Go to google docs, open the 351 share file, and then sort alphabetically, by clicking on the "Name" heading; it is just below the share button.   Anyways, this should make the doc list look like the image above.

Days that do not have agendas or slides are days that we had presentations, or other in-class exercises that were more interactive.

I will post the draft of the new Review sheet soon, it will be called 351 Review, and thus will be the very first item in the 351 file after you sort by name.

cheers

ted

Homework #4: Measuring social interaction

The fourth and final homework will involve the collection and coding of publicly available data, published online.  We will combine qualitative insights, a simple content analysis strategy, network visualization, and some basic descriptive statistics.

Our data will come from three online discussions posted to a web site called Reddit.  The threads are all listed on the verified IAMA (I am a) page: http://ttam.org/reddit/ where people answer questions about what it is like to be a person with an unusual or interesting identity.

I will update this post with new information about what to do, and how to do the different steps of the assignment.  However, much key information, as usual, is shared in class.





Steps for collecting comment data:

1. Open the "coder assignment" document in google docs.
2. If you were in class through the end of class on thursday, you signed up, and you are listed.
1. If you missed the sign up.  Add your name to open spots on the voices (pink) or heroin (green) thread list.  Sign up in order (e.g., take the first available row).
3. Open the data collection google document for your thread:
1. police:   HW4.ThreadData.Police
2. voices:  HW4.ThreadData.Voices
3. heroin:   HW4.ThreadData.Heroin
4. Open the thread data page: 
1. police   http://www.reddit.com/r/iama/comments/aejp1    
2. voices  http://www.reddit.com/r/iama/comments/avspf
3. heroin   http://www.reddit.com/r/iama/comments/a4nuu
5. Open the find search box in the browser window
1. press [control "F"]

1. Find the section of your thread data document where you need to start.  Pretend that you are Sarah, and so you are going to start on line 22 of the voices google doc.
2. Your tasks are: 
1.  to copy and paste the name of the "sender"   the person who posted that comment.
2. copy and paste the name of the person they are replying to.    
3. Copy and paste the content.     
1. The content of message 21 is already there.
2. As it should be for the first message in each person's set.
3. Find your message in the browser window by using the Find function:
1. Past the content, or the first several words of the content into the search box you opened in step 5 above. For example,   "I thought The Little Rascals" on the voices page will take you to the first message in Sarah's set.
2. Paste the sender, recipient and content data for the rest of the messages in your section.
4. Make sure that all of the words from a single post end up in a single cell of the spread sheet. See the not in red at the top of the data entry sheet.

See google doc with next steps for more details.

Let me know if you have trouble.

ted

Homework #3: Collecting Field Notes

Note:  See lecercle's photo stream for more images and comments about life and culture visible from a Calcutta Coffee House.

Field research provides a window into sub-cultures, groups, and locales in ways that larger scale, more quantitative research is unable.  Field research is a good way to learn about what places are like, how people behave and what it all might mean.   This assignment provides an introduction to the process unobtrusive observation in public spaces, and making and recording observations in the form of field notes.

This blog post describes the preliminary steps in the assignment.

Part #1:  Tuesday

1. Meet in class to discuss assignment.
2. Read and discuss handout on observing and collecting field data. 
1. See "Fieldnotes.pdf" in the 351 share file
1. Fitting in
2. Observing in rich detail
3. Writing it down
4. Thinking about what you observe
3. Discuss task of collecting data as a social scientist
1. Compare and contrast to reporting
1. Flickr Photo Essay
2. Moving from Observations to claims and themes
3. Challenge of evaluating claims
4. Discuss potential research sites
1. Baker center; Front room; Perks; Donkey; Lil Professor?
5. Preliminary study
1. Chose site
2. Go there, and observe and take notes for 30 min
3. Make notes as complete as possible
4. Interpret any patterns in your observations
5. Identify one claim or theme
1. How would you test or investigate that theme?

Part #2:   Thursday

1. Type up your field notes on a google doc
1. Bring field notes, interpretation, theme, and test plan to class on Thursday.
2. Discuss as a group
3. Add your notes and interpretation to the "Baker Center Field Notes" document.
1. Discuss
4. Develop Research goals for second data collection 
1. Goal 1?
2. Goal 2?
2. Develop plan for research sites to visit: 
1. Generate list of possible places to visit
1. Coffee houses
2. Restaurants
3. Bars
4. Others?
2. Form data collection teams: 
1. 2-3 people per team
2. Assign teams to sites
3. Set time(s) to collect data
4. Make team google doc to combine notes o
3. Develop research report plan
1. What should we create?
2. How should we share it?

Part #3:    Writing up your field note in a report

1. Report on Field Research
2. What it includes:    
1. Create it as a google document;  share it with your group and with me.
2. Title based on themes that you found
3. Image (s)
4. Main text describing what you found
1. Introduction
2. General description of setting
3. Findings
1. Finding one
1. Quote or description
2. Interpretation
3. Significance
2. Finding two
1. Quote or description
2. Interpretation
3. Significance
3. Finding two
1. Quote or description
2. Interpretation
3. Significance
4. Other observations, as necessary
4. Discussion and conclusion
1. Relevance of observations and themes to other research
2. Further investigations
5. References

Part #3.5:     Advice on your write up

The first helpful thing to consider is that there were three general questions that everyone went in with:  
1.  what is the place like
2.  what are the people like
3.  how do they interact

Given those as your general questions, you would want your write up to include info that would be your particular answers to those questions.  It is helpful to start by assuming that your readers don’t know anything about [your study site], can you describe what it is like a bit? You should do this in a way that is accurate and INTERESTING. Vivid details that truly reflect what the place, people, interaction are like are great. Think of observations that EXEMPLIFY what the place is like. It is often helpful to think of the intro as a narrative, as though you are painting a scene for a movie or other type of vivid window into a social world.

After you have moved beyond the sort of general intro to what the place, people and interaction is like, you would want to provide particular observations and themes (your three themes) that give us a more in-depth window into particular folks/interaction/etc. that are interesting and related to ideas from sociology. Consider that your intro has set the stage, now your three key observations should be organized as themes, with the observations providing evidence, an in-depth slice into what some key part of that social world is like, what it means, and should be interesting to us for sociological reasons.

I want to emphasize that this type of work, analysis and writing is difficult. Good luck and have fun.

Homework #2 Discussion Thread

We introduced homework #2 in class last Thursday.   The assignment is described on a Google that is shared in the 351 share folder in google docs.  You can also see it, but not edit it through a link from the syllabus.  Students who were in attendance on Thursday formed groups and finished the first couple tasks in the assignment, including forming groups.  If you are not already in a group, chose from the remaining two paper choices (last two on the sign up sheet in the assignment description).

Day 5: Evaluating Research

(click on image to see full size)

Today we discussed different types of research and we practices the evaluation of research projects, and we named a few criteria that we can used to describe basic features of a study.   Those criteria are listed below.

1. Research Questions?
1. What did they want to learn?
2. Data?
1. What was the sample?  What are the key variables? How are they measured?
3. Methods?
1. How was the data collected?  What general type of research is this (e.g. descriptive?; ethnography?)
4. Analysis?
1. How did they test their hypotheses?   What did they expect to find?
5. Results?
1. What did they learn?  
6. So what?
1. Why might the findings be important?  (relate to discussion of social structure and inequality)

In class, I described a research study, and your task was to take notes that would allow you to describe that study according to each of these criteria.   In the google docs shared folder for the 351 I have shared three documents that will help you fill out each of those criteria for that study.



Click this or copy this link into your browser to go to turn in your answers:

http://bit.ly/cYtLZ6

The image above points out the files:

EvaluationsResearchStudies is a pdf of the slides from the first half of the lecture today.
ASA.Social.pdf    is the slides describing the research study
and
Brooks.Welser.Hogan.Titsworth   is an optional paper that describes the research.

Homework #1 Discussion Thread

Home work #1 is posted as a google doc.   It includes pretty detailed instructions for the first 4 tasks, the fifth will require some fleshing out.

If you have questions on any part of the assignment you have two strategies.

1. First, you should post your questions as comments in this thread, and check for answers that others have given.   When you post questions, give as much information about what you have tried so far to make it easier for others to help you.   
2. Second, you can share your document before your are finished.   You should share it with my gmail account, as indicated in the assignment, and you should share it with a couple of other folks from the class.  They might be able to help show you how to do some of the tasks.  

In Excel, To get rid of the bracketed numbers:

Highlight the contents of that data in the three columns that include the bracketed numbers.  [23]

Then, from the home tab, open Find and Replace, in the find dialog box, enter [23] ; don't enter anything in the replace box.   Click Replace all.    Then, change the number to [22] , [24], [21]. etc, till they are all eliminated.    Make sure you search including the [ ] brackets, or you will introduce errors into your data.

hope that helps.

Part of the point of this assignment is to improve your ability to figure out how to do new things.


 Below is the text of the link to the assignment.

https://docs.google.com/document/edit?id=1pW4qcS0pZX17HKy5UP5qTVSfHGs2HnA_KRVvdrFr_Q8&hl=en&authkey=CKjmyrgN

Sagan Chapter

Science and Hope. Chapter 2; Demon haunted world. Carl Sagan.

See the PDF here.

Your task is to read this chapter for comprehension. First, identify two brief sections that you believe are especially interesting or important. Quote each, then briefly explain why you chose them. Finally, you should distill what you believe to the the primary thesis of the chapter. Write that thesis as simply and directly as you can.

PS. Link to today's outline.

PSS Link to the course syllabus: here.

Most everyone enrolled has filled out the brief class survey, if you have not yet done so, you should now:

The link to the class survey form is here.