Me and Mrs. Small have been working on an idea for a book. I have just been trying to help with details, but I have been pulled into the idea and am stuck on it.
A prof. of hers put the idea in her head, but we don’t see him often anymore and have trouble figuring out where to go for a little help. Basically, she is looking for sociological aspects, and would do so through polling people (or talking to a sample) but wants opinions and stories from Appalachian America.
I’ve considered having her run a website with forms on it, one being zip code, and allowing any person to answer, but then filtering through the zip code answers and see what we come up with. We also considered travelling around and talking to people in public places, but that takes a lot of time/money.
So dopers, what would be the best way for us to collect useful information?
(Also, if this goes somewhere else, feel free to move it, I wasn’t too sure on placement…)
I’ve got no idea how to do that kind of research (maybe contact someone at the nearest university with a sociology or history department?) but I just wanted to point out that “current zip code” may not be a good filter.
After all, my “current zip code” is in the German Black Forest but all I know about this area is that it’s pretty.
I don’t know how many online responses you’d get out of Appalachian America, anyway. I’d think if that is your target group you’d be much better off going to Appalachia and talking to people.
If you really can’t, I’d suggest soliciting groups that solicit Appalachians online - message boards, newsletters, colleges, etc. and THEN get the people who are recommended by THOSE places to reply to a specific form.
If you just want local color, try guide books. They will often comment on so-and-such being a good place to find quilts or antique farm tools, etc. And of course books and movies can be good for helping you capture the mood, if not quoted directly.
We are located in Appalachia, which I believe is the reason for her interest. The biggest problem with going aruond is that there is such a large area to be covered. We could possibly take up part of Ohio, Northern Kentucky, and some of West Virginia pretty easily, as long as we had the time. Getting over into Pennsylvania is a little more of a problem, and the eastern end of West Viriginia as well as other parts of Ohio would be problematic as well.
I understand that zip codes are not always the best way to figure out about the area people live in, but that was probably the simplest idea I’d thought of. We thought about taking a survey by mailing it to random places around Appalachia, but that would be a large risk. I figure if we mailed out 100 letters, that’s 30-some cents a letter, plus we’d have to pay postage back to us because most people wouldn’t want to bother with a stamp of their own for something they don’t know much about. Plus, a large amount of recipients would probably throw away any letter that they don’t recognize (I know I throw away a lot)
I just know that there has to be a way to gather more information. I plan on talking to a few social science profs that I am good friends with once school starts again in January. Just figured I’d take a chance here on while I’m on break from school.