ONLINE SURVEY SITES
• Survey Monkey
• Survey Gizmo
• Google Forms
FINDINGS REPORT
PLUS SOME RESUME STUFF
RAW DATA VS FINDINGS
• Raw data = information collected through your
survey/experiment
• Tables, charts, and graphs that organize single
survey answers represent RAW DATA
• Listing the raw data you have found DOES NOT
count as a finding
FINDINGS
• Findings are inferences
• Findings are new knowledges
• Findings are what happens when you ANALYZE your
data rather than simply recounting your survey
results
• Findings usually signify trends, correlations, and
potentially causations you find when analyzing your
raw data
FINDINGS
• Findings are also new knowledges produces
through your interviews and focus groups
• Findings ARE NOT simply quoting an interviewee
• Findings go a step further – discussing and analyzing
these interview responses in the greater context of
your whole project
REMEMBER…
• Your presentation and paper will have both raw
data AND findings, but one without the other will
not be sufficient
• Questions?
FINDINGS REPORT EXPECTATIONS
A detailed description of the
• Survey sample (your demographic group)
• instrument (your survey/bigger questions)
• analysis method
Your actual survey should go in an Appendix at the
back of your paper.
EXAMPLE
Acceptable:
I created a 17 questions survey geared to gauge the
feelings of Penn State seniors in a Fraternity towards X,
Y, and Z. This survey helped to answer my larger
questions ____________________ & _________________.
(See Appendix 1 for a complete set of survey
questions).
BAD EXAMPLE
I created a 17 question survey. The questions were:
1. Blah
2. Meh
3. Flah
4. Buh
Ad infinitum
FINDINGS REPORT EXPECTATIONS
Interviews
- The most descriptive section of your paper in terms of
language – we still maintain academic objectivity
when appropriate, but allow for subjective reflection
- Description of interviewee
- Description of interview environment (if appropriate)
- Summary of interview with direct quotation – there
should be more of you than your interviewee
- Explanation of the interview’s PURPOSE – how it
relates back to your larger project.
FINDINGS REPORT EXPECTATIONS
Effective use of tables or figures to illustrate the data
or numbers gathered by the survey
Remember the misleading/poorly made graphs
Don’t do that
FINDINGS REPORT EXPECTATIONS
Writing and Language:
A blend of
1. objective writing – keep your scientific/academic
distance
2. reflexive reactions – your personal response (still
written in a formal voice) to your
data/interviews/results
3. secondary sources for triangulation – when
appropriate, relate back specific articles from
your lit review.
FINDINGS REPORT EXPECTATIONS
• A conclusion that details new knowledge (findings)
about the topic that you have gained through
interviews and surveys
OVERALL STRUCTURE
Title – the more specific, the better
Introduction – keep rewriting intro from Research
Proposal/Lit Review (READ MY COMMENTS)
Methodology
Data – with visuals
Conclusion/Findings
QUESTIONS?
RESUMES
• Like cover letters, resumes have a rhetorical
purpose
• Treat your resume LIKE A NARRATIVE
• Good stories don’t have extraneous parts – every
single piece of information on your resume should
be working to telling the same (good) story
EXAMPLE
When I apply to professor jobs, I will most likely not
include my time working at
- Target
- A lumber yard
- As an athletic trainer
- As a grader for my undergrad math department
EXAMPLE
I will include
- Research assistant for literary journal
- High school teacher/dorm administrator
- The fact that I teach all of you fine people
REMEMBER
The resume isn’t a place to simply list everything
about you. It’s designed to spark an interest in you as
potential future employee.
DUTIES VS. ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Instead of this:
Do This:
• Responsible for developing a
new filing system
• Developed a filing system
that reduced paperwork by
50 percent
• In charge of customer
complaints and all ordering
problems
• Resolved customer
complaints and product
order discrepancies
• Won a trip to Europe for
opening the most new
customer accounts in my
department
• Generated the highest
number of new customer
accounts in my department
ACTION VERBS
Accomplished
Achieved
Administered
Approved
Arranged
Assisted
Assumed
Budgeted
Chaired
Changed
Compiled
Completed
Coordinated
Created
Demonstrated
Developed
Directed
Established
Explored
Forecasted
Generated
Identified
Implemented
Improved
Initiated
Introduced
Investigated
Launched
Maintained
Managed
Motivated
Negotiated
Operated
Organized
Oversaw
Participated
Performed
Presented
Proposed
Raised
Recommended
Reduced
Reorganized
Resolved
Saved
Served
Simplified
Sparked
Streamlined
Strengthened
Succeeded
Supervised
Systematized
Targeted
Trained
Transformed
DON’T OVERDO IT