I Officially Feel Like I'm Drowning...But I'll Get Through This!

03/26/2017

Starting off with my current feels, I am officially 3 days into my 6-day work week (my last day off was Thursday, and my next day off is this Thursday), and, after filling in my calendar/agenda with my work schedule and my AP Research schedule for the next couple of weeks, I am feeling very overwhelmed! I know that April 14th marks the light at the end of the tunnel, but it is a very, very dark tunnel indeed.

I have finished the first draft of my presentation script and PowerPoint as of about 15 minutes ago. I am feeling pretty confident about the PowerPoint (I think I found some nice pictures and backgrounds and aligned it well with the information in the presentation...I know I might need to put a few more slides in once I practice more and realize how I can better visually convey the information). Regarding the script, I am pretty confident in all the information I included, and I was able to severely cut down the lit review. I have gone through a couple of the sections, and they seem to be in about the right time ranges too. Right now, though, the sentences are still wordy (like they were in the original paper); this week, as I practice, I plan on finding how I naturally say everything and editing the script as I go.

As far as the rubric goes, here is my understanding of each of the rows:
1: Explicitly state the research question, method, and conclusion and ensure that each are tied together/explained thoroughly.
2: All claims must be tied to evidence from the research, and these claims must then lead to implications and significance. Limitations of the evidence collected should also be addressed.
3: Answer these questions: "Why did you hold your initial hypothesis?" "How did your results align with your hypothesis? Why was this the case?"  
4: The visual presentation should engagingly bring attention to the main points and aid one's argument by complimenting what the presenter is saying. It should look professional and well-thought-out. The presentation should be well-memorized and well-spoken (the audience should not only be able to hear/understand the speaker, but feel obligated to listen because the speaker seems passionate about his/her topic).

In terms of how I adapted the content of my paper for the presentation, I severely cut down on the lit review -- my explanation of theories behind consumer choice, different studies addressing the health concerns of unnatural makeup, and theories behind branding were either mostly or completely chopped out. I figured that, since the rubric focuses less on justifying the research and more on explaining the research, findings, and conclusions, a lot of the lit review could be cut (I just kept what was necessary to reach the gap and my question). I also ended up cutting a lot of specific details about the procedure from the methods and mainly went into detail on the blind consumption test and how it answered my question. The results and discussion stayed primarily intact, as a lot of the information was important for rubric rows 2 and 3, showing what the research found and how it interacted with previous research, as well as the implications, significance, and limitations of the findings.

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Less than a Month Until Presentations!!

03/19/2017

With April 14th right around the corner, I feel like I have so much work to do to prepare for submitting my final paper to the college board (Wow... I just realized that this will be the last piece of work to submit to the CB!). However, I am ready to put my game face on, hunker down, produce a killer paper/presentation, and end senior year with something significant before going to the college of my dreams (I have decided on Colorado School of Mines, for those who don't already know.)

Anyways, for this week's recap, I will begin with reflecting on the research paper commentary I so kindly received from Saara, Ved, and Rema. Overall, I still feel strongly about my lit review, as everyone seemed to be able to follow my argument easily. However, there were a few places that I received some helpful tips -- in terms of cutting words (although not a HUGE issue for me, considering I am not extremely far over the word count), Ved pointed out that I didn't need quite as much elaboration on each author's credibility. In some places, I could cut extraneous details without losing any of my own argument. In addition, when I transitioned from societal influences into branding, everyone recommended that I use a source within the transition, and I think that made the logical link a lot stronger. Lastly, I was able to clean up my significance a little bit with their advice (something I have struggled with throughout the process, so please keep that in mind as you are making comments on my paper).

Where I think the comments were the heaviest and most helpful was in the results and the discussion sections. In my results section, I think I did a good job coming to general conclusions and not saving the conclusions for the discussion section, but, in some places, I expanded upon those conclusions a little too much. I will cut words by minimizing some of those conclusions and saving the details for the discussion. Speaking of the discussion, from both Ms. Haag and my commenters, I feel like I got great feedback as to how to organize everything (save significance for the end, break up subheadings into different conclusions, etc.) and how to strengthen the connection between my findings and the lit review (unpack claims and conclusions a little more, find more sources). I have tried to expand upon the significance too, but, again, I would appreciate it if this week's commenters can look that over as well since I just wrote a lot of it from scratch this week and it hasn't been looked at by another pair of eyes.

In terms of how I feel about my paper scoring in the highest rubric categories, bear with me, but I am going to go through row by row:

• Row 1 - Scope, Significance, Gap: I feel like I am strong in creating a refined scope and clearly using the lit review to demonstrate a gap in the field that I am filling. However, I think I can probably make my significance sections stronger. 
• Row 2 - Academic Conversation: I think that the academic conversation and relation of each perspective to each other is strong in my lit review.
• Row 3 - Sources: I think I do a good job demonstrating the credibility of each source and the methods (as in, how each researcher reached his/her conclusions) in my paper. However, something I struggled with was finding academic sources for makeup, so some may not be as credible.
• Row 4 - Method: I think I sufficiently explain how my method allows me to answer my research question at the beginning of my methods section. 
• Row 5 - Results/Discussion: I think I use my data well to reach conclusions and have a sufficient analysis of limitations and avenues for future research/questions my research brings up. However, again, I have struggled with significance/implications. 
• Row 6 - Data: I have struggled finding a statistical test or way to prove that there is no clear "winner" or most superior makeup brand, as the rankings were all over the place and participants didn't seem to consistently favor a specific brand. If I could get tips on a test I could use or way to more academically use my data to prove this, then that would be great. 
• Row 7 - Design Elements: I feel like my tables, subheadings, and graph are all clear, especially with explanations included in the body of the paper, but please ensure that you understand them and comment if anything is unclear! 
• Row 8 - Citations: I kept with APA citation style, did not use any long quotes, and focused on my voice driving the conversation and using other sources, as opposed to letting those sources take over. 
• Row 9 - Wording: I tried to explain everything in terms that a non-expert in the field could understand. Again, please comment if anything is unclear though. 

And, lastly for this post -- how I feel about the presentation. I clearly remember the uncomfortable feeling of presenting in seminar, and the frustration of memorizing a 10 minute presentation (and this is almost twice as long!). I am also concerned about getting my whole paper's worth of information into 15 minutes. However, I know what I am talking about -- I have been working on this project for the entire year! And, I think once I get into it, I will be able to condense and summarize certain sections, especially from the lit review. Until I actually start formulating a script and practicing, I won't know exactly where I am at in terms of time, but I am confident I will be able to figure it out (I mean, I have to...)

Happy editing, everyone! We are almost there!! :)

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First Draft Done!

03/12/2017

I can't believe that every section of the paper has been written! 5000 (well... 5076, so I will have to edit down) words of a project that has been six and a half months in the making...wow.

After finishing my discussion (or at least my first go at it... it is probably the section of the paper I am least confident about at this point) and reading through the whole mammoth of a paper, I have to say that I am proud of all that I have accomplished in AP Research this year. However, I still know that I have a lot of work and editing left to do. Now, in terms of further dissecting my feelings:

What I am Confident About:
I have to say that, of all the sections of the paper, I am most confident about my lit review. I feel that I  am strong in the way I incorporated various sources into an academic conversation and a logical argument. I like how I build the credibility of each of my authors and show HOW they came to their conclusions in order to distinguish what is known about the cosmetics market and also to find where gaps exist in the knowledge behind consumer decision making between natural and unnatural makeup. I think the organization creates a nice flow for the reader, and I feel strong in terms of my transitioning.

I also like the way that I transitioned from my lit review to my methods section and explained why a blind consumption test is best for my research (I worked on this a lot with Ms. Haag when editing the methods). I think that, throughout my methods, I thoroughly relate what I am doing back to how the information will ultimately be used to answer the question. Additionally, in the results section, I think I do a good job relating the data to the types of conclusions that my question sought to reach.

What I am Not So Confident About:
I feel like some aspects of my methods section are confusing, especially the parts explaining scales (e.g. the hedonic scale, how I added up scores on the blind consumption test and exit survey). I think this also hurts me in the results section when I harken back to these scores and plot them against the newly added information (yet another scale!) - the mismatch score.

The methods section is what I ultimately feel is the weakest. I tried to incorporate sources from my lit review and connect what I ultimately found with my results back to the academic conversation, but it feels choppy/clumsy. I also feel like I am struggling with the significance portion, and, right now, I have it before the limitations and avenues for future research, but I didn't know the most effective order to put those three parts in. Advice on how I could better connect the discussion section back to the lit review and draw more significance and implications from my conclusions would be very much appreciated.

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Discussing the Discussion

03/05/2017

Hello again! It's been a wonderful week of exciting decision making. After discussing with my parents, I can officially say that I will be attending Colorado School of Mines in the absolutely lovely town of Golden, Colorado this fall. I could not be happier with the way things turned out! I am going to be studying engineering alongside intelligent peers who are also passionate about STEM and using it to improve the global community, and I get to do it while living in my favorite state. :)

Anyways, back down to business. This week I finished editing my results section, and I have begun the process of writing my discussion section. Below are the 3 sources I used to learn more about how the discussion section looks for other researchers who conducted blind consumption studies.

Citations: 

1. Bakke, A., & Vickers, Z. (2007). “Consumer Liking of Refined and Whole Wheat Breads.” Journal Of Food Science, 72(7), S473-S480. (Bakke and Vickers conducted a blind consumption test to determine whether consumers preferred refined or wheat breads and whether these preferences aligned with their self identified preference between the two types of bread.)2. di Monaco, R., Cavella, S., Torrieri, E., & Masi, P. (2007). “Consumer Acceptability of Vegetable Soups.” Journal Of Sensory Studies, 22(1), 81-98. (di Monaco et al. conducted a blind consumption test to determine whether information regarding the ingredients, packaging, or the farming system involved in soup production affected consumer soup preference)3. Maison, D., Greenwald, A. G., & Bruin, R. H. (2004). “Predictive Validity of the Implicit
(Maison et al. conducted a blind consumption test to determine whether soft drink consumers could determine the difference between Coke and Pepsi and whether their ability to determine this difference was related to the strength of their preference for one beverage over the other).

Association Test in Studies of Brands, Consumer Attitudes, and Behavior.” Journal Of Consumer Psychology (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates), 14(4), 405-415.

Common Features of the Discussion Sections - Relating them to my Research:
All the discussion sections seem to serve one primary purpose - to explain potential reasons for why participant self-identified preferences either matched or did not match their blind consumption test preferences. For example, Bakke and Vickers found that more consumers who stated that they preferred refined bread often whole wheat bread products higher than or similarly to refined breads in the blind consumption test, and they reasoned that this misalignment was likely due to a common social stigma against the taste of whole wheat bread. Similarly, Maison et al., who found that consumers with strong preferences for either Coke or Pepsi were able to distinguish between the two beverages under blind consumption conditions much more often than consumers with a weak preference for either beverage, reasoned that those who indicated a strong preference were more likely to have sensory preferences, as opposed to merely emotional ones associated with the brands.

For my discussion, I will be articulating the potential alternative emotional responses to branding that account for for the large amount of misalignment between participant self-identified and blind consumption preferences, as my results showed no correlation between emotional connections to the natural product movement and the amount of misalignment between self-identified and blind consumption preferences. To do this, I will bring in some outside sources discussing other emotional factors associated with branding (i.e. emotions associated with high-end/low-end brands, ethical production measures taken by different companies, etc.) I will also discuss the reasoning behind consumers with exceptionally strong emotional connections to the natural product movement experiencing alignment between their self-identified and blind consumption preferences. Here, I will draw in Maison et al.'s findings and connect a consumer's strong preference with sensory distinctions.

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