The defining activities and principles of ethnographic research Essays

The defining activities and principles of ethnographic research Essays The defining activities and principles of ethnographic research Paper The defining activities and principles of ethnographic research Paper Essay Topic: Sociology The term ethnography relates to a specific method upon which a researcher goes through to understand a certain situation. These methods involve the ethnographer becoming interrelated either covertly (whereby the researcher does not let the participants know who they are; either they hide their identity or they observe from a far) or overtly (whereby researchers inform participants of who they are) with the people under investigation and within their daily lives. As Marvin Harris and Orna Johnson (2001) state, ethnography literally means a portrait of people, ethnography is a written description of a particular culture- the customs, beliefs and behaviour- based on information collected through fieldwork. This ethnographic method starts with a selection of the culture upon which they wish to observe and understand. The ethnographer then researchers this specific culture and identifies variables of interest, typically these will be variables perceived as significant by members of the culture. The ethnographer then has to decide how they will gain entrance, this is especially difficult when done within covert ethnography as there is pressure in whatever circumstance it is to not stand out and look like an intruder or ethnographer. It is not unusual for ethnographers to live within their chosen society for months or even years, yet it doesnt take long in most cases for the ethnographer to gain cultural immersion. The middle stages of ethnographic research rely on the ethnographer gaining as much information as possible; this can be done through a range of both qualitative data as well as quantitative. This is their fieldwork and is vital when carrying out such investigations. When they feel as though they have enough data, or that staying within such a society wouldnt benefit their research anymore they leave, they then use their field work for their data analysis and theory development whereby the ethnographer strives to avoid theoretical preconceptions. As the ethnographer often gets very involved in the research, rich qualitative data can be yielded from ethnography, but as this type of research needs to be gained over a long period of time and can often invite an array of different opinions, other research methods may be used within the study, therefore quantitative data can be gained from methods such as questionnaires, interviews, experiments and observations. This specific form of social research can be identified as triangulation as it combines different methods so that the strengths of one complement the weaknesses of the other. There are a range of different types of ethnography not just that of covert and overt methods. Micro and Macro ethnography tends to study the narrowly or broadly defined cultural groupings. Whereas Emic and Etic ethnography is considered a research approach to the way in which members or non-members perceive and interpret behaviours and phenomena associated with a given culture. There are a number of documentaries that have been broadcast across our television screens recently whereby ethnographic research has been the main focus. Journalists have particularly taken to ethnographic research as it gives more depth and intensity to their so called stories and interests the public greatly. Donal MacIntyre for example has managed to make a career out of ethnographic research, as he has covertly managed to fool people in to believing that he is not a journalist and is therefore one of them. His research method has in many circumstances worked very well as he has managed to prove a variety of things that could not have been done overtly. One of Donal MacIntyres most famous and well recognised ethnographic study was in 1999. He wanted to show the public just how dangerous football hooligans are and how much they relish violence. In just eighteen months Donal MacIntyre infiltrated the Chelsea Head-Hunters (the hooligan firm for Chelsea football team) with the help of hidden cameras and recording equipment, the results were just what he wanted. In preparation for this ethnographic study MacIntyre had to watch hours of Chelsea videos and had to leaf through pages of literature to enable him to become culturally immersed within the hooligans. He pretended to be a drug dealer, and a very successful one at that. He moved into the same block of flats as the main ring leader of the Head-hunters and even hired out a i 45,000 Mercedes to look the part. Donal MacIntyre was born in Ireland so for eighteen months he had to loose his accent. To get involved he started to take the Head-hunters to away games, he slowly became one of them and at one point even ended up in a fight at one of the football matches with them, he stated in his documentary that it was real. He got very badly hurt, yet he was getting what he needed from the investigation so decided to carry on. He even went to the extremes of having a Chelsea tattoo on his arm for authenticity, which he is now getting removed. Sitting in Donals i 45,000 Mercedes on more than one occasion was Andrew Frain (nicknamed nightmare) who boast on the documentary about slashing an off duty police officer. He also spent one particular journey to a football match with Leicester on the phone arranging a 150 man riot. Within in all ethnographic research, observation is one of the main methods upon which a sociologist or ethnographer can collect their fieldwork. Yet, they do not just observe people as and when they need to decide when and where to observe people and to actually observe the specific things that relate to the investigation. With such an immense study it is often difficult to keep the fieldwork observations completely related to the specific variables of interest. In Donal MacIntyres case he took the role of becoming a complete participant, whereby he took a very highly active and involved participation within the group being examined, the Head-hunters. (Fulcher Scott,Sociology,2nd edition, p88) Although this may seem easy, it is very difficult to actually gain the information needed as it is difficult to ask questions or raise specific issues that would make it obvious that the researcher is not a participant. Therefore the researcher has to remain within the role and sometimes can get so involved within it that it is difficult for them to then be able to analyse the findings. Also without recording equipment it may be difficult to remember everything before you get the chance to write it down, also with a recording you can replay it as many times as you like and get different opinions upon it yet without this your evidence is subject to watch you saw, which can lead to a bias view. Donal MacIntyre stated that the very difficult eighteen month investigation was traumatic and very scary. Donal spoke of his fear for life on many occasions. As the documentary was aired on the BBC, the police had the evidence to arrest two of the main ring leaders of the Chelsea Head-hunters. One was jailed for seven years and one was jailed for six and they both have been banned from attending football matches for twenty years. Through this specific ethnographic investigation Donal managed to gain evidence and information on an aspect that the Head-hunters would have not been willing to discuss elsewhere. The Head-hunters didnt feel the need to lie as they may have in an interview for example as they assumed that Donal was their friend. As Donal gained an insider status he had access to their so called native language. However, although this type of methodology was considered the most efficient when getting truthful, reliable and valuable information, it has had its consequences upon Donal. Since the investigation Donal has received a number of death threats, his car has been spray painted, he has been mugged and beaten up and he now lives in constant fear within a safe-house. This shows the extremes and amount of work people are prepared to go through to get the result they want. Donal MacIntyre has put his own safety aside as he wanted to prove to the public what hooliganism was really like. Ethnographic research is a method which involves so many different types of research; therefore it is considered that it is a very good way of investigating cases which are not just a yes or no answer. Although some people state that covert ethnography is wrong as you are leading people to believe you are somebody that you are not, many sociologists view is that the only way you are able to get a reliable result is through being covert, because people will always try to make themselves sound or look better if they know they are being investigated, whether they mean to or not.

How to Format an NLM Reference List

How to Format an NLM Reference List How to Format an NLM Reference List NLM referencing is used by many medical schools and journals. Thus, if you are studying medicine, you may need to use NLM referencing in your written work. And in this post, we’ll look at the basics of how to format an NLM reference list. Read on to find out more. NLM Reference List Rules In NLM referencing, as well as citing sources in the main text, you need to list each cited source at the end of your document. This list can be titled â€Å"References,† â€Å"End References,† â€Å"Literature Cited,† or â€Å"Bibliography† (check your school’s style guide if you are not sure which to use). Beyond this, there are some rules that apply to reference lists in NLM referencing: Write author and editor names surname first. Use initials in place of first and middle names. List all named authors for each source, regardless of how many there are. Use a comma to separate author names in each entry. Capitalize only the first word of book and article titles, along with proper nouns, proper adjectives, acronyms, and initialisms in titles and subtitles. Reproduce other titles (e.g., web pages) as they were originally published. Abbreviate significant words in journal titles (and omit other terms). Use a colon followed by a space to separate titles from subtitles. For online sources, include a citation date in square brackets after the date of publication; you should also give a URL at the end of the reference after the words â€Å"Available from.† Beyond this, how you organize a reference list will depend on the citation style used in the document. In the rest of this post, then, we will look at how to format an NLM reference list when using the citation-sequence, citation-name, and name-year versions of this system. NLM Refence List: Citation-Sequence In the citation-sequence system, you cite sources with superscript numbers in the main text. These numbers point to entries in the reference list, with sources listed in the order they are first cited. As such, the first source you cite becomes the first entry in your reference list, the second source you cite would become the second entry, etc. For instance: 1. Hopper D, Farrow A. Medical bibliographies. J Med Writ. 2008 June 15; 4(1): 128-130. 2. Aaronson A. A history of English alphabetization. New York, NY: Penguin; 1998. 480 p. 3. Zedwick Z. Understanding NLM [Internet]. Bethesda, MD: National Library of Medicine; 2011 Jan 5 [cited 2018 Nov 11]. Available from: nlm.nih.gov/NLM-referencing. Here, for example, the fact that â€Å"Medical bibliographies† by Hopper and Farrow is the first source in the list would mean that it is also the first source cited in the document. We would then know that any citation with a superscript â€Å"1† in the text points to this entry in the reference list. NLM Refence List: Citation-Name The citation-name system is similar to the citation-sequence version in that you cite sources with numbers in the main text, with each number indicating a source in the reference list. However, with this version of NLM referencing, you order sources in the reference list itself alphabetically by author surname. With this version of the system, then, our NLM reference list would look like this: 1. Aaronson A. A history of English alphabetization. New York, NY: Penguin; 1998. 480 p. 2. Hopper D, Farrow A. Medical bibliographies. J Med Writ. 2008 June 15; 4(1): 128-130. 3. Zedwick Z. Understanding NLM [Internet]. Bethesda, MD: National Library of Medicine; 2011 Jan 5 [cited 2018 Nov 11]. Available from: nlm.nih.gov/NLM-referencing. The â€Å"Aaronson† source is first here because â€Å"A† comes before â€Å"H† and â€Å"Z† in the alphabet. We would then cite each source with the number of its position in the reference list. NLM Refence List: Name-Year Things are a little different in the name-year citation system. In this version of NLM referencing, you cite sources by giving the author’s surname and a year of publication in brackets. In the references at the end of the document, meanwhile, you list all sources alphabetically by author surname: Aaronson A. 1998. A history of English alphabetization. New York, NY: Penguin. 480 p. Hopper D, Farrow A. 2008. Medical bibliographies. J Med Writ. 4(1): 128-130. Zedwick Z. 2011. Understanding NLM [Internet]. Bethesda, MD: National Library of Medicine; [cited 2018 Nov 11]. Available from: nlm.nih.gov/NLM-referencing. The list here is, then, in the same order as with the citation-name system. However, there are two major differences: We do not number sources as there are no numbered citations. Because we use the year of publication for sources in citations, we give this detail immediately after the author’s name in the reference list. Otherwise, though, this version of NLM referencing is the same as the versions above when it comes to formatting a reference list.