After talking to club members these were the ideas for the opening paragraph)
---- Our research teams names, and complete contact information---- we are looking for volunteers to help in our research project, and believe that members of your club would be interested. If you have any questions regarding the context of our letter please email your concerns. If you would like a representative from our research team to come and visit one of your club meetings please send us the date and time that we could visit, and we will work with our and your schedule to send a representative.
(The “formal” letter- body)
To understand how it feels to be different you only have to know one thing- what is normal. The term normal is hard to define because it changes. Once it was normal to have a perm or a greased comb over, and it used to be normal to wear a top hat or walk through a village in a loin cloth. Some fashions and fads are so outlandish it seems impossible to believe that these things could have ever been considered normal, but even quicker than styles can change people change- normal people. In some areas you only have to walk two blocks to know that a normal person on one street would not be normal on the other. Look around the room you are sitting in and define what is normal: in that room, in that setting, and at that time. Did you put yourself into the normal group?
We are all different, but our research team dares to claim how we chose to cope with our differences matters. This research is not about finding the most different person in the most normal situation. It is about how people handle that hot-flushed-feeling when they enter a room and know that every normal person there is staring at them. Sometimes people simply stare with their eyes, but other times they pry with questions or avoid looking- afraid you might realize how un-normal you truly are. You know that you are different, but what we want to know is how you handle the jokes, the discrimination, and the heart ache- not because you are outlandish but because you are normal. It is normal to feel different, but how you chose to cope with being different is entirely unique. This is what we want to know about.
We are interested in a wide variety of people and are looking for volunteers and referrals to interview. Is there a unique person you know who copes with being different. The categories that we have limited our research to are exceptionally short, drastically tall, culturally different, racially different, physically deformed, severely underweight, and dangerously overweight. Unfortunately, because of the complication with parent consent forms we can only interview people over the age of 18. Think of someone in your life who has not simply inspired you but who copes with being discriminated towards, teased, and misjudged. These people have inspired you, and now is the opportunity for them to inspire others. If you know a parent, aunt, teacher, coach, or friends please ask them if you could suggest them for an interview. Submit their full name, phone number, email address, age, and which group(s) they would be willing to interview for to this website (the same website and information that was used for extra credit). Of course, we are interested in you as well and we would ask you to submit your information the same way.
The experiences we gather will be published in an article to help others learn unique ways to handle being different. The interviews will be held on Brigham Young University campus in Provo. All of the questions will be about how to cope with being different. The questions range from everyday subjects such as do you special order your clothes to questions about how your family receives your differences. It would be a simple opportunity to share with others.
We will respect your personal privacy. All names in the study will be de-identified with code names and all the data will be kept on a password protected computer. Any information you wish not to publish can be removed during any revision.
(After talking to club members these were the ideas for the closing paragraph)
Thank you for your time and attention. If you are interested in being interview or submitting names to be interviewed please send their information to the above mentioned address. If you might be interested but would like to know more information, or would like to clarify the purpose of the research we will be having a meeting in (room) at (date and time). You do not have to attend this meeting in order to be considered for an interview; the meeting is purely to help answer questions or concerns you may have. Thank you; we hope to hear from you.
-after talking to club members they said that we should hold a meeting on campus to clarify what and who we are looking to interview. I thought this was a good idea to do with in these first few weeks- and we could considered it a time to get possible questions from people and ideas for our own research and directions that we would want to go. Also, by making the meetings optional we are not limiting the amount of volunteers we gather but expand who volunteered and who they referred.
