Final Research Project.

Britt Grady Jr.
Dr. Chandler

Research in Language & Literature
Final Research Project
                 Before you even begin writing a novel, an author should first strongly develop his or her characters, settings, and plot. In doing so there are a lot of things that you should take into consideration. For my focus I focused on a particular city which was Elizabeth, NJ. With this city I looked at the community and the people who live in it. In addition to the general sense I would also look at different age groups, family life, levels of education, different jobs and the different people that others in the community look up to. All of these factors allow me to create a realistic and interesting novel for my reader. This takes away from the work being one dimensional, which no author wants.

For me personally I am a reader. I love sitting back with a really good book to read. All of my favorite books have that fiction feel to it but they are also very realistic. They allow me to get lost in the story and also recognize with it. This is due to the fact that authors spend so much time developing and working on ideas and all that goes into creating a novel. When people think about writing a book, they think it is very easy. They think that a person just begins to write and that is it. But they fail to realize all the work and research that goes into a novel.

As far as my research goes I wanted to use interviewing and ethnography as my main methods of choice. But while discussing my project with a fellow classmate, she referred me to oral history. My classmate suggested this method because for a novel that I am already working on it is about two young brothers. One is dealing with his sexuality and the other dealing with becoming a teen parent. She explained that by them telling and explaining their lives and the things they went through not only is it interviewing but is in fact oral history. These three methods are extremely beneficial to my research.

The novel that I am working on centers on two African-American high school aged brothers, one seventeen and the other fifteen. The seventeen year old is battling and trying to come to terms with his sexuality. The fifteen year old is dealing with becoming a parent at such a young age. The novel follows them as they go through their trials and tribulations in their own personal lives while also trying to be there for one another. I would like for this research process to help me discover even more than I already know about young African-American teenagers and the settings in which they grow up in. In addition to this I also want to discover more about people who have dealt and battled with their sexuality and teenage parents. I am writing this novel because I love to write but also because one of the characters is based off of me. The character battling with his sexuality is indeed modeled after me. I wanted to take some things about myself and create a character. I also wanted to create a controversial piece of work that caught people’s attention.

For ethnography this method involves me looking at a group of people as a whole. I would be looking at how they interact with one another, the different actions they partake in and intently watching basically everything that they do. Ethnography gives me the opportunity to sit back, look at people and take in everything. I’d be able to take their mannerisms and base characters off of them, to make them as realistic as possible. When you are using ethnography there is so much to pay attention to for your research. You have to pay close attention to how they talk, if how they talk changes when talking to different people, their body language, the fashion in which they dress amongst other things. For my ethnographic research I would not want the people that I’m watching them to know that I’m doing so. I say this because if someone knows that you are watching them they will not fully be themselves. I would go to a location where I know that my target audience that I wanted to focus on would be and conduct research undetected.

Interviewing and Oral History go hand in hand as far as my research topic goes. I chose interviewing because in addition to getting the general sense of a specific people as I would with ethnography, interviewing would allow me to go a little deeper. Using the novel that I am working on as an example, I would interview someone who has had troubles dealing their sexuality and someone who has experienced being a teenage parent. This would give even more insight on what it is like, rather than solely depending on statistics. I would also want to interview people from the particular city that I chose to focus on. With that interview I would ask the following; How do people in the community act? If there is, how much violence is there in the community? Which age groups are the main ones involved in the violence? Do different levels of education factor as to whom in the community does what? What are the family dynamics like? What kind of people look up to others in the community? (ex: Do young boys without a father look up to the “dope boys” or drug dealers in the community?) How is it living in this city?. I feel that by asking these questions I would gain a better understanding of the city itself. It would allow me to create a realistic setting for my novel.

Interviewing and Oral History would also be used with members of the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender) community and teenage parents. By interviewing these people and them telling me about their history dealing with these problems it would help me a lot. It would allow me to not only have realistic characters but also their story lines and situations would be realistic as well. Any reader that fits the mold of this would be able to recognize with it and be interested in the story even more. I would want the person that I am interviewing to be completely comfortable with me and asking them questions. Some questions I would ask them would be, How did going through this change your life? What kind of, if any traumatic experiences do you go through? How did people react to your coming out or being a teen parent? These questions would help me get a better understanding of all that they went through in addition to me giving my own experiences.

Now even though I would want this research to go smoothly, there may be some problems I run into. With using ethnography people may not want you to watch them. They may seem uncomfortable with it and when this happens a person cannot do much but deal with that and try to find another group of people to watch. There could also be problems with Interviewing and Oral History because people may not be upfront and feel comfortable with you to discuss their lives. They may not want to share such personal information. Even in this situation one would not be able do much, unless they have other people that would be comfortable with telling their stories.

Overall this Research Project benefits me greatly. It allows me to develop better and more complex ideas, characters, settings etc. Being an author there is a lot of research that comes with creating a novel. One has to be extremely dedicated to the research and also putting it together for the work. In addition to making me a stronger writer it also makes me a stronger research.