Sunday, January 07, 2007

Are guitars still happening? An example of an SSSMP


An example of the Social Studies Scientific Method Paper:

* Question - Guitars and the current generation: are guitar sales up or down or at a plateau?

* My hypothesis is that sales of guitars will be a strong. My hypothesis is based on several musical factors:
- the popularity of the New Folk / guitar rock by singers like Jack Johnson, G Love, John Mayer, etc,
- the enduring popularity of metal.
- oldies rock is guitar-oriented and remains influential.
- the use of guitar in hip-hop, as well.
- there's also the fact that outsourcing guitar manufacturing has put cheaper guitars on the market, perhaps enhancing sales.

* Gathering evidence:
- Literature research: inquire online and in library for the industry sales figures. Offer a graph of guitar sales over 5 years.
- Interview 2 local sales-oriented people. Don Teach, owner of Spt Music, for example. Guitar teacher Danny Wilder will also present credible responses.
- Interview an older teen about trends they see among their peers.
- Post an inquiry on a guitar-centered forum. Quote the responses you see.

* Offering a conclusion:
- Sometimes the statistics are difficult. Stats and interviews do not always match. Your job is to interpret your findings and come to a reasonably clear answer.
* Evaluation of your project:
- What part(s) did I do well?
- Were there avenues of research that I overlooked in my plan?
- What part of my project lacks full clarity?
- How might this project be improved?

* Bibliography
List all the sources you examined, even if they were not deemed important in the final picture.
- people,
- books & articles,
- online sites.
- This should be quite a list and a challenge to your record-keeping,

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