Participation in a Research Study on the Fantasy Genre

Hi, my name is Angela R Cox, and I am a Ph.D. candidate in the English Department at the University of Arkansas. I have been a fantasy fan for most of my life, and have been writing fantasy novels since I was in 6th grade. As a scholar, I’m interested in the intersections of popular culture and academic work. My dissertation project concerns genre and authority in fantasy, and requires that I collect discourse samples in the form of discussions about the fantasy genre.
With the permission of Black Dragon and the other administrators, I will be archiving and analyzing discussions from the public areas of the Mythic Scribes forum from now until May 2015. All information recorded will have personally identifying features, such as personal photographs or real names, removed or modified to protect your privacy. Anything that is considered private in this forum, including excerpts of members' writing, will be omitted from the study. The research protocol requires that I refrain from interaction in the routine discussions here at Mythic Scribes until the study is completed, but when the research is done I hope to engage in the community fully as yet another fantasy enthusiast.
If you would like more information regarding the study, or would like to have your participation in this community be removed from collected materials in the study, please contact me by private message or by email at [email protected], or contact my dissertation advisor Dr. David Jolliffe by email at [email protected] or telephone at (479) 515-4301. For questions or concerns about your rights as a research participant, please contact Ro Windwalker, the University of Arkansas’s IRB Coordinator, at (479) 575-2208 or by email at [email protected].

 

It took a wee bit longer than expected, but I'm happy to say that the study is closed and I'm sifting through the data I collected from you (us, now!) and writing chapters.

A few initial notes on the research:
1) You guys are awesome!
2) Between Mythic Scribes and one other community, I reviewed over 2200 pieces of data, and have recorded and scrubbed over 1500 of those. Mythic Scribes accounts for the majority of the data, actually, and is definitely the more useful data (in that it gives me both writers' and fans' perspectives).
3) The goal is to finish writing by May, or at the very latest a defense in fall 2016.
4) From reading your threads and other research, I have arrived at a new, descriptivist definition of genre: Genre is a mutable, transmedial, associative, and recognized system.

Anyway, thank you ALL for letting me creep for a year or so to get this data, and I'm so excited to finally get to join in the fray here! Every time I dove into data collection, I found something wonderful; even on the worst days of working, you gave me something to smile about. You are a great group of people in so many ways, and I'm glad I'm getting to study how your community works and understands fantasy.

And now I'm off to introduce myself properly in the proper place and be a normal person again!

 

Well, there's always a possibility for a follow-up, Banten. After all, once I get a Real Job (tm) I'll be expected to keep producing research. But yes, the study is complete and I've posted some findings elsewhere on these forums. And if I can get back in the groove of writing fiction after hiding under that dissertation rock for two years, I'll be around here a lot more.

Edit: The dissertation is complete and available on ProQuest. Unfortunately, that means it's behind a paywall, but if anyone wants a copy, I'd be happy to send the PDF. The title is The Power Fantastic.