Blog Post #1

Road to Research

Primarily, I wanted to research the topic of skateboarding and its prominence in a modern context. However, I researched this to an extent last year in AP Seminar, so I decided against the idea after some thought. I knew that I wanted to research something prevalent not only in my life but also in the lives of people around me. I have some previous experience from AP Research last year, and one of my projects focused on feminism and women in sports, and that topic really sparked my interest.

From this point, I knew I would analyze something from a feminist perspective, and I decided that I wanted to do a literature-based project instead of a math or science one. I tend to prefer these literary types of research as opposed to actually doing an experiment or something of the sort. From here, however, I was stuck. I kept asking myself which literature would be important to analyze from a feminist lens, and I eventually came across the romance section of Barnes and Noble when I was purchasing books for a different class. It was here that I decided I would analyze romance novels through a feminist lens.

Now that I had decided on my category and lens, I needed to get more specific. I couldn't analyze all romance and all topics of the genre, so I decided to generalize. I would choose the most popular books from the most prominent romance authors in the last 30 years for relevancy. This proved to be more difficult than I imagined, as the sheer number of authors was overwhelming. Eventually, during my research, I kept coming across one name - Nora Roberts. Roberts had written hundreds of romance novels in her career, and multiple of them had been made into feature films. More research ensued, and eventually, I decided that Nora Roberts would be significant enough for me to do research on her work, as her impact on the romance community is substantial.

I needed another significant author to compare Roberts to, someone with equal prominence in the romance community. I had heard of The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks, an incredibly popular romance novel, and I decided from here that Sparks would be worth diving deeper into. His works have a similar prominence to Roberts', and multiple of his novels had been turned into feature films. It was upon this basis that I decided one factor of an author's prominence was in the number of their books that had been made into movies, and for both Sparks and Roberts, multiple of their novels had all been made into movies. This not only establishes their prominence as a writer but also proves that their work is valuable enough to others to make into a movie.

At this point, I had both authors that I would compare chosen, as well as the lens I would look at the novels through. I ended up choosing three romance novels from each author to compare, learning of each novel's prominence through additional research and how prominent each of their movies was. From here, I had my novels chosen - from Nora Roberts, Montana Sky, Carolina Moon, and Sanctuary. The same reasoning was used to choose books from Nicholas Sparks as well, and I ended up choosing The Notebook, Dear John, and The Return.

Methodology

Now that I had my novels and lens chosen, I needed a way to analyze the works of the authors.

In many reviews of literature, I came across the use of specific words or phrases used in context, and then comparing them to each other. This method allows for a brief overview of a section of a book or a writing style, allowing for an easy comparison between two texts. However, my data would best be displayed as a quantitative variable so that I can include visuals such as graphs and charts in my final paper. To effectively compare the texts, I will begin by finding significant relationship-esque excerpts, and recording them with a color-coded sticky note. After I have gone through each text, I will put each excerpt onto a Google doc and rank it 1-5 on its significance as a relationship portrayal. I discovered a relationship ranking system by relationship blogger Kyle Benson and applied it to my work, drawing from several other sources of relationship-based words, and finally coming upon an effective way to categorize an excerpt for comparison. They are as follows:

Extreme A - sick, secret, consequences, now, extremities, lust
Healthy - open, trusting, communication, lighthearted, mature
Neutral - boring, accepting, unsatisfied, not negative, lack of connection
Unhealthy - critical, defensive, uncommunicative, angry, untrust
Extreme B - hypercritical, invasion, physical violence, controlling, dismissive

With these categories, I will then assign each chapter in the novel a score based on the excerpts contained therein, and graph it as a ling graph. Thism when compared with other novels, will show the progression of the relationship through the story and how it is portrayed. This will then allow it to be known how and where authors are displaying relationships throughout the progression of each novel. I will then go through each extreme and situate it into a larger context, noting its effect on readers in the long-term.

Blog Post #2

Context & Gap

In the current scholarly conversation, there have been many academic studies done on romance novels, however specific authors (i.e. Nicholas Sparks and Nora Roberts) have rarely been studied. I will be joining the conversation that analyzes how authors are developing characters in their books, and the possible broader implications that these descriptions can have on a broader audience. Works of these authors have been integrated into various research papers, however their works have not been directly compared. This is where the gap lies, in that hyper-specific research has been done, however there has not been a comparison of two of romance's best-selling authors in order to draw conclusions about its state. My research enters the academic conversation by providing context and background to Sparks' and Roberts' best works, taking an approach that is more general than other specific studies. My study directly outlines events from romantic relationships within the books, and categorizes them into levels of severity in order to gain an overview of how each author is constructing the main relationships in their novels.

Process

In order to successfully join the conversation and present my work as relevant, I will analyze the main romantic relationships in each of these novels on a color-coded severity spectrum of my own making, as listed above. Once I have obtained the data on these books, I will construct five charts, one for each color on the spectrum, each with two sections for each author. This way, I will be able to determine the severity of relationships in each author's work and how they tend to differ. With this data, I will then analyze the potential explanations for why each author writes the way they do, and if there are any potential motives behind their writing style. I will make the sheet available to those whom have questions about each event, or how I coded specific events, however the sheet will not be used in the final paper, only the graphs that summarize it.

Progress

So far, I only have half of one book left to read, and I have collected my data for each of the five other books. It has gone well so far, however I wish I had given myself more time for data collection and not procrastinated it until it was absolutely necessary. My next step will be to finish my novel and begin making my data sheet for each book. I believe this will be a relatively short task, however I need to make sure I do it accurately. I have not needed to make any changes to my plan thus far, as most of my time has been spent in data collection. However, this being said, I need to alter my time allocation for the class of AP Research in general, and begin devoting more time to it than I have. With this change in mind, I will be able to complete my research accurately and timely, as I would like to give myself a deadline of one week in advance to complete my research.

A picture of my process, note the five color-coded sticky notes and pen to circle the event within the page!

What Next...?

This was one large step towards my final goal, and my data collection will be incredibly valuable to me. Next, I will analyze the data in order to either prove or refute my hypothesis, adding yet another crucial piece to my academic paper.

Blog Post #3

Results

Nicholas Sparks

Nora Roberts

Discussion

As my data came to an end, I began to analyze what I gathered, categorizing my results into two result groups - book average and writing average. Each of these allowed me to get a general idea of how each author writes, and also how they write compared to each other. For Nicholas Sparks, the majority of his writing tended to prefer the healthy relationship attitudes, with 76.8% of his relationship events falling into this category. These tended to be written about ignorance, uncommnunicativeness, and limiting relationship freedom. Additionally, Sparks tended to prefer the Extreme 1 category, with more lustful and overly-romantic relationships as opposed to Extreme 2's aggressive and abusive. These Extreme 1 category events tended to include sexualizing mental health issues, controlling behavior, and objectification. Nora Roberts, on the other hand, strongly wrote her relationships as unhealthy, with 37% of her relationships described as this category. Roberts tended to prefer writing verbal aggression, objectification, and ignorance for the unhealthy category. For her Extreme 2 category, which she preferred to write more than Extreme 1, she wrote her relationships as both physically and emotionally abusive, objectification, and controlling/possessive.

Conclusion

Simply put, by comparing the authors' writing averages, we can see that Nicholas Sparks tended to prefer writing his relationships in the Healthy category, while Nora Roberts preferred the Unhealthy category. Sparks additionally leaned towards the more romantic and overly-romantic aspects, while Roberts leans the opposite direction. My original hypothesis estimated that Sparks’ work would emerge overall more healthy than Roberts’, due to his self-proclaimed respectful writing style (reference), and as per the results of the data, my hypothesis has been accepted. By comparison, Nicholas Sparks is writing his main romantic relationships in each of his novels more positively than Nora Roberts.

Limitations and Reflection

As is the case with many studies, my study has a few significant limitations that are worth noting in the context of the study: time and coding bias.

The romance genre is a vast and expansive category, as is any major sect of book, and my study has been limited by the lack of time I had to carry it out. The study’s accuracy could have been further improved with the inclusion of either:

a.) additional books

b.) additional authors

Because of my time constraints, I was only able to read, code, and analyze three books from each author. I spent two weeks on each book, the majority of which was spent reading and coding the book. Each book varied in length, but the average of all the book lengths was roughly 383.6 pages. Realistically, if I had more time, I would have read an additional book from each author, but in the interest of time, I decided against it, and instead chose to take more time and code fewer books more thoroughly as opposed to more books less thoroughly.

While my research question only includes Nicholas Sparks and Nora Roberts, I could have also included other authors as well, which would have allowed me to more accurately determine the state of popular romance as a whole. However, because of my time constraints, I believe my analysis of two authors was the greatest number of authors I could have accurately analyzed within my time period, remaining thorough with my analysis as well as maintaining as large a population as possible.

Additionally, coding bias may have played a part in the accuracy of my research. While I attempted to maintain as unbiased as possible when coding authors’ writing, I acknowledge the fact that my subconscious may have played a role in determining some events. Taking into account my initial hypothesis of Nicholas Sparks writing in a more healthy way, it is possible that I may have miscoded some events to fit my subconscious bias. Despite my subconscious, I attempted to remain as unbiased as possible during my coding process.

Blog Post #4

Reflection

Content

Throughout the course of my research, I have learned about the many varieties of writing styles and directions authors can take their works. For example, although Nora Roberts is an incredibly prominent author, her works vary dramatically in writing style as opposed to Nicholas Sparks. Additionally, I gained the ability to critically analyze authors' works as unbiased as possible, thus adding to my skills for future research. In the future, researchers could analyze the differences in writing styles per author by chapter, instead of a whole analysis on the books themselves. For example, a chart could be constructed outlining the presence and qualities of relationships on a per-chapter basis, possibly gaining insight into patterns or trends that authors use to characterize and develop relationships in their works. Specifically with the spectrum I created for analyzing relationships, future researchers could use this to effectively analyze other romantic relationships in media, further adding to the scholarly conversation surrounding romantic relationships.

Product

From the paper, I learned how to be consistent and timely with my writing process. For example, as I decided what my project was going to be about, I was able to push myself hard enough to a point where I would be able to begin my research paper on time. I also learned how to be decisive, as I had many project ideas that I wanted to do, but could only choose one. Had I spent much longer deciding, I likely would have not been able to finish on time or as well. From the presentation, I learned how to construct an informative and interesting presentation, as well as being able to improve my public speaking skills. I learned the power of a well-placed statistic, as well as the effectiveness of slow, clear speech. Overall, both the paper and presentation helped me to become an effective researcher, and then how to present my research in a way that displayed my hard work.

Process

During the process, I learned that I procrastinate very easily, and end up letting the pressure of the deadline work me extremely hard for a few nights, as opposed to slowly composing research in a non-stressful manner for a long period of time. While both of these are effective methods, I would like to become a researcher where I can pace myself in order to avoid stress and imbalance of workflow. As I continue forward, I would like to remember this project as an essential piece in getting me to where I want to be as a student researcher. In college, I will be pursuing dentistry, and will likely have to write many papers on various subjects in the field. As a reflect on this class, the process has taught me how to effectively pace myself, but also to learn from my mistakes so I can be a more effective researcher this upcoming fall at the University of Utah.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Mrs. Dobos for guiding me through the research process and assisting me in my journey towards a definitive goal. Her pacing for not just me, but for all of the students was flawless, and her kindness changed my perspective on the purpose for my research. Additionally, I would like to thank Mr. McBride for helping me through the second half of my paper, as well as encouraging me and giving me suggestions on how to improve my process. I would also like to thank the friends at my table group for editing and reviewing my paper, going over the imperfections in my research and helping me refine it to perfection.

Abstract

The romance genre has evolved from a more explicit writing to a period of second-wave feminism, where instead of being focused on intimacy and lust, romance novels began to shift towards themes of empowerment and self-sufficiency, contrary to popular predating media. With the rise of e-reading and the internet, the genre has accumulated many sources of work, such as shorter stories, longer novels, and online mini-novels, all due to the immense popularity of the internet and rises in user-generated short stories and easy access to online romance communities, extending the scope of the romance category as a whole. With this in mind, a research question is developed - how do romantic relationships differ along the relationship spectrum within the bestselling novels of Nora Roberts and Nicholas Sparks? This study situates the results of the study on a per-author basis, analyzing the tendencies of each and their respective books, and will then move into a general comparison, comparing Sparks and Roberts' writing style as an entire in order to determine how the literary differences of each author differed, situated in a broader context. This study provides evidence for the fact that although works of authors are popular, this does not necessarily indicate that they contain positive values, and that relationships in these novels can vary greatly outside of traditional "good" and "bad" relationships, concluding a significant difference in the ways Nicholas Sparks and Nora Roberts portray relationships in their novels.

Final Paper + Presentation

This fall, I will be studying dentistry at the University of Utah. Although it feels far away, I know it will come up fast, and I am very excited to continue my academic journey there. This summer, I hope to road trip by myself, to go camping, and find more inner peace before the chaos of a public university consumes my every thought. This has been a wonderful class, and I can't wait to experience its positive effects on my academic career in college.

Sincerely,

Sam Record

Class of 2023