I sent my survey to my extended project teacher for him to circulate to the students at my college. This was successful as we had recently received our AS-Level results and were needing to check our emails regarding information about guidance days. Very quickly I received a large number of responses, amounting to 100 responses within a few hours. So I subsequently wrote about my findings in my dissertation. This was successful as the results supported what I predicted: that people would be very prepared to reduce their intake of meat if it were to benefit the environment and that the majority of people are unaware of the damaging impacts of meat production on the environment. My next step will be to ask a family member to read through my dissertation to ensure that it reads well.

EP Survey

Walker, Dave (Hills Road Staff)

Tue 26/08/2014 12:07
Hi all,

EP Survey from Eve Smyth below. If you had chance to complete that would be great.

Mr Walker

Walker, Dave (Hills Road Staff)

Tue 26/08/2014 12:04

To:

Smyth, Eve;

Hi Eve,

No problem.

Dave

Smyth, Eve

Tue 26/08/2014 10:41
Hi Mr Walker,

Would it be possible for you to circulate my EP survey about vegetarianism and the environment to college students?

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CFJ5PWR​

Thank you,

Eve Smyth

I had several resources including journals, articles and newspapers that I had used during my dissertation so I began to produce my bibliography. To do this, I had to use the Harvard referencing system. This is a referencing format that I had never used before so by using it I learnt a new skill. Initially I was unsure as to how referencing websites worked as it doesn't always say who wrote it. This problem was soon overcome as I realised that Harvard referencing can be done in several different ways. One way in which I can reference my sources is to allocate each resource a number and write the corresponding number for the resource throughout my dissertation, whenever it is mentioned. This was successful as the simplicity of the referencing system made is easy to follow. Next I will send my survey to my extended project teacher to be circulated to the students at my sixth form.

A few additional sources were added to my bibliography. I was planning on emailing the Vegetarian Society- a registered educational charity that provides support to people trying to maintain a vegetarian lifestyle- and hold a interview conversation, forming another piece of primary research. I decided against this as I thought their views would be biased as they are trying to promote a vegetarian diet. The information I would gain from doing so is not vital to my dissertation and would not be necessary. Using the resources regarding the impacts on the environment such as Stanford Institute for the Environment and the Article by Timothy B. Rutherford titled 'Local Environmental Reasoning for a Vegetarian Lifestyle' which mentions the issues of deforestation, land degradation and loss of wildlife, I wrote approximately 400 more words of my dissertation. To keep within the word limit of 5000 words, I had to keep some words aside for me to comment on my findings from my survey once I have received an adequate number of responses. Next time I hope to complete my dissertation.

Today I created a survey using survey monkey. This is another website that I had never used before, meaning that by using this form of I.T. I was developing a new skill. When writing the survey I had to be aware of whether I was being biased or not, which developed my survey writing skills. I will send this to my EP teacher at a later date when students are more likely to be checking their emails. The limitation of doing this is that the only people answering my survey will be people of my own age and thus the responses may be slightly biased. Consequently I decided to contact some family members and friends to take the survey. This was successful as it was not biased as not all of my family and their friends are vegetarian and it allowed me to receive the responses of older and younger people. I also had to make sure that I had an adequate number of tick box options for each question that covered every possible answer and that my survey did not have too many questions that would put people off answering my survey. The survey is a form of primary research and will allow me to specifically address issues that are raised in my dissertation. I will subsequently write my findings from the survey once I have received an adequate number of responses.