Help me with my research paper!

[CMOTDibbler]

Hello, everyone! So, for my college final, I'm looking at the differences between novels; actually printed books, and fanfiction, or all-online works, as well as people's opinions on the subject. If you could take a few minutes to take my survey, I would be very grateful.

The survey is right here (http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HJ8J9YY), as well as in my signature.

[Don Julio Anejo]

Done in a bout of procrastinating writing my own final paper.

[The Second]

I have to remember how many novels I've read in the last thirty years? Good grief... can you count the grains of sand on the beach? The stars in the sky, the fish in the sea...?

And I suspect I've read far more fan fiction than I've read novels.

And if we add graphic novels into the mix, we get an even greater number; and then fan doujinshi...

Short answer: I've read a lot. As for the rest, I won't skew the results with my opinions. :P

[Talanic]

The survey frustrated me - due to vagueness in the questioning, it took three questions to reach an answer that has to be explained via essay.

Fanfiction better than novels? Do I only count published novels or are ones I read that were submitted to a contest count? I've read some darn fine fanfiction, and some really awful novels, but usually I prefer novels, but such a sweeping generalization as "novels are better" is unfair.

Are we counting self-published novels? If so, then the differences kinda just became moot. While I've encountered, again, some really good self-published books, there's some that are soul-wrenchingly bad. I can't remember the title of one that I tried to critique but couldn't come to a recommendation better than "Burn it, become a better person, and try again. Reincarnation may be your only option for success on this world." (Mostly due to the racism.) (Mostly.)

[Mikhailangelo]

Are we counting self-published novels? If so, then the differences kinda just became moot. While I've encountered, again, some really good self-published books, there's some that are soul-wrenchingly bad. I can't remember the title of one that I tried to critique but couldn't come to a recommendation better than "Burn it, become a better person, and try again. Reincarnation may be your only option for success on this world." (Mostly due to the racism.) (Mostly.)

Oh god, you're talking about Save the Pearls, aren't you?

[Talanic]

No, it's not that one, although my response to the description of "Save the Pearls" is "SERIOUSLY!?". This one was far more bold in its racism, and made no bones about its 'oppressed, superior white man must triumph over savages in post apocalyptic world, preferably by killing them all'.

[Mikhailangelo]

Ah, I think I know the one you mean. My flatmate mentioned it to me as 'Something that is even worse than 'Save Whitey.'
Thankfully, I don't remember what it's called either.

[Castaras]

"How many novels have you read?"

:smalleek: I HAVE NO IDEA. I put 100+ but I can't put a figure on it. Same with fan fiction (though that's definitely less than novels).

Wasn't that happy with the sweeping generalisation either near the end with the questions - novels can be awful (eragon is the one that comes to mind - Would say Fifty Shades but that was originally a twilight fan fic, and I have a vague feeling Twilight was a fan fic for something else before publishing) but so can fan-fiction.

[HeadlessMermaid]

Your answers will help me gather accurate information for my research paper
No they won't.
They wouldn't even if the questions were specific. Imagine now.

(Sorry for not being helpful, but really, this survey won't help you either. Like, at all. Focus somewhere.)

[GolemsVoice]

The question: "In your opinion, are novels written better than fanfiction, or vice versa?" makes no sense if the answers presented are yes and no. If I click yes, do I mean yes, novels are better written than fan fiction, or yes, vice versa?

[razark]

The question: "In your opinion, are novels written better than fanfiction, or vice versa?" makes no sense if the answers presented are yes and no. If I click yes, do I mean yes, novels are better written than fan fiction, or yes, vice versa?
Question 7 means exactly what it asks. Is one better than the other? The next question clarifies:
8. If you answered yes to the above question, which is written better?
Fan fiction
Novels

[GnomeFighter]

I have to agree with the others. The survey is badly written and vague. I suggest trying again as I don;t think you are going to get much of any use out of this.

[GolemsVoice]

Question 7 means exactly what it asks. Is one better than the other? The next question clarifies:
8. If you answered yes to the above question, which is written better?
Fan fiction
Novels

And if I answer No, I'd ALSO have to answer the question. Why not simply ask: Which one is better written, Novels or Fan Fiction?

[Anxe]

Unless you make generalizations about what people say, this survey will just be a bunch of anecdotes. It needs numbers and "everything someone has read in their life" is not a good number. Something that lets us rate quality on a scale would be better.
Fix question 7 and 8. Just turn it into a which is better question on a scale.
Also, don't only post the survey here. Then you're performing a selection bias which will skew the survey.

[noparlpf]

"How many novels have you read?"

:smalleek: I HAVE NO IDEA. I put 100+ but I can't put a figure on it. Same with fan fiction (though that's definitely less than novels).

Wasn't that happy with the sweeping generalisation either near the end with the questions - novels can be awful (eragon is the one that comes to mind - Would say Fifty Shades but that was originally a twilight fan fic, and I have a vague feeling Twilight was a fan fic for something else before publishing) but so can fan-fiction.

I just put 600 because I have no idea and that's a biggish number. When I was a kid I had books instead of friends, and I started reading young. I read "The Hobbit" and "Harry Potter" on my own at five or six, Poe and Shakespeare (among others, of course) at nine, and started Dostoevsky at eleven.

There are loads of differences between published novels, self-published novels, writing-for-fun, fanfiction, and then even differences within those categories.
I'll agree with that judgment of "Eragon". The first one was good enough for a fifteen-year-old's writing, probably only got published due to parents in the business or something (wow, I was spot-on; Wikipedia says his parents self-published it). I'm not sure if his writing got worse by the fourth or if I just got more critical as I learned more about good writing, but it was really kind of bad.
"Twilight" was just an offense to literature and humanity. 'Nuff said.
I've read some peoples' personal writing that was fair, some that was good, some that was bad. I've read excerpts of a couple of well-written fanfictions, and I've read pieces of fanfics that made me want to pour bleach into my eyes--after that I tend to avoid fanfiction because the quality is at best unreliable and at worst just consistently awful.

In general, published novels are better than fanfictions. Generally, they go through some kind of editing and proofreading process, so it's not entirely a one-person effort; there's input from people whose job is to know what makes a good story.

[CurlyKitGirl]

"How many novels have you read?"

:smalleek: I HAVE NO IDEA. I put 100+ but I can't put a figure on it. Same with fan fiction (though that's definitely less than novels).

Hello, my name is Curly, I'm quite happily stereotyped as someone who's read nearly every book in existence.
My first thought to that question was: many thousands? I don't know.
I had to put down 'Over nine thousand'. It is not a joke.


Wasn't that happy with the sweeping generalisation either near the end with the questions - novels can be awful (eragon is the one that comes to mind - Would say Fifty Shades but that was originally a twilight fan fic, and I have a vague feeling Twilight was a fan fic for something else before publishing) but so can fan-fiction.

I agree.
Have you read fanfic? Sure. Do I think it's better than some published works of fiction? Absolutely.
Have I read published fiction? Sure, who hasn't? Do I think it's better than some fanfic/works published online? Absolutely.

Moreover: "online literature" - as a uni student studying English I spent many hours a week reading through JSTOR articles and similar online sites. It's academic literature. Online.
Literature, to give a dictionary definition is 'written works; espec. of superior or lasting artistic merit'; 'books and writings on a particular subject'.
I can legitimately write a sentence like: "The literature of FFVII's Cloud/Sephiroth pairing is one that is varied and causes great controversy", and aside from its vagueness, could easily be used to start off an essay.
Note: I seriously only chose that because Little Sister was reading a fanfic with that pairing the other day. I know next to nothing about the Final Fantasy series as a whole.

Along those lines, note that I changed 'novels' to 'published works of fiction' pretty quickly. Because 'novel' implies fiction, as does 'fanfic'; however, 'online literature' is any form of writing online: creepypasta, RPF, fanfic, webcomics (and webcomics are online works of fictions - albeit present through a comic/graphic novel format as opposed to plain words), research/academic articles (many of which can be found in paper and cyber formats, but not always), blogs, FAQs/Q&As, technical writings, reviewer sites, miscellanea . . .

TLDR; these questions are far too vague, and I can pretty much promise that (unless a person is rabidly anti-fanfic) the response will usually be 'well, some fanfic is better than some novels I've read that actually got published, so it's a bit of everything'.

Also, I would suggest severely tightening up the wording of your questions in general. Primarily, I would suggest making it clear this is about works of fiction, and clear up your wording to that effect.
It's just too imprecise to get anything other than general anecdotes.

"On one site to which I posted this survey (a website catering more to the 'traditional geeky' people), those who responded were genre savvy and more concerned with telling me how my questions weren't very precise if I was aiming to get substantial quantitative data instead of anecdotal generalities.
"This critiquing of my survey also lead to suggestions on how not to skew the research, suggestions on how to improve the questionnaire, and the general opinion that while the topic was a good one it needed more improvement, and that I should re-do it, and come back later. Although it was very good for a first try. This left me feeling rather like a child handing in his/her first ever draft essay. Rather disconcerting.
"Overall the responses from this particular test pool were: some fiction is better than others, it doesn't matter how it's published or where it's found."
:smalltongue:

[scurv]

I am very much on a case by case basis when it comes to creative works. I have read some free stuff on the internet that is far better in both content and construction. Then many novels I have read

Although For the past two years I have been doing allot of audio books at work.

[nedz]

Well I did your survey, but I'm not sure my answers will tell you anything.

I also put over 9000 for how many novels I've read, and that was before I read CurlyKitGirl's post :smallamused: I suspect that you may get a lot like that, it's not like people keep a check list. It is good to try and quantify results, but the data has to be quantifiable for this to be useful. What about the hundreds of Novels I've started but then got bored of after 20 pages ?

[CMOTDibbler]

Ok, so yes, I realize this survey is pretty vague. I actually do plan on researching this further, as it actually interests me, but this survey was kind of thrown together to give me something to reference in my paper. Sorry about the difficultly. :smallbiggrin: I will make a better one, I swear.

EDIT: Also, thanks, everyone for taking, and critiquing my survey. Seriously. :smallredface: