[email hidden] (BitingHeart) wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...
Quoted message said:Hi people,
I will be making a study on how lemon juice can heal acne. Already,
the informal results are good.
Now, I want to make a formal study on lemon juice for healing acne. In
fact, I've never done anything like this! Does anyone have some
pointers to websites or books that might teach me how to do a good
one?
Mostly my concern is that I want my study to be taken seriously. What
steps do I have to do to make sure my study is taken seriously?
I've never been to university, or seen how they do their studies, by
the way, so I don't know!
Heres what I have already: A question sheet, with questions on each
person. A "report sheet", so each person in my study can report if
they used lemon juice on each day, and how bad do they think their
level of acne is on that day.
Do I need to write my methodology and rational for my study? In what
way should I write it? I'm not sure how I need to write anything like
that.
If anyone wants to email me the answers, can you email me at
[email hidden] ? [email hidden] doesn't accept
any emails, because of the spam blocker.
The first thing to do is to look into the medical literature and see
if you are about to embark on an effort to duplicate studies that have
already been done.
Following that, get in touch with the local university, and ask to
speak with any given departmental secretary. These folks are usually
the ones with the greatest informal knowledge of what is involved,
paperwork-wise, in putting together a study. Departmental secretaries
are the ones researchers turn to when they need a grant proposal typed
up, when they put together a study protocol, when they submit drafts
to journals, etc.
If you are not a professional, you will do yourself a lot of good by
contacting a professional in the field of your interest (in your case,
Dermatology) and seeing if you can team up on this particular question
and combine your efforts. I suspect it would be pretty difficult for
a novice, non-scientist to get all the way from hypothesis to
publication in any acceptable journal.
Best of luck on your efforts. If you want, you can e-mail me
privately.
Mark, MD