Some operational tips for running large survey: dates and return by dates
Think about your target population and what dates or events might influence response rates. For example, don’t have a return date for a business survey aro...
Posts by Year
2024
Tips for finding a mentor in the civil service
Finding a mentor in the civil service can be a great development experience and a boost to your career. Here’s a few things to consider when trying to find...
Different names for social and economics surveys
You work in surveys long enough and you notice people use different terms when talking about surveys. Sometimes it’s due to popularity, sometimes due to ho...
A quick comparison of social and economic surveys in the UK
Having worked on both social and economic surveys in the UK I’ve been musing about the differences between the two for a while now. I am to write some more...
What is a response rate in surveys? Why do we use it as a proxy for data quality?
A response rate in surveys is the percentage of people or businesses (referred to as “respondents” usually) who complete a survey questionnaire divided by ...
What project management qualifications should you get in the Civil Service?
Broadly speaking there’s two big project management (PM) qualifications you’ll come across in the Civil Service. Warning: it’s a bit of an acronym word sal...
Renaming your survey to increase response rates
Statisticians aren’t really known for giving snappy names to things. Often surveys are named to be very precise, or what it says on the tin to what a stati...
Updating the website and using VSCode
It’s nearly exactly 4 years since I made this website, and since then I’ve both have a fulfilling and fun career at the Office for National Statistics (ONS...
New journal article: Remember the Human: A Systematic Review of Ethical Considerations in Reddit Research
A new journal article on research ethics and ethical recommendations to consider when conducting research on Reddit has come out. This builds on an earlier...
New journal article: Reporting during the COVID-19 eras: Media attention and news framing through a large-scale computational analysis
New year, new article off the press! Abstract The present study examined framing that emerged in global newspaper coverage of the COVID-19 vaccine throug...
2023
New journal article: Trends and challenges within Reddit and health communication research: A systematic review
Working with colleagues at the University of Alabama, here’s a systematic review article which covers a niche look at Reddit, but from the perspective of t...
2021
New conference paper: Addressing ethics in reddit research: A systematic review
In September my conference paper on how Reddit research discussed ethics was presented at the Association of Internet Researcher’s (AoIR) annual conference...
New publication: Studying Reddit: A systematic overview of disciplines, appoaches, methods, and ethics
Reddit. Reddit. Who are studying it, how do they do it, and what are they studying? Nicholas Proferes, myself, Sarah Gilbert, Casey Fiesler, and Michael Z...
My feelings of loneliness are terrible: The impact of Coronavirus on women in Wolverhampton
Women of Wolverhampton, a local community group, asked me to help investigate the impact of the pandemic on women, mainly from ethnic minority disadvantaged...
New Year: New job as a data analyst
In January 2021 I’m happy to say I started a new job as a data analyst for the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS). The ONS is the UK’s largest indep...
2020
Officially joining the University of Alabama’s Alabama Reddit Research Group
In November 2020 last year I officially joined the Alabama Reddit Research Group (ARRG) headed by Dr Elliot Panek. The Alabama Reddit Research Group (ARRG)...
New project: A meta-analysis of health studies on Reddit
In October 2020 I started researching and collaborating on a meta-analysis of Reddit health studies. There are many health studies which have used Reddit ...
In 500 words: Google’s Fundamentals of Digital Marketing course review
In summer 2020 I took advantage of Google’s free course on the Fundamentals of Digital Marketing as a way of up skilling myself. A free certificate at the ...
What is the imapact of music for offender rehabilitation and wellbeing?
What Works Centre for Wellbeing The What Works Centre for Wellbeing is an independent research centre that develops and shares robust, accessible and usef...
What are the health and wellbeing benefits of music for elderly people?
What Works Centre for Wellbeing The What Works Centre for Wellbeing is an independent research centre that develops and shares robust, accessible and usef...
The difference between Netnography and virtual ethnography
Recently another researcher contacted me after reading an old article of mine comparing virtual ethnography, Netnography, & digital sociology from the ...
Sentiment and topic modelling of clothing fashion brands on Reddit
Aim What brands are the most popular across Reddit? How does popularity change over time? Is there a gender divide? What brands are talked about positivel...
Drum and Brass research projects
Drum and Brass is a Leicester based community group that brings individual and communities together by developing skills and wellbeing through group music-...
New project: A systematic literature review of Reddit and ethics research
In August 2020 I joined a new research project with several American academics involving the social media website Reddit. We are aiming for at least 3-4 pa...
People keep misreporting about productivity and casual dress codes
Like a lot of people in the current working from home purgatory I’ve been wearing casual clothes a lot. Add to that I spent an unhealthy amount of time on ...
Optimising images for your website with Python
In the process of making a new personal website I downloaded all my Medium posts with medium-2-md. After I was all done porting posts across I plugged my we...
An update on Reddit research and going forward
Over the past several months I’ve paused on writing about Reddit because of personal and professional reasons. This is an update on that, next steps and ov...
How I built this website
I had no previous experience with making websites at all. The most I have done was use Medium.com which involved typing blog posts out in an editor and the...
2019
Key points when using Reddit as a source of data
A list of academic journal articles and resources you should really be citing. Yes, this is for you, random Google searcher. People use data from Reddit a...
A 7-step guide for effective survey recruitment on Reddit
Making surveys can be deceptively easy. Platforms like Google Forms, Surveymonkey and university bought services like, Qualtrics makes surveys cheap, quic...
What type of questions do people ask British politicians in online Q&As? A thematic analysis of MP’s “Ask Me Anything” sessions on Reddit
This blogpost is the first in a two-part series which outlines the result of a study on MP’s social media Q&As sessions. This first post details the them...
Politicians dodging questions? An equivocative analysis of British MPs ‘Ask Me Anything’ sessions on Reddit
This blogpost is the second in a two-part series which outlines the result of my dissertation on MP’s online Q&As sessions on social media. The first det...
Research frameworks: comparing Virtual Ethnography, Netnography, & Digital Sociology
Doing research online is paradoxically both easy and hard. The amount of readily available information which can be collected is staggering. From mundane c...
Why do politicians seem to care about fishing so much?
Credit: Two British fishing trawlers. Source: The Times. Even since the run up to the 2016 EU Referendum and ever since politicians, pundits an...
Evidence-based policymaking: How to actually get policymakers to listen
Evidence-based policymaking (commonly abbreviated as EBPM) has been a concept and buzzword across the policy communities for a while now. It refers to the ...
A systematized literature review of Reddit
A couple months back I conducted a sytematized literature review of research on Reddit. The results? I identified 211 academic works on Reddit between 201...
Online political campaigning and biscuits: The case of Mumsnet
Founded in 2000 by Justine Roberts, Mumsnet has become part of the British social landscape. The anonymous forum aims to make parents’ lives easier by pool...
Reddit and academic research
Reddit: The front page of the internet Reddit is a popular social media website founded in 2005. It’s both a discussion and aggregator platform. The websi...