I need to interview some cave divers!

[JahJahwarrior]

My name is Michael Gibby and I am a student at the University of Central Florida. No, I did not join the board just to make this post, I've been lurking here ever since I was enrolled in an OW class, a friend of a friend reccomended it to me. After a year and a half of diving, I am moving more and more into cave diving, and I'm going to get cavern and intro to cave training (and hopefully certification) this summer. I joined a month or so ago if memory serves correct, after reading posts here for almost two years.

I am in an English Composition II Honors course that has as its focus, "ethnographic research and writing." We are supposed to study a group and write on it from an objective standpoint.

I decided to try and research cave divers. Partly to understand you (soon, I can change that to "us" and I cannot wait for that day!) and partly so I can explain cave diving better to people who don't understand it at all.

I have developed a list of questions I would like answers to...there are a lot of them, the ones I feel are most important I put first, so if you don't want to answer them all, answer the first ones If any of you would like to answer but don't feel like typing, I can do phone interviews.

I will be using answers I get here, a few phone interviews from divers whose numbers I have, and notes from some dives with cave divers (not in caves, notes from the surface ) and from some social events/hanging out in the dive shops, to try and write a rough draft. I can put the paper up here if anyone has any interest in reading it... The second step will involve some historical research into this group...

If you want clarification on any questions, please feel free to ask. I wrote them in a hurry, deadlines snuck up on me...

Responses can be posted here or emailed to me, projektionstudios at yahoo dot com.

Question time!
1. May I use your user name and, if you provide it, your real name in my paper?

2. Why did you become a cave diver/why are you a cave diver?

3. How do you define the “group” of cave divers? (how do you see cave divers as being different from other groups(open water divers, golfers, whatever other groups come to mind)? What makes it a unique group and what makes it appeal to you?)

4. How did you get involved in cave diving?

5. What do you feel is the image of the “average” cave diver?

6a. What is (and, if you'd like to answer it, what should be) the main focus of cave divers?

6b. Are cave divers accomplishing their goals?

7. How often do you participate in cave diving (not necessarily diving, this could include social events or spending the night at the shop mixing your gas)?

8. What do you think the most serious issue facing cave divers today is? What have been the issues in the past? How is the group responding to the current issues, and how has the group responded in the past?

9. How well do you think cave divers have represented themselves to others/How well do you feel most people understand cave divers and cave diving?

10. How does one become a member of the cave diving society? Can you get kicked out, or just shunned? Why do people leave the group of cave divers/ leave cave diving?

11. How do you see leadership forming? (who leads the dives? Who explores the unexplored? Who heads up the regional groups? Who heads up the national groups? The worldwide groups? How do the power structures relate to the divers, and vice versa? It's a very open ended question...)

12. How has being a cave diver affected your life and your pursuits of other activities?

13. What is your biggest pet peeve related to diving? (you can list several if you want)

14. What is one funny story and one scary story you could share?

[battles2a5]

Sent you an email. Please post your paper once it is complete. I am interested to see it.

[JahJahwarrior]

Thank you all for some very quick responses!!

I will post here my paper somehow...because I don't know how long I am able to edit posts, I might put it up on the server space the University gives me, so I can update it as I want to and I don't have to respost it every time. But I'll warn you, I'm a much better speech writer than paper writer, and I have never written an "ethnographic" paper before. The rough draft and the second draft might look nothing alike, as the teacher might point out that I went about it the wrong way entirely. We are going through the material at a fast enough pace that we haven't really gotten to practice writing out anything. It's an odd class, other friends enrolled in the same course, ENC1102H, are studying philosophy or rhetoric....

[JahJahwarrior]

Ok...as you read this, please keep in mind that I've never written a paper like this before. And the teacher didn't really tell us exactly what to do, she just said to write and we'll figure it out. Secondly, I'm a business major, probably economics, not an english major. Moreover, I did not sleep at a Days Inn Express while writing this....

It's a bit of a read... I wouldn't mind any corrections or thoughts you had, this is the "final" draft but it's just a draft--usually she'll let us make corrections and turn them in later. Also, the second part of this paper is research into the history of cave diving, and I can make corrections or changes to the entire project while working on the second half as well.

On second thought, it's 3x too long for one post and I keep misguessing about where to cut it. Let me put it on a webpage and give you a link here....

Also, I am in the process of adding citations...when I get that all done, I'll try to resubmit the paper online. I tried very hard to make sure I always used names and quotation marks so that a reader can see without looking at citations where I got theinformation.

Paper

[BgDadddy]

A very good first draft.

Rick

[battles2a5]

Great start, Michael. I'll be interested to see how this shapes up. Good luck!

[JahJahwarrior]

Thanks to everyone whose commented on the draft so far! Yes, I will correct the spelling errors, and yes, I will correct TDI to International intsead of Institute, thank you to Sludge for pointing that little bungle out to me!

[marinediver]

Only thing that I saw on there is my dogs name is Brutis! Nice paper, looking forward to seeing you soon

Chris-

[JahJahwarrior]

Ooh...sorry about that Chris! I added that bit in when it was pretty late (or early. 2am is early and late at the same time, which is one of the reasons I love it). I'll fix it!!

[OutlawCaver]

You may want to add a short version of the pressure & volume relationship as it pertains to diving physiology. Through in some of the inherent hazards of diving, i.e. inert gas narcosis, barotrauma, hypercapnia, hyperoxia, hypoxia then some of those hazards specific to cave diving, i.e. overhead, silt, darkness, directional disorientation, restrictions, etc.

Good luck.