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[lordnincompoop]

Hey there!

As it turns out, I need your help with a research project that I'm currently working on. I've written a short informational text/essay on coffee and caffeine, and now I need to distribute it to people to read and react to.

Now, the hitch is that this involves quite a few people, and the amount of people that I can contact in the meatworld has been limited. You guys being an audience I'm already rather familiar with, I've decided to distribute it to you and (hopefully) garner responses; I've made a set of six short questions that can be found below to respond to, and that should be about all I need. Since the essay's less than four pages and less than 3000 words, being the geniuses that you are, you should whiz through it in no time at all.

But I wouldn't expect something for nothing, not even from you guys. It's pretty chill here, but I'm not about to demand favours out of kindness alone.

So, I'll sweeten the offer a little: If you read the essay and respond to the short questions, I'll do anything you want me to do in return.

No, really, I mean that. I have no political clout and not much money, so I'm offering you manpower. In return for reading a shitty little essay and doing a 5-minute survey, I'll write you a 3,000 word short story, paint a painting, make a drawing, bake a cake, do some insanely stupid dare, run in front of passing traffic, Livestream a game/tv/movie/real marathon, write a love letter, drop out of school and move to a monastery, prove the Collatz conjecture, trek through Siberia, swim the Atlantic or live off of tree-bark and lichen in some isolated forest for a month - if it's within my means, I'll do it, and I'll give it my all.

My hope here is that this will be mutually beneficial - for me, I get data for my project and get to broaden my horizons with something I probably wouldn't have done otherwise, and you get to amuse yourself with my unending misery and failures.


Interested? Here's what to do:

• Take five to read through the four easy pages in the text here (if you want it in any other format, just ask).
• Answer these questions:
     1. How old are you?
     2. What gender are you?
     3. Do you drink any caffeinated beverages (such as coffee, tea, soft drinks or energy drinks)?
     4. If yes to the above question, how often do you drink them a week?
     5. Did you find the essay informative?
     6. Did you find the essay interesting to read?
• Post your answers along with the request for what you want me to do and any other comments you might have.
• Sit back, bask in the fuzzy glow of goodness, and laugh at my struggles.

In the end, I'll collate the requests together and pick the most popular one to do, then upload/report the results here.

And even if you aren't interested, I'd really appreciate it if you'd take just ten minutes out of your life to help a bro out. You'll feel good about it, I'll feel a little less bad about myself and I'll even write a thank you note (if you want that).


Thanks again for everything, B12!

[Criptfeind]

1: 18 (19 in two weeks)
2: Male
3: No
4: NA
5: Yes.
6: Roughly 80% of the time. Some parts were harder to chew though.

[Vattic]

1. 22
2. Male
3. Yes
4. 0.5 (every other week at most I have a cup of tea)
5. Yes
6. Yes

Though the more long-term effects of caffeine have not yet been as established, is has been considered

Not sure if you'll loose marks for such a small mistype.

I didn't know coffee could cause many of the problems you mentioned (coffee not caffeine).

[freeformschooler]

1: 17
2: Male
3: Yes
4: 4 times a week approximately
5: Yes.
6: Most of the time. I felt it was very data-heavy and could have used a little more non-data dump content. The latter portions of the essay were better about this.

A few other things, mainly redundancies:

-"Yet," is used twice in the same manner in the same (second) paragraph.
-"complex health benefits and risks" is similarly used twice throughout the essay. You could probably benefit from using different words the second time.
-"On the other hand, however," is unnecessary. You could get away with merely "On the other hand,"

You've helped me plenty already, no need to do anything.

[Blargityblarg]

1: 18
2: Male
3: Yes
4: ~10
5:Yes.
6: It was a bit dry, but I can do dryness.

Also in the penultimate paragraph, 'you just want 'dispensing', not 'dispensing with', as the latter means 'getting rid of', which suggests that No-Doz are a concentrated, decaffeinated coffee pill.

[Stargrasper]

What to force you to do in return...?  Just continue to constructively contribute to the community.

• 24
• Male
• Yes
• 3 - 4 times
• Mildly, only contained little information I didn't know
• It was interesting to see the things I didn't know

I have to whine about something though...the essay is somewhat poorly written.  It's supposed to be a technical paper, right?  Here's some things I noted as not liking...
   Numerous grammatical errors
   Punctuation
      commas and semicolons
   Only citations in parenthasis
   Paragraph indentation
   Numbers <100 and associated symbols should be written
      "forty-five percent"
   Insufficient attribution
      improper or missing quotations
   Too personal for a technical paper
      Improper voice
   Audience

[Vector]

1. 21, 22 at the end of this month
2. Female
3. Yes, tea
4. At most one cup a week in a standard week
5. The essay was informative and felt fairly even-handed
6. It was somewhat interesting.  I wound up finding the facts dull, and most of my energy was spent deconstructing the argument.  So, the facts themselves were not interesting, as I knew them already (other than the thing about guarana being packaged with stimulants--hadn't seen that one coming!), but I still managed to have fun.

You are to lead a happy and healthy life.

[Heron TSG]

You are to lead a happy and healthy life.

I'll second this one.

1. 17
2. Male
3. Not often enough to count, I think.
4. Once every three or four weeks I drink a soda.
5. Yes. I've read a few papers on Caffeine before, but most did not go into as much detail.
6. Yes, but I'll read anything educational and have fun doing it.

[Lectorog]

1. 15
2. Male
3. No
4. -
5. Yes; about half of the facts presented were new to me.
6. A bit. It wasn't bad, but I wouldn't read it if I wasn't asked to.

I feel required to point out two things in the paper:
1) Your first list (under The Effects of Caffeine) changes tense (I think it is); this starts from "Improves" to "Improved". You should keep that the same throughout (-es or -ed).
2) Do not use "your mileage may vary" (Caffeinated Misery) or "it'd" (Conclusions). They both feel unprofessional. The first could just be removed entirely.
Oh, and the parentheses were used a bit much, to a lack of clarity at times. You may want to look into that.

Hope this helps you!

[quinnr]

1.) 16
2.) Male
3.) Yes
4.) 0.25 times a week (once a month)
5.) Pretty informative, didn't know about hardly any of those side effects.
6.) It was fun to read, I like reading science-y papers and such, and it was something relative to my family (my mom drinks a lot of soda, and does get those withdrawal symptoms..)



You should go take a photograph of something really cool looking and post it.

[The Fool]

1. How old are you? 20
2. What gender are you? Male
3. Do you drink any caffeinated beverages? Drip coffee, freshly ground.
4. If yes to the above question, how often do you drink them a week? About 4 cups of coffee in the morning. I have half a pot of coffee.
5. Did you find the essay informative? Yes.
6. Did you find the essay interesting to read? Yes. I liked the withdrawal symptoms and drawbacks. I've experienced most of them.

I wouldn't mind a picture of a robot, but I'm just happy to help.

[ein]

   1. 17
   2. F
   3. Bold, dark roasted coffee
   4. ~1 cup every day, sometimes not on weekends
   5. Y
   6. Y

Put on a top-hat and do a little jig on a table in public~~

[Itnetlolor]

1. How old are you? 26; 27 next month.
2. What gender are you? Male
3. Do you drink any caffeinated beverages (such as coffee, tea, soft drinks or energy drinks)? Yes, Coffee in the morning mostly.
4. If yes to the above question, how often do you drink them a week? Usually enough to jump-start myself if I oversleep (usually 2 tops). Being a big drinker/eater of sorts, I do tend to double my servings however (fullest mugs, so roughly 2-4 cups equivalent, at least according to the coffee pot measurements). I lighten the load for recreational drinking, so it's not as strong any other time.

If you want a more basic mark, 1 a day, ~1.5 average over a week, could be higher, so ~2.5.
5. Did you find the essay informative? Yes
6. Did you find the essay interesting to read? Not normally a reader type, but it held my interest. Then again, anything I can learn something new from tends to do that.

[Ottofar]

1. 15, turning 16 on the 28th this month.
2. Male.
3. Yes, but not coffee.
4. On holidays not so often, maybe once a week. I live far from everything, so yeah. When at school however I drink 3-4 times each week, totaling about 2.5 liters.
5. Yeah
6. Yes.

[Yannanth]

.