Welcome to Inquiry ‘08
Welcome to the fourth issue of Inquiry, the online undergraduate research journal of the University of New Hampshire.
Inquiry was created to support the academic mission of UNH as a research and public service university. It offers undergraduate researchers the opportunity to communicate their experiences and results to general as well as academic audiences—the final and very important step in the research process.
The articles you will find here discuss research in a broad range of disciplines. You can read about subjects as varied as women soldiers, athletes and alcohol use, cultural identity and art, and different methods of removing pollutants from water. You will travel with the researchers to South Africa, Morocco, Uganda and several South American countries. In this issue we join the “University Dialogue on Democracy” with articles by and about three students who researched the progress of several emerging democracies.
Inquiry articles are based on undergraduate research done for a course or project under the direction of one or more faculty mentors. These faculty members go out of their way to support the students’ research; often they are closely involved in the writing of the Inquiry article as well. Read about them along with their mentees at Authors and Mentors >>.
Over the past year, Inquiry’s board of nine student editors improved their own writing skills while collaborating with authors and staff editors in the revisions necessary to make a specialized subject widely accessible. In addition, the student editors, all from different majors, interviewed and wrote biographies of authors and mentors, copy edited and proofread each others’ drafts, and two wrote feature articles. Both authors and editors learned to be precise, concise—and patient. (See Editorial Staff >>)
It’s gratifying to all involved to know that the journal is being read not only in New Hampshire but world wide. Responses from readers of the 2007 issue continue to arrive. Many authors received comments, questions, requests for more information, or congratulations from friends and strangers. Two articles in particular generated the most responses. One is a feature article about making biodiesel from the plant jatropha. Requests for more information have come from Egypt, India, Honduras, and Argentina; and from a Zambian college student in California and a Pennsylvania high school student (for a science fair project.) (Read article >>) The second article is a commentary about the letters American soldiers have written home. Several New England newspapers, including the Union Leader and the Boston Globe, interviewed the author and published feature stories, some on the occasion of Memorial Day. (Read commentary >>)
Although this is our fourth issue, we are still learning and would appreciate hearing from you, our readers. Use the Contact the Author button at the end of each article to respond to an author or to the editors. (See Responses >>) Meanwhile, good reading.
Donna Brown, Director of Undergraduate Research
