The Relationship Hypothesis

If you haven't written a lab report before, first of all consider yourself a lucky person. Science is terrific, but scientific writing is not favorite style of writing and not what I would call entertainment. Second of all, this blog may need a little explanation before you read. A lab report should consist of five sections. Each section must contain certain information and only that specific information. The Introduction should inform the scientific community about the nature of the study and an overview of what your will be talking about throughout the report. The Methods and Material section should include the ways in which the data was collected. The Results should state the information collected. This is not a place to include opinion of any kind---only the facts. The Discussion section gives the writer a little more freedom to express opinions and observations about the data. And finally, the report must include the Sources that the data was collected from and any other outside sources used in the experiment or the writing of the report. You should also know that scientific writing comes from a community of scientist and should not include things such as “I observed” or “Then he did this.” It should always be written from the lab's or community's point of view.

I spend a lot of time writing lab reports for my classes. My goal in writing this was to prove to myself that writing a lab report isn’t inherently evil and can be just as enjoyable as writing a blog. I did enjoy writing it, but I don’t think that I totally convinced myself scientific writing is fun. We will see when sit down to write the Statistical Analysis of the Kidney Functioning for Physiology lab. But I do hope you enjoy reading an unscientific, scientific report as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Introduction: The lab observed a series of events pertaining to the interpersonal relationships within a uncontrolled environment. There are many variables that were observed and recorded. The hypothesis is as follows: Every good relationship must have a good break-up. The lab tested this hypothesis by observing a series of male/female relationships that spontaneously developed. We were unable to clearly define the independent and dependent variables so the results are only correlation case studies, but with more extensive research, we hope to be able to extend the validity and thus present a theory in the future.

*Names have been changed. However, notice the nice alliteration, haha. I thought it was a nice touch.

Methods and Materials: To begin testing our hypothesis we examined the relationship between a girl named Jill* and a boy named Joe. We observed this relationship over the past two years through lending a supporting ear, late at night to Jill and being friends with both parties. The second relationship analyzed was the relationship between Tara and Tim. Tara shared the details of this relationship with the observer due to their close friendship and sharing of living space. The third relationship observed was between Anna and Alex. This was observed through Facebook and second hand sources. The fourth relationship was between Becca and Brad. The relationship status was recorded through late-night crisis phone calls to the observer. Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal’s relationship was analyzed through US Weekly and E News. And finally, the relationship between Jada and Josh was relayed through a secondary observer.

Results: Jill and Joe were in a serious happy relationship for nearly three years after which the relationship “went on a break” for an undetermined amount of time. At the time of this publishing the “relationship vacation” was still in action.

Tara and Tim dated for 4 months and then underwent a difficult breakup due to differing personalities. However, three months after the breakup, talking between the two parties began as well as friendly hanging out.

Anna and Alex dated for several years while in high school. After one year of higher education, they decided to take a break to figure out if they were going to get serious. They got back into a relationship soon after the break.

Becca and Brad were just “friend” for three months. For the next nine months they were truly just friends. After this period of friendness, they began a semi-serious relationship which has lasted nearly 9 months and going strong.

Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal dated for 1.2 years and then broke up for the month of September. During this month, Reese dated James Blunt. After this short relationship, Reese and Jake got back together and are currently dating.

Jada and Josh dated for all four years of high school. They broke up for a year after both went to college. However, after this first year they got back together, dated for three years and are now engaged to be married.

Discussion: In all these relationships, barring Jill and Joe, the relationship was ended and then restarted after some time had passed. It is hard for us to infer any facts or generalizations about relationships from this data, but the evidence suggests that a break in the relationship may actually be beneficial and allow the relationship to progress healthier than it was previously headed. Our hypothesis in this small, hand-picked sample size was proven true. But it would be impossible to test this hypothesis on every relationship, and because the sample size was small and not statistically sound, the data set is not representative of the general public. However, even though the findings are not scientifically significant, the relationships and the data collected from the relationships are significant in the lives of the subjects.

Sources:

Friends. Dear to Me and Close to My Heart. Lawrence to KC to Hesston to Wichita to Umhmm. 2008.

Heartache. From the Book: Part of Relationships We Would Rather Not Talk About. Everywhere, Earth. The Fall-Present.

Love. Gift from God. God’s Heart. Before we were even thought of-Present-Forever.

Real Life. Stuff that Happens When You are Making Plans. Everywhere, Earth. 1988-Present.