16 Notes from Interview with Graduate Student (2020)

Emily shared the guidelines with a friend who shared them with her classmates for use in a group project, with the professor’s permission. Emily conducted an interview via Zoom in 2020 about the student’s use of the guidelines. Emily obtained informed consent from the student for her to take notes and use the information shared in this ongoing project to improve the guidelines. Emily also obtained consent to anonymously use excerpts of the student’s paper in future publications or presentations. The notes have been anonymized to protect student privacy. These notes include both questions asked and responses.

Conversation with Student – MSW Program at UW
Interview conducted by Emily via Zoom on 10/23/2020

Did you use the citation guidelines?
What was the assignment/project?
How did you use them (interview or personal experience)?

How did the guidelines work for you?
Do you think using them affect how you approached the assignment?

Do you have feedback/thoughts about them?
Do you have suggestions about how to make them better?

Indigenous student used personal experience/interview with friend in group paper assignment about suicide among Indigenous youth.

Used personal experience
Provided background and historical context, historical context.
Provide more depth to what I said, allows connection to research

-looking at research around the topic, in the media and suicide rates, what i had to say was not represented

providing native people justice doesn’t happen, its a public health crisis and is ignored by officials so there wouldn’t be much “official” information anyway. why personal experience is important “there are no amber alerts for us” children too

being native is – the US goal is to wipe us out, genocide is still ongoing

rates of COVID were highest on reservations – no tests PPE

lots of violence is done by white men from the outside, they can’t be tracked and operate anonymously

genocide and suicide- mental health is a huge issues – some places have resources, other help, are more accessible. white middle class areas or institutions that serve, lacking in native community – ignored pushed aside, prioritize other people

media and suicide – Pocahontas native characters in movies are incorrect most of the time. perpetuates ideas of “savages” is given to kids. they grow up with that idea of themselves, they are not worthy, not deserving – anyone can just take up their identity in native costumes, like blonde with headdress, erases and dehumanizes. erases the kids____

improvements on the guidelines – yes useful. professors response was that they thought it was cool. the grad students thought it was a cool way to cite.

this is important in grad work “I could write about stuff I relate to”

“if it’s not something I’m in, I get bored, its how I relate”

“one of the best tools to use, another level of depth to the paper that couldn’t be produced another way”

“In my paper I quote a friend. if we can quote other people, we can quote ourselves.”