FAQ

 

Who are you?

Head over to our About Us page to meet the team!

 

What does “BLNDIY” mean?

We’re part of Ohio State’s Buckeye Language Network (BLN), and we’re running this website where you can Do-It-Yourself (DIY)! You can read more about the BLN on our website here.

 

Is this a *real* science project?

Yes it is! Everyone who contributes to this website will be helping us create a science study from scratch and then our research team will *really* collect data and report it. That’s what real science is!

 

Why does it have to be on language?

Because that’s what we know about! Lucky for us, language is something that everybody has some experience with (you use it every day!) so we think people will have interesting ideas to contribute.

 

What IS language science anyway?

Language science is the umbrella term we use for any science done to better understand what language is, how it works, and how people use and understand it. Remember, science is a process and a tool, not a category! When scientists have a question about language, they come up with an experiment and a hypothesis that they can use to help answer that question. Language scientists include researchers from all kinds of fields, like linguistics, speech and hearing science, psychology, computer science, and lots more; what they all have in common is a desire to better understand everything about language!

You can read more about language science from the University of Maryland, and check out our Week 1 Post for a better idea of the kinds of things we study here.

 

Why are you doing this project?

We want as many people as possible to get an idea of what it’s like to actually be a scientist. It’s hard work to think of a good question and figure out how to test it, but getting the results from your own experiment is a fantastic feeling! We want people to really understand what the process of doing science is really all about.

 

Where are you doing the research study?

We are physically located in the Language Sciences Research Lab which is inside the Center of Science and Industry in Columbus, OH. You can check us out HERE! For this project, though, we’ll be working entirely online. Everything you need should be here on the website!

 

Do I have to sign up?

You don’t have to sign up to contribute. However, if you want us to put your username on the leaderboard, you have to sign up for that. Also we are interested in how people think about this project and about science in general and you can also sign up to be in a participant in a parallel study about this website!”

 

How long will this project last?

It will take 10 weeks for us to finish this particular project. You can keep track of where we are so far on our homepage’s timeline!

 

Am I too late to participate?

We’ve finished this summer’s project, but we’re planning on running a new-and-improved version of BLNDIY in the future! Click here to add yourself to a mailing list so we can let you know when the newest program launches.

 

How can I find out what happens?

Stay connected with this website! We’ll be posting results here and updates as we go along.

 

What if my question isn’t answered here?

Feel free to get in touch with us at bln.diy@osu.edu – we’d love to hear from you and answer any other questions or concerns you might have!