SO FAR.

So far, the goa has been to accumulate data: stereotypes of English people. The data needs to be collected from as many cultures as possible and using as many research methods as possible. I have used:
Qustionnaires – 19 responses
Interviews – 2 (another is scheduled)
Opinion poles – 76 responses
Books – 2 (2 more coming up)
Dvds – 3
TV shows - 1
A travel article
A chat forum – 6 responses
Cultural groups represented so far in my research include: Canadian, Chinese, German, Japanese, American, Belgian (Flemish), Belgian (French), Colombian, Finnish, Australian, French, Polish, Swedish, Turkish, United States, Ukrainian.
Most of my data has been collected through the questionnaires that I have used. They turned out to be efficient, easily transferable and non-intrusive. I think people feel more comfortable expressing their views about the English completely anonymously. Using questionnaires therefore eliminates social desirability bias. Looking at articles and chat forums + opinion poles has given me a huge stack of information and quotable material to back up my choice of stereotypes to be investigated.
I have found an online dissertation format, which I have looked through to help me picture how my essay will be set out. Ordering information is key to this piece of writing. I think I should open my essay with an introduction to stereotypes from a psychological perspective. This I have read up on and I hope it’s not too much of a problem if my introduction goes over 250 words. For example, I would like to discuss Tajfel’s Minimal group paradigm and how it might be applied to a pattern I have noticed in my findings: most stereotypes are negative. This could obviously be explained by Tajfel’s theory + study, but interestingly, the majority of stereotypes pinned on the English by Ukrainian people (according to my interviewee) are positive. Why is this I wonder?...Going off on a historical/political tangent might be inappropriate though.