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Lady Alua seeks assistance with her research

Posted: February 14th, 2024, 12:02:04 am
by Thane
Thane, the High Archmage of the Keep, has called everyone to attend a briefing in one of the many vast halls of the ancient building.

"Greetings fellow magis!" he chimes, his words echoing both from the architecture and the enhancement spell that allows everyone to hear his words. A short woman with blonde hair and blue robes is standing next to him, visibly beaming and barely holding in her excitement.

"I am overjoyed to see all of you here today, as we are on the brink of marvelous things! Throughout the years you have been helping Lady Alua here on her research projects by generously supplying her with Donec Fishes. Now, just in time for our celebration of friendship, love and connection, Lady Alua is on the verge of another great breakthrough. With the elemental magics now flowing more freely, and the increasing amount of daylight as the spring is approaching, Lady Alua has detected an effect in the breeding behaviour of our companions. She is hoping to come to a solution on how to harness that change. Her current research requires a few pairs of helping hands though, and she is looking for research assistants to form and test different possible theories to find the best solution. She is especially interested in breeding results concerning life magic."

Thane pauses briefly as he lets everyone catch onto what he is saying, and an excited mumbling starts to fill the hall.

"Oh, and one last thing," he adds, bringing the hall to silence again. "While I know Remy has again prepared something fitting for the theme, please do your research responsibly." A hint of an amused smile flickers on Thane's lips as he watches the crowd starting to disperse, and a few elusive words of excited speculation reaches his ears.

=========

Competition details:

Task: create a research paper that revolves around the subject of breeding creatures in the Magistream World. The format of the research paper is up to the participant but should contain the following:
- Set the research problem (i.e., what is the hypothesis or subject of your study that your research paper is going to explore)
- Collected data, or theory, or observations (you can e.g., write about observing the breeding habits of certain creatures, or take advantage of the breeding history page to collect data etc.)
- The conclusion: what are the conclusions, new findings, or new theories that comparing the collected data to your hypotheses creates? What does it all mean?

You do not need to follow strict real-life instructions on how to compile a research paper. Instead you are encouraged to get a little creative and submit what you would think would be the equivalent in the Magistream world.
  • Please post your research papers in the Competition Entries forum latest by February 29th 11.59 PM Magistream time.
  • A participation prize will be handed out for anyone who submits a paper
  • One to three submitted papers will be featured in the Library and their writers will each receive a pair of March 3-shard Donation Pets
  • Results will be posted latest by March 10th.
  • Magistream staff is allowed to participate

Re: Lady Alua seeks assistance with her research

Posted: February 14th, 2024, 5:06:59 pm
by CinnaminDraconna
Having never done a scientific research paper.. only 1 history term paper.. I have no idea how to proceed. I'm an old lady and school was over 40 years ago.

HELP!!!

Re: Lady Alua seeks assistance with her research

Posted: February 14th, 2024, 8:20:28 pm
by Revan
CinnaminDraconna wrote: February 14th, 2024, 5:06:59 pm Having never done a scientific research paper.. only 1 history term paper.. I have no idea how to proceed. I'm an old lady and school was over 40 years ago.

HELP!!!
Yeah, I hear you. Not sure how to approach this one either. :derp:

Re: Lady Alua seeks assistance with her research

Posted: February 15th, 2024, 12:52:11 am
by Danafox
Revan wrote: February 14th, 2024, 8:20:28 pm
CinnaminDraconna wrote: February 14th, 2024, 5:06:59 pm Having never done a scientific research paper.. only 1 history term paper.. I have no idea how to proceed. I'm an old lady and school was over 40 years ago.

HELP!!!
Yeah, I hear you. Not sure how to approach this one either. :derp:
Damn...we're all in the same boat...LOL...school was over for me over 20+yrs now? I've never done a scientific research paper ever. geez... :sweat:

Re: Lady Alua seeks assistance with her research

Posted: February 15th, 2024, 1:00:21 am
by Rosehill
Here are some possible pointers that may help you. The paper doesn't really need to be scientific (we're in a fantasy world after all), and we'd mostly just like you all to have fun breeding your creatures!

The premise of the "research paper" could be, for instance:
The hypothesis: "Lineage X produces more offspring than lineage Y"
Data collecting: you methodically breed lineage X and lineage Y, taking note on do you get eggs or failures
Conclusion: you analyse the data you have and see if it matches your hypothesis or not.

Another premise could be:
Hypothesis: 1 out of 5 bred direwolf eggs is an albino
Data collecting: breeding the heck out of your direwolves
Conclusion: analyse the data, see if it matches your hypothesis

Another could be:
Hypothesis: I breed my creatures mostly on Sundays
Data collecting and conclusion: check your breeding history records if it matches your hypothesis.

Another (spoilered because this slightly spoils an event related thing)
Spoiler
Premise: Thane mentions Alua being interested in breeding results concerning life magic. What would that mean? Is it related to creatures with the Life element? Research paper could be about exploring what happens if you breed creatures relating to that.
The data collecting and conclusion part is also something that you don't actually need to concretely do if you don't want to. You can make it up as an "in game" experiment where a character is doing all the researching and presents their findings.

You can write the research paper out in a story format, or make it more of a formal research paper look, or even make it just an infographic picture if you're more of a visual person, or something else if you want!

Hopefully these were helpful in giving you a bit of an idea what could be done! If not, please feel free to ask for more pointers! We'd rather this is enjoyable and nice to participate in than tedious! ^_^

Re: Lady Alua seeks assistance with her research

Posted: February 15th, 2024, 1:03:08 am
by Ayakashi
Danafox wrote: February 15th, 2024, 12:52:11 am
Revan wrote: February 14th, 2024, 8:20:28 pm
CinnaminDraconna wrote: February 14th, 2024, 5:06:59 pm Having never done a scientific research paper.. only 1 history term paper.. I have no idea how to proceed. I'm an old lady and school was over 40 years ago.

HELP!!!
Yeah, I hear you. Not sure how to approach this one either. :derp:
Damn...we're all in the same boat...LOL...school was over for me over 20+yrs now? I've never done a scientific research paper ever. geez... :sweat:
How nice I only completed my second MS in 2021. XD

I'm just going through my breeding data for three of my familes, and going to BS my way through thoughtful analysis of the data. Spreadsheets are fun! At the same time, it does say it doesn't have to be written as an actual reasearch paper. It could be like an opinion article.

Re: Lady Alua seeks assistance with her research

Posted: February 15th, 2024, 7:01:22 am
by MothballMilkshake
I treated it more like creative writing tbh, because I hate data and data analysis and spreadsheets.

Re: Lady Alua seeks assistance with her research

Posted: February 15th, 2024, 2:11:59 pm
by Circle
I was so confused at first but the pointers do help! Thanks Rosehill >D

Re: Lady Alua seeks assistance with her research

Posted: February 15th, 2024, 3:53:24 pm
by faedemon
this sounds SO FUN. i will definitely be finding time to write up a little report

Re: Lady Alua seeks assistance with her research

Posted: February 15th, 2024, 7:51:55 pm
by Revan
I came up more with a story than an actual research paper, but it's than nothing I suppose. I admit I'm still a bit confused, but I'm probably just overthinking this. Hopefully it meets the requirements.