Last night as I was reading over the IRB drafts for the mock IRB, I realized the importance of reviewing anything written before you turn it in. One draft I read logically was consistent, and the project seemed cohesive. But the only thing I could focus on was the sloppiness of the proposal. Comma splices, incomplete sentences, strange capitalizations, misused words (like fare instead of fair), and misspellings in general. I know this is a draft with probably a lot of cut-and-pasting going on, but even so, it seemed as though the writer did not care about the project. In turn, I as the "reviewer"did not care about the project. If the writing is sloppy, I assumed the project was as well. It does not matter if the idea is sound; the communication of that idea needs to be flawless.
As I am working on my own IRB draft and the field study proposal, I need to be careful that my writing and the product of all my work is clean and professional to give an appropriate impression to the "higher powers that may be." Oftentimes, it is just the product of the work (a paper, a presentation, etc.) that gets noticed. Sometimes, I just get sick of the project, and the end work is a little messier than it should be. But it doesn't matter about all the work that went into the project; if the final product is lacking, that it was is reflected on me.
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