FAQ

Our research team will send you an email every week with a list of prompts to get you thinking, and links to our MI Diaries app on the App Store and on Google Play. You can talk about these prompts, or about anything else that is on your mind. We especially want to hear stories of what your life is like – what you did during the day or the week, things that brought you joy or struggles you are having.

We are looking for as much of your story as you would like to tell, whether it’s a 5 minute recording or an hour long recording. For a downloadable copy of our consent form, click here.

Sign up information can be found here.

We’ve changed our name! MI COVID Diaries is now just MI Diaries. The project began during the spring 2020 COVID lockdowns. But we realized that our name doesn’t reflect the broad range of Michiganders’ daily experiences that we hear about each week. We think MI Diaries is more in keeping with our mission to document life during and after the pandemic. So you’ll see our new name in all of our communications and on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Your data will be stored on our secure server to which only study team members have access. We give all participants a subject ID number, to keep personal identifying information separate from your audio files. Personal identifying information, such as your email address, will be kept in a distinct password-protected folder separate from your data. Audio and transcript excerpts shared on the project website, or in publications about this research, will be entirely anonymized.

As university employees, researchers may not be able to maintain as confidential the following: child abuse, child neglect, relationship violence, sexual misconduct, stalking, retaliation, discrimination or harrassment based on sex, race, color, national origin, religion, age, height, weight, marital status, or disability that is related to the University community, or an immediate threat to yourself or others. We are not seeking this type of information in our study, nor will you be asked questions about these issues. However, if you do disclose this type of information, we may need to report it to the MSU Office of Institutional Equity and/or the Department of Police and Public Safety. 

Audio diaries on the MI Diaries are licensed under CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0. This means that even though the archive is publicly available and can be used by people like historians and educators, no one is allowed to use audio diaries for commercial purposes.

Our consent form and contact information is given in our signup form. You can also download a .pdf version here.

You need our MI Diaries app, which can be found in the App Store and in Google Play. For FAQs specifically about the app, check out our app-specific FAQs below.

This means you can use any recording device – like your phone or a tablet! When you record, try to make sure there is as little background noise as possible, and that you maintain a regular distance from your microphone – this makes sure the audio is as clear as possible! We recommend sitting in a room with lots of soft furniture (or a blanket fort would be even better!)

We appreciate everyone who is interested in sharing their stories. Participants who contribute at least 15 minutes of Audio Diary within a week are eligible to receive a $5 thank you (as an Amazon gift card that will be emailed to you). If you would prefer to opt out of receiving a gift card, so that we can use it to thank another participant, you may choose to do that as well. You can let us know which option you would prefer when you sign up.

We are so glad you are interested in helping the project! Right now we are only collecting stories from Michigan residents, whether you were born and raised here or you recently moved here. If you are currently living in Michigan, we would love to have you join the project!

If you don’t live in Michigan, you can still help us out by sharing this project with your friends and family who do live in Michigan. Word of mouth recommendations are the best way to help us recruit more diarists.

If you are a student who is interested in joining the project as a team member, contact Dr. Sneller! You do not have to be an MSU student to join. We also have space for youth interns – if you are a high schooler or middle schooler interested in becoming a youth intern for the project, you and a parent or guardian should contact Dr. Sneller together.

You can also help the project out financially, by donating to the Linguistics Program Fund! Your donation helps fund our incredible team of undergraduate and graduate student researchers, and most importantly helps us send participants a thank-you gift card.

No! We are collecting stories from anyone over the age of 3 who lives in Michigan. Teenagers (ages 13+) can sign themselves up through our signup link, and kids (ages 3-12) can sign up by having a caregiver fill out the sign up form on their behalf. If you’re signing up on behalf of a child, please make sure they watch our short informational video first, so that they know what the project is about!

Your diaries should only include your voice, unless you’re a parent or a caregiver and you’re reading questions to a kid diarist. If any other voices appear on the recording, we ask that they give verbal consent in the diary. This can be as simple as you asking “Is it okay to include your voice on this recording?” Make sure to include whether you’ve given us permission to share your diaries with the Library of Michigan and/or our website’s featured stories.

Our project email address is MI.Diaries@msu.edu. If you have noticed that you are not receiving emails from us, we would recommend checking your Spam or Junk Mail folder for communication from us and adding our MI.Diaries@msu.edu email address to your Contacts or Safe Senders list. Please reach out to us at MI.Diaries@msu.edu if these steps do not resolve the issue for you.

That’s totally fine! When you sign up, just let us know whether you’d prefer to have anonymized portions of your stories eligible to be shared on our website and social media accounts, or whether you’d prefer to keep your diary entries just within the research group. Either way is fine by us.

At the Sociolinguistics Lab, we are interested in how social change affects people’s language. One question we were particularly interested in when we began is how long periods of social isolation affect people’s ties to their family, friends and communities, and how these changing relationships might affect people’s language. Once the diary collection wraps up, we’ll post more information here about what we found out.

We have a partnership with the Library of Michigan, which is also collecting documentation about life in Michigan during this time. When our project is complete, we will deposit anonymized audio diaries from anyone who opts-in with the Library of Michigan. When you sign up, you can choose whether you would like to have us deposit your anonymized files with the Library of Michigan.

App

Our research team will send you an email every week with a list of prompts to get you thinking, and links to our MI Diaries app on the App Store and on Google Play. You can talk about these prompts, or about anything else that is on your mind. We especially want to hear stories of what your life is like – what you did during the day or the week, things that brought you joy or struggles you are having.

We are looking for as much of your story as you would like to tell, whether it’s a 5 minute recording or an hour long recording. For a downloadable copy of our consent form, click here.

For Apple users (iPhones, iPads), MI Diaries can be found in the App Store. Android users can find the app in Google Play.

You can have up to four profiles on the app. Simply click the “Add Profile” button and make an account for the other members participating. Click on your specific profile when you want to begin an entry.

To record your audio press the microphone logo that is to the left of the timer. This will begin the recording and the timer will start keeping track how long your entry is. Once you have finished, press the stop button that is at the left of the timer. You can listen back to your audio by clicking the “Play“ button. You can delete your audio recording before submission by pressing the “Arrow” button in the top-left corner. If you are interested in adding an image to accompany your entry, click the “Camera” button. When you are ready to send your entry click the “Submit” button at the bottom of the page.

Yes! From the Profile Dashboard, there will be a tile showing a circle around a number percentage that you can press to view your progress toward that week’s 15 minute goal. You can also reach the progress screen by selecting “Goal” from the dropdown menu in the top-right of the app screen.

Project

Our research team will send you an email every week (or as often as you designate that you would like to participate) with a list of prompts to get you thinking, and a link for uploading your diary file. You can talk about these prompts, or about anything else that is on your mind. We especially want to hear stories of what your life is like – what you did during the day or the week, things that brought you joy or struggles you are having.

We are looking for as much of your story as you would like to tell, whether it’s a 5 minute recording or an hour long recording. For a downloadable copy of our consent form, click here.

Sign up information for kids under 13 is located here , while teens and adult sign up infromation can be found here.

We’ve changed our name! MI COVID Diaries is now just MI Diaries. The project began during the spring 2020 COVID lockdowns. But we realized that our name doesn’t reflect the broad range of Michiganders’ daily experiences that we hear about each week. We think MI Diaries is more in keeping with our mission to document life during and after the pandemic. So you’ll see our new name in all of our communications and on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Your data will be stored on our secure server to which only study team members have access. We give all participants a subject ID number, to keep personal identifying information separate from your audio files. Personal identifying information, such as your email address, will be kept in a distinct password-protected folder separate from your data. Audio and transcript excerpts shared on the project website, or in publications about this research, will be entirely anonymized.

Our consent for and contact information is given in our signup form, and can also be found here. You can also download a .pdf version here.

We highly recommend using our MI Diaries app, which can be found in the App Store and in Google Play. For FAQs specifically about the app, check out our FAQ-app page.

This means you can use any recording device – like your phone or a tablet! When you record, try to make sure there is as little background noise as possible, and that you maintain a regular distance from your microphone – this makes sure the audio is as clear as possible! We recommend sitting in a room with lots of soft furniture (or a blanket fort would be even better!).

We appreciate everyone who is interested in sharing their stories. Participants who contribute at least 15 minutes of Audio Diary within each 2 week period are eligible to receive a $5 thank-you (as an Amazon gift card that will be emailed to you). If you would prefer to opt out of receiving a gift card, so that we can use it to thank another participant, you may choose to do that as well. You can let us know which option you would prefer when you sign up.

We have a partnership with the Library of Michigan, which is also collecting documentation about life in Michigan during this time. When our project is complete, we will deposit anonymized audio diaries from anyone who opts-in with the Library of Michigan. When you sign up, you can choose whether you would like to have us deposit your anonymized files with the Library of Michigan.

We are so glad you are interested in helping the project! Right now we are only collecting stories from Michigan residents, whether you were born and raised here or you recently moved here. If you are currently living in Michigan, we would love to have you join the project!

If you don’t live in Michigan, you can still help us out by sharing this project with your friends and family who do live in Michigan. Word of mouth recommendations are the best way to help us recruit more diarists.

If you are a student who is interested in joining the project as a team member, contact Dr. Sneller! You do not have to be an MSU student to join. We also have space for youth interns – if you are a high schooler or middle schooler interested in becoming a youth intern for the project, you and a parent or guardian should contact Dr. Sneller together.

You can also help the project out financially, by donating to the Linguistics Program Fund! Your donation helps fund our incredible team of undergraduate and graduate student researchers, and most importantly helps us send participants a thank-you gift card.

No! We are now collecting stories from anyone over the age of 3 who lives in Michigan. Teenagers (ages 13+) can sign themselves up through our signup link, and kids (ages 3-12) can sign up by having a caregiver fill out the sign up form on their behalf. If you’re signing up on behalf of a child, please make sure they watch our short informational video first, so that they know what the project is about!

That’s totally fine! When you sign up, just let us know whether you’d prefer to have anonymized portions of your stories eligible to be shared on our website and social media accounts, or whether you’d prefer to keep your diary entries just within the research group. Either way is fine by us.

At the Sociolinguistics Lab, we are interested in how social change affects people’s language. One question in particular is how long periods of social isolation affect people’s ties to their family, friends and communities, and how these changing relationships might affect people’s language. Once the diary collection wraps up, we’ll post more information here about what we found out.

App

Our research team will send you an email every week (or as often as you designate that you would like to participate) with a list of prompts to get you thinking, and a link for uploading your diary file. You can talk about these prompts, or about anything else that is on your mind. We especially want to hear stories of what your life is like – what you did during the day or the week, things that brought you joy or struggles you are having.

We are looking for as much of your story as you would like to tell, whether it’s a 5 minute recording or an hour long recording. For a downloadable copy of our consent form, click here.

For apple users MI Diaries can be found in the App Store. Android users can find the app in GooglePlay.

You can have up to four profiles on the app. Simply click the “Add Profile” button and make an account for the other members participating. Click on your specific profile when you want to begin an entry.

We highly recommend using our MI Diaries app, which can be found in the App Store and in Google Play. For FAQs specifically about the app, check out our FAQ-app page.

This means you can use any recording device – like your phone or a tablet! When you record, try to make sure there is as little background noise as possible, and that you maintain a regular distance from your microphone – this makes sure the audio is as clear as possible! We recommend sitting in a room with lots of soft furniture (or a blanket fort would be even better!).

To record your audio press the microphone logo that is to the left of the timer. This will begin the recording and the timer will start keeping track how long your entry is. Once you have finished, press the stop button that is at the left of the timer. You can listen back to your audio by clicking the “Play“ button or “Delete” the audio entirely. If you are interested in adding an image to accompany your entry click “Add an Image”. When you are ready to send your entry click the “Submit” button at the bottom of the page.

That’s totally fine! When you sign up, just let us know whether you’d prefer to have anonymized portions of your stories eligible to be shared on our website and social media accounts, or whether you’d prefer to keep your diary entries just within the research group. Either way is fine by us.