Whoring myself off in the name of psychology...

An e-mail that I just got...
I'm thinking about keeping the palm pilot...

Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2004 23:09:10 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: paid psychology experiment

Hello there.

You are receiving this email because you had expressed interest in taking part in paid psychology experiments. You have been randomly selected to be a participant (if you are willing) in the Midterm study (supervising faculty member Professor Patrick Shrout). The object of the study is to find out about the activities, experiences, moods, thoughts etc. of a normal college student approaching a stressful midterm (i.e. your gen-chem midterm on the 22nd)

The study pays $20 and takes a total of no more than 2 hours of your time. You will need to take part in an introductory/orientation session next week. This session will take no more than 30 minutes. You will be asked to do a couple of simple tasks (i.e. filling out a questionnaire) and you will be given a more detailed explanation of the study and how it will be run. At the end of the session, you will be given a palm pilot with a questionnaire program on it, to take home and complete, as well as $5 (the other $15 will be given upon return of the palm pilot). The palm pilot questionnaires should be filled out over the course of two weeks (once per evening). The questionnaire usually takes between 4 and 7 minutes to complete.

If you are still interested in participating, please respond to this email and sign up for a session either next Thursday (October 7th) or next Friday (October 8th). Here are the available time slots:

Thursday (October 7th):
2pm-2:30pm
4pm-4:30pm

Friday (October 8th):
11am-11:30am
12pm-12:30pm
1pm-1:30pm
2pm-2:30pm
4:30pm-5pm
5:30pm-6pm

Please sign up for a time slot asap, since some of the rooms we have access to are quite small and will only be able to hold a few people (times are a first come first serve basis). It is suggested that you reply with a few possible times (in case one or more of those time slots was already filled up).

thank you for your time, and I hope you will consider being a participant in this study.