III. Materials/Method
 
The CARI group met to discuss what method to use to research the question, does nutrasweet(aspartame) cause headaches in individuals that
consume it daily? The group decided to create two informal survey that could be filled out easily by all participants. The surveys would be completed by the members of the CARI group and any others who wished to participate. The surveys were accessed through the internet by all participants. The surveys could be printed from the internet, so all participants could fill it out.
This research process took place over several weeks.
 
The first week the group decided on the questions to ask,and the format in which to score the responses. A Pre-Survey was developed and implemented to establish a history for each participant (Appendix A). Some of the questions had ranked responses, while others asked for open-ended responses from participants. Four of the questions on the survey asked each participant to rank the frequency of headaches, nutrasweet consumption in diet drinks, nutrasweet consumption in sugar-free food, and how many years the participant has consumed nutrasweet products. The frequency was to be ranked using a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being never and 5 being frequently. Two other questions asked the participant to document the types of products consumed that contained nutra-sweet(aspartame) on a regular basis, as well as any long term health conditions that the participant has that may affect the incidences of headaches. The last question asked the participant to state if he/she drinks 8-10 glasses of water daily. Each participant was asked to complete the entire survey to be collected at the end of the experiment for analysis.
 
During the second week of the experiment, the CARI members and other participants completed the 'treatment' section. Participants were asked to restrict their consumption of products containing nutra-sweet(aspartame) for two weeks. After the two week period, the participants were asked to complete a Post-survey with the same questions used in the Pre-survey (Appendix B). The researchers were able to determine if the consumption of nutra-sweet(aspartame) was completely restricted because the frequency of nutra-sweet(aspartame) consumption was to be ranked again. After the post-survey was completed, the participant turned in a hard copy of both surveys to the research group for analysis.
 
Once all the surveys were returned, the research group tallied the scores and formulated a table of results. Then, a chi-square analysis was completed to determine the validity of the data. All research was then posted on the internet for review by all participants.

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