Ann Smith is a social psychologist who wants to study attitude change. She submits a proposal to her institution outlining details of a study that will examine the attitude change of participants following a workshop on environmental issues. Smith plans to identify attitude change by administering a pretest and a posttest. She is worried, however, that the participants will recognize that she is looking for changes in their attitudes and that this knowledge will influence their answers on the posttest.

Joe McGrath is a second year graduate student who will begin to write his master's thesis at the end of the term. Joe has worked extremely hard during the two years of his master's program, regularly working six or seven days a week. The effort has paid off, however; Joe already has four publications with two additional papers in preparation and, most importantly, a starting date for a new job at a small pharmaceutical company.

Dr. Lang, a public health epidemiologist, is interested in the use of sterile needle exchange programs (NEPs) to reduce the rates of HIV in injection drug users. She designed a study that provided the data about the seroprevalence of HIV among injection drug users in Capitol City (a city not studied previously) and tracked seroprevalence over time in a population that used NEPs and a group that did not.

Nellie Shepherd is a graduate student at a large Midwestern university working with a group of graduate students and post-doctoral fellows in the lab of Dr. Thomas Katz. The primary focus of the lab group's research is various aspects of the fate, transport and biological effects of 1,3,5-trimethyltriazinetrione (TTT) in aquatic systems. TTT is a byproduct of several chemical manufacturing processes and is extremely difficult to remove from wastewater. Katz, a well-established scientist, is internationally known for his work on TTT. Much of his current research is funded on an annual basis by a consortium of chemical companies that generate wastewater containing TTT. Katz has the highest funding level and best equipped laboratory in the department; however, his students find him distant and communication difficult.

Upon entering the graduate program, Alyssa decided to start working in the laboratory of Dr. Harry Swift. She started on a project that consisted of administering and evaluating the effects of an anti-malarial agent using an animal model. Although six other graduate students were working in the laboratory (not doing rotations), none of them was involved with the project, other than occasionally assisting Alyssa with the animals. She presented her data at weekly laboratory meetings attended by all members of Swift's lab, including Swift.