1.2.3 Train your informants

Before you carry out your case study, make sure that your informants are familiarized with the method. Do not tell your informants on what linguistic item they will be tested in order to prevent them from forming implicit hypotheses, which would distort the authenticity of their answers. At least two training sessions are obligatory, in which subjects are asked to judge first line lengths and then sentences. When it comes to the more complex judgements of sentences, it is important to remind your informants to heed the following instructions: Subjects may rate stimuli individually (not on a scale provided by the researcher), which enables them to judge stimuli on their own scale and to make as many fine-grained choices as they deem necessary. Further, informants may use any range of positive numbers they like, including decimal numbers. There is no upper or lower limit to the numbers they can use, except that they cannot use zero or negative numbers. Subjects should try to use a wide range of numbers and to distinguish as many degrees of acceptability as possible. Informants should not devote too much time thinking about any one sentence, because they are supposed to make up their mind quickly, spending less than 10 seconds per sentence.

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