Looking for a co-author / mentor for a research paper

Looking for a research mentor / co-author

Hi! I’m a student currently working on my first independent research paper, and I’m looking for someone with research experience who would be interested in either mentoring me through the process or potentially collaborating as a co-author.

The research is broadly focused on narratives — specifically, how people construct, communicate, and interpret narratives and what can be understood from the way a person tells a story. I’m planning to conduct a small-scale study rather than a large experimental project, with approximately 50–70 participants.

I’m currently in the stage of developing the actual research methodology. I have the general research idea and direction, and I’m working on narrowing down the research question, deciding exactly what I want to measure/examine, designing the study and participant tasks, figuring out how the responses should be coded, and determining the most appropriate way to analyse the data.

The project would involve collecting responses from participants and analysing them systematically, so I’m especially looking for someone who has experience with research methodology, qualitative/mixed-methods research, narrative analysis, psychology/social-science research, statistics, or academic research writing.

Since this is my first paper, I’m mainly looking for someone who can help me understand whether the methodology I’m developing actually makes sense, identify weaknesses or potential biases in the study, advise me on things like sampling, variables, coding, analysis, and research ethics, and generally help me learn how to conduct the research properly.

I’m open to either:

1. A mentor — someone experienced who can guide me, review my research design/questions, and help me make better methodological decisions while I do the actual work myself.

2. A co-author/collaborator — someone who is genuinely interested in the topic and would like to contribute substantially to developing the study, analysing the data, and eventually working on the paper together.

I’m not looking for someone to write the paper for me or simply put their name on it. I’m happy to do the work and learn the process. I’m looking for someone who can bring research experience that I obviously don’t have yet.

I’d particularly appreciate hearing from university students, graduate students, researchers, professors, or anyone with actual experience conducting and publishing research. You don’t necessarily need to be an expert in narratives specifically — experience with research methodology and human-subject research would already be really helpful.

If you’re interested, please DM me. I can share the research question/idea, the study design I’ve developed so far, and more details about what I’m hoping to investigate.

Thanks!