First: read the Shuy, and Marckwardt & Dillard selections (both available at the Scholar site under Resources) and the introductory material in the Dictionary of American Regional English (on Reserve). You should also be familiar with the material on pp. 312-317 of Crystal's Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language.
Be sure you have the following handouts. You can print the web pages, but you will need to make enough extras to carry out the project):
You will interview at least four dialect "informants" (more is mo' better) preferably two each from two of the same dialect sub-areas (Shuy map). You should choose informants of the same age group and social background. The ideal informants will have lived in the same area for most of their lives. However, you may want to examine generational differences, for which purpose you would of course want to interview contrasting age groups within a single dialect sub-area. Just be clear about what you are doing.
You should not have the informants fill in the forms, but you should interview them, asking them to respond with words they would routinely use for the "Lexical Variation" section, and letting them read from the "Informant Script" sheet for the "Grammatical" and "Phonological Variation" components of the questionnaire. You should fill in the "Dialect Worksheet" forms yourself. This is true even for the initial section on personal background: talking your informant through this section will help to create a more natural situation so that he/she will give answers to the subsequent questionnaires more spontaneously.
Be sure to thank your informant for his/her time.
When you turn in your results, please include:
Finally, answer the following questions in fluent prose:
Next Page (lexical variation)