The 15R-North galaxy redshift survey is a uniform spectroscopic survey (S/N
similar to 10) covering the range 3650-7400 Angstrom for 3149 galaxies wit
h median redshift 0.05. The sample is 90% complete to R = 15.4. The median
slit covering fraction is 24% of the galaxy, apparently sufficient to minim
ize the effects of aperture bias on the EW(H alpha). Forty-nine percent of
the galaxies in the survey have one or more emission lines detected at grea
ter than or equal to 2 sigma. In agreement with previous surveys, the fract
ion of absorption-line galaxies increases steeply with galaxy luminosity. W
e use H beta, [O III], H alpha, and [N II] to discriminate between star-for
ming galaxies and AGNs. At least 20% of the galaxies are star-forming, at l
east 17% have AGN-like emission, and 12% have unclassifiable emission. The
unclassified 12% may include a "hybrid" population of galaxies with both st
ar formation and AGN activity. The AGN fraction increases steeply with lumi
nosity; the fraction of star-forming galaxies decreases. We use the EW(H al
pha + [N II]) to estimate the Scalo birthrate parameter, b, the ratio of th
e current star formation rate to the time averaged star formation rate. The
median birthrate parameter is inversely correlated with luminosity in agre
ement with the conclusions based on smaller samples (Kennicutt, Tamblyn, &
Congdon). Because our survey is large, we identify 33 vigorously star-formi
ng galaxies with b > 3. We confirm the conclusion of Jansen, Franx, & Fabri
cant that EW([O II]) must be used with caution as a measure of current star
formation. Finally, we examine the way galaxies of different spectroscopic
type trace the large-scale galaxy distribution. As expected the absorption
-line fraction decreases and the star-forming emission-line fraction increa
ses as the galaxy density decreases. The AGN fraction is insensitive to the
surrounding galaxy density; the unclassified fraction declines slowly as t
he density increases. For the star-forming galaxies, the EW(H alpha) increa
ses very slowly as the galaxy number density decreases. Whether a galaxy fo
rms stars or not is strongly correlated with the surrounding galaxy density
averaged over a scale of a few Mpc. This dependence reflects, in large par
t, the morphology-density relation. However, for galaxies forming stars, th
e stellar birthrate parameter is remarkably insensitive to the galaxy densi
ty. This conclusion suggests that the triggering of star formation occurs o
n a smaller spatial scale.