GUIDELINES FOR "PAPER TOPIC" PAPER: DUE

POINTS: Up to 30 LENGTH: about 5-6 pages (1,200 words) DUE: Friday, September 28 at classtime (2 points per day deducted if late) NOTE: Consider this paper the TENTATIVE start of your final paper. You will, of course, revise it as you move foward. The more you can do, the more I can read and help you with. Starting this now will help you focus and narrow in the coming weeks. Like all papers, this should have three components: 1. Introduction **Introductory paragraph or two (also called the "organizing theme" lays out what you will do, why, and why it's important. Look at the paper like an upside-down funnel: Start with general overview, then taper down with increasing focus and precision. You should give an overview of the topic. 2. Body: This is where you develop ideas in your introduction. Put in some subjections. For example, after the introduction, you can have headers such as: **Methodology (where you explain in detail where you get data, why, and how). For the final paper, you go into great detail. For this paper, you just describe for a page or two the basics and explain what your data source will be, how you will obtain access, and describe what you'll look for, or what broad issues you'll ask about. For this paper, you should also describe precisely WHO you will interview (if interviewing) or precisely what data sources you look at. Explain your method by justifying why it is appropriate, how you will deal with issues of validity and reliability, and what problems of any kind (ethical, logistical, accessibility) that you might encounter. THINK CAREFULLY ABOUT YOUR METHOD. **Review of the Literature: All papers at some point draw from other research on a similar topic. This is where you summarize the key points of what you've read as they relate to your study. Although your "review of the literature" paper (paper #3) won't be due for another few weeks, at this point: FIND AT LEAST TWO SCHOLARLY ARTICLES (jstor is a good source) to include in this paper. 3) Conclusion: "Bringing it all back home." A conclusion should NOT be more than a page, give or take a bit. You put nothing new in the conclusion. It's where you summarize and tie things together. You obviously won't be able to conclude as you would a final paper, but you should have something that ties together whatever you've written and doesn't just stop. Basically, you will redo the intro, guided by any tips I gave you. The key is to now frame your paper as a "SOCIOLOGY" paper (not as a general essay, which many of you did). The ethics section should reflect RESEARCH ETHICS, not vague ethics about whether it's ethical to have laws against speeders. We have discussed ethics way beyond normal, and the expectation is that people understand research ethics (especially protection of human subjects that include the three Belmont Principles) and have read the readers for examples of things that can go wrong. You should start digging into Jstor to find a few articles related to your study. Your topic is a window into the social world, and concepts/themes are your tools to help us see the sociology underlying your topic. For example, you might not be able to find much on the sociology of health clubs, football teams, or hangovers, but you can find numerous articles on social solidarity, social bonding, gender displays, identity management, and literally hundreds of other concepts. These are what most of you probably will be using. And, PLEASE NUMBER YOUR PAGES - If I type out comments, it helps identify what page I'm addressing.

<--Return to Jim Thomas's homepage

Page maintained by: Jim Thomas - jthomas@math.niu.edu