PAPER ASSIGNMENT

 

Due Date: November 22 at the start of class

 
For your paper, you will observe a social environment, take notes on what you observe, and then subject your observations to a sociological analysis. First, you should select a social setting that you want to observe. You can select any setting you wish, but if you follow a couple of suggestions, you may find the assignment easier. First, it may be helpful to select an environment that is not overly familiar to you. For example, if you are Catholic, you might decide to visit a Protestant church service. If an environment is too familiar to you, some important aspects of the social context may blend into the background. Second, you may want to choose an environment in which some things change over time or visit two similar environments that differ on one important dimension. For example, you could observe a mall lobby during on a weekday when mostly adults are shopping and then during the weekend when the crowds are more mixed. Returning to our church example, you could attend one service in a predominantly White church and one in a predominantly Black church; or one in a rich neighborhood and one in a relatively poor one. You should plan to spend at least 4 hours observing your environment and taking notes on what you have observed. Depending on the environment you choose, you may have to wait until after you leave the environment to write down your notes. If you are having trouble selecting an environment, please talk to me or one of the TAs.

There will be many important things to observe in your environment. Among these are: the physical environment, important artifacts or objects, what kind of people are there, who interacts with whom, when do people arrive/leave, who says what, are there leaders/followers, and so on. Try to focus on what you think is most interesting sociologically.

Writing up your paper: Your paper should be made up of three parts. First, you should identify your environment and very briefly discuss why you chose it and why you thought it would be sociologically interesting. Second, you should give a synopsis of what you observed. Please give only the broad strokes of what happened—this should only take up a couple of pages. The idea is to make your reader familiar with the environment, not to give a blow-by-blow account of your field work. Finally, select two or three important sociological concepts we have discussed and talk about how they relate to what you observed. For example, you could discuss deviant behavior in your setting. Was the presence or lack or deviance important in your setting? Why do you think there was or was not any deviant behavior? Did deviant behavior suggest any underlying class/race/gender conflict in the setting? Try to give a sociological explanation WHY things occurred in the setting as they did and why other things did not occur. This third part should make up most of your paper and will be the most pivotal in determining your grade.

Format: Papers should be double spaced, typed, and stapled together. (I strongly recommend that you use a word processor to produce your paper. Not only will it be easier to update your paper should you choose to turn in a preliminary draft, but you will have a back-up copy of your paper on disk. If you choose to use a typewriter, you should save a photocopy of your paper.) When you turn in your paper, don not use a plastic theme cover or folder. The first page should be a title page that should include the title of your paper, your name, and the name of your Teaching Assistant. Start the text of your paper on the following page. Spelling and grammar count! Do not simply depend on your spell checker! Proofread your paper carefully.

Length: About 10 – 12 pages. This means 10-12 double-spaced pages of text; title pages and bibliographies do not count in the page total.. A page of text is generally about 250 words of 12 point type with standard 1 inch margins. Please do not try to play tricks with margins, fonts, line spacing, etc. in order to increase or decrease your paper's length. We are well aware of these tricks and they only make papers more irritating to read.

First Drafts: If you would like to turn in a preliminary draft of your paper prior to the final due date, we will review your paper and make suggestions how you can improve it for its final draft. It is not required that you turn in a first draft, but we strongly recommend it.

If you wish to take advantage of this service:

- Your draft must be turned in on or before November 8.
- Your draft must be written as if it is a final draft. Outlines, sloppy or incomplete drafts, hand written work, and so forth, is not acceptable.
- The purpose of our review is not to correct your grammar and spelling, but to give you suggestions on how you can improve the substance of your paper, i.e., how to better apply sociological concepts and so forth.
- When you turn in your final draft, you must turn in the rough draft as well.

Due Date: Papers are due at the start of class. Papers received after the start of the class will be considered late. Late papers are subject to a 10% penalty. No papers will be accepted after 4:00pm on Monday, November 27. Papers received after that time will receive zero credit. If you are going to turn in your paper late, it is your responsibility to make arrangements with your TA to deliver the paper to them. Exceptions to this policy will only be made in the case of serious illness or a death in the family and will require documentation as outlined in your student handbook.