Writing Guidelines

Paper Due Date: 4/14/13 12:00 Midnight (Sunday Night)

Paper is to be sent as a Microsoft Word attachment (.doc or .docx) to my email

Jennykarubian@gmail.com

***If you cannot email your paper from home over the weekend, paper is due in my mailbox in Arts and Humanities by 3:00pm 4/12. This must be received by someone in the office and checked in before being placed in my mailbox.

Late papers are deducted 5% per day.

Failure to turn in the assignment will result in a 5 point deduction from your participation score as well as a zero for the assignment.

Length: 600 words or more

You can choose from one of the following assignment options:

Assignment#1: Ethnographic Paper

Conduct an observation at a place or an event and write about it in terms of what we have learned in this class. Imagine that you are a sociologist as you do this observation(s) and think about the sociological significance of what you are observing.

You are expected to think about your observations in terms of what we have learned in class thus far. In order to demonstrate your learning, write about your observation in terms of at least two reading we have done this semester.

Assignment#2 If I Were a Sociologist Paper

Imagine that you are going to be a sociologist and do research somewhere in the United States. Choose a social problem or a phenomenon that interests you and explain who you would study, why, and where.

For this paper you will need to use outside sources to help support your research plan, you will also need to use at least two readings we have done in class to help explain the methods you will use.

Bibliography Guidelines:

You must cite sources using Chicago style formatting. Your bibliography should include the author’s name, year of publication, and publisher. For example:

Benedict, Ruth. "The Individual and the Pattern of Culture." In Readings for a History of Anthropological Theory 2nd Edition, by Paul A. Erickson and Liam D. Murphy, 130-143. Ontario: Broadview Press, 2006.

Geertz, Clifford. “Thick Description,” in The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books, 1973.

Stack, Carol. All Our Kin: Strategies for Survival in a Black Community. New York: Harper, 1975.

When you write about books, the book title should be italicized. Mention titles of articles in quotes. Use in-text citations with page numbers (Geertz 1973, 25).

Always put a page number in parentheses after a quote.

General Guidelines

Use Microsoft Word to write your paper.

DO NOT use Works. I cannot open Works attachments. If I cannot open your attachment, you will receive a zero for the assignment.

Use your spell check function on your computer and proofread carefully. 

Consult this funny comic for a list of commonly misspelled words: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/misspelling

Whenever you want to write about individuals or people in a general way, use the term “when an individual” or “when a person” never use, “when you.” Although we do this in spoken English, it is incorrect in a formal paper.

Do not use contractions.

Do not use colloquialisms. For example, “the people in Stack’s book were broke,” is incorrect. Instead, use “The individuals in Stack’s book live below the poverty line.” 

Whenever you write about literature, always use the present tense. Even if the book was written a hundred years ago, literature is a living entity so you should discuss it as though it were happening now.

Do not begin a paragraph with a quote. Quotes are great to use, but not in place of topic sentences.

Always use the active tense. Instead of saying, “the ball was hit by the bat,” you want to say, “the bat hit the ball.”

NEVER USE words like "thing," "something," or "stuff" in your papers. They are vague and non-descriptive. Use a dictionary or a thesaurus (dictionary of synonyms) to find a precise word to use instead.

NEVER BEGIN a sentence with a coordinating conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so). These are connectors found WITHIN a sentence and they join two equal parts of the sentence (N + N, Clause + Clause).  To begin a sentence with a word that has the same meaning, use a TRANSITION WORD.   

DO NOT PREVIEW. Do not explain what you are going to do in the essay with sentences that begin with "in this paper, I will talk about" or similar clauses.  All of your sentences should contain direct information, not description of what you plan to discuss.

DO NOT use conversational language in your writing. Academic writing is, by definition, formal and should not include slang or idiomatic expressions.

DO NOT use metaphors or clichés.  

DO NOT ask questions in your writing.  Your reader cannot answer them.  

NEVER plagiarize (ie. copy phrases or sentences directly from a source).  Even one example of plagiarism in a paper may earn the student a ZERO on that assignment. 

DO NOT use "and so on," "and so forth," "etc." or ellipses (...) at the end of your sentences.

Paragraphs should be well-structured (topic sentence, support sentences, concluding sentence) and CANNOT BE less than 5-6 sentences in length (except for the introduction and conclusion, which may be 2-4 sentences in length). 

Indent the first line of all paragraphs and observe a one-inch margin on BOTH the left and right-hand side of your pages.

Do not refer to an article as a “story.” The word story implies that it is fiction. Use the terms, “article” or “book” instead.

Feel free to refer to yourself in the first person “I.”

Do not use more than 2 quotes per paragraph.