Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Papers get submitted through Turnitin (Assignments tab in Owl). The site closes at 4 pm on the due date and
anything after that is five points off, and another for each day late (the turn point of each day is 4 pm).
Your final paper will be about 5 pages long. Double spaced Times New Roman font size 12. Reference pages
dont count toward the 5 pages. Include page numbers.
Please do not justify the text. Instead do align text left. That gives you a ragged edge on the right hand side
(the paragraphs will look like the ones in this handout), which is quicker to read than center-justified text.
Structure:
Introduction, where you lay out what you will do in the paper.
Body of the paper, logically organized with good flow between paragraphs (dont forget transitions).
Conclusion, where you tell me what you did in the paper and what any future directions or recommendations
might be that logically arise from what your discussion and analysis in the paper.
Please dont worry about the 3 paragraph body style paper, thesis statement, etc.
I dont want fancy, word-heavy, adjective-laden writing. I want a clear, easy-to-read paper with paragraphs and
sections put in an order that makes sense. You can use subheadings.
Papers are to be written individually, and any work that is not your own thought (textbook, Google search,
Wikipedia, other website, etc.) must be cited.
Citation:
Please cite all of your work. Do not copy papers or sections of papers from other classes, other students, books,
websites, etc. Turnitin will flag content that matches other students papers and other authors work and the
mark could be a 0 as a result.
Every single idea or piece of information that isnt yours needs a citation. If its a direct quote, put quote marks
around it and put the citation source in parentheses. If its a paraphrase, put the citation source right next to it in
parentheses. Here is an example:
Descartes and Kottak (2009) note that many parents consume a lot of media, but that they can feel
uncomfortable about admitting that. [That was the paraphrase] They state that despite their initial
denials that media affected them, many informants ended up discussing their own lives as indeed
influenced in some ways (Descartes & Kottak, 2009, pp. 73-74). [That was the direct quote]
And then you include a reference page like this at the end of the paper (APA style is best):
Reference list
Descartes, L., & Kottak, C. P. (2009). Media and middle class moms: Images and realities of work and family.
New York: Routledge.
White, J. M., Martin, T. F., & Bartolic, S. K. (2013). Families across the life course. Toronto: Pearson.
If you use a website, cite the author if you can tell who it is, and if not, just cite the web address as the author
(e.g., cracked.com) and put the whole thing in the reference list like this:
cracked.com (2015). Five things people dont understand about only children. http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-
things-people-dont-understand-about-only-children/.
[the above example isnt a perfect one because its easy to tell who the author of that particular piece is: its
right on the webpage, along with the date. But some websites dont have that.]
Heres another website example, of a page that has identifiable authors and a publication date:
Angeli, E., Wagner, J., Lawrick, E., Moore, K., Anderson, M., Soderland, L., & Brizee, A. (2010, May 5). General
format. Retrieved from http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/
Television shows need to be put in your reference list too. You can get episode information from a wiki site or
imdb.com or the network site. You reference them like this:
Writer, W. W. (Writer), & Director, D. D. (Director). (Date of publication). Title of episode [Television series episode]. In
P. Producer (Producer), Series title. City, state of origin: Studio or distributor. [try to find writer or director, its not
important if you cant find both]
Next, here is the paper assignment itself.
Think about the topics in our textbook and how they may connect to situations or circumstances youve
personally observed or experienced, whether in your own family, your extended family, or a friends family. If
you like, use aliases instead of peoples names. You can look up peer-reviewed journal articles too, if relevant
or if your book doesnt go into enough detail on your topic.
Please be aware that if you write about something that is illegal (a situation where a child has been or is being
endangered, for example) I may be required to file a report with authorities.
Structure
Introduction, where you identify the issue briefly and tell me what you will be doing in the paper
(roadmap).
Body, where you describe the issue more carefully and explain it, using the text. The last part of the
body is the extrapolation into the realm of public policy, law, institutional practice, etc.
Conclusion, where you summarize what you did in the paper and your recommendations.
Reference page, where you list in APA style your reference (probably just your textbook).
Reminder: analyzing from a social science perspective is different than making judgements or expressing
feelings, like our family has good morals, or he was a bad father. Analyzing means trying to interpret and
explain information. Your text is your analysis guide. Well practice this in class too.
The textbook obviously gets cited, like any other book would.
OR
Find an episode of a reality show that deals with families (Honey Boo Boo, Duck Dynasty, 19 Kids,
Kardashians, Real Housewives of Orange County, etc. etc. etc.). Use your book (and you can look up relevant
academic articles too, if relevant or if your book doesnt go into detail on a topic youre interested in) to discuss
and analyze the family and the episodes content.
Here are some questions that might be useful (but all of them wont apply to each and every type of episode,
and may be more logical in a different order, depending on your episode):
o What theories that weve learned about help explain what is going on in the family?
You can flip through the textbook and find a topic/theory that matches the episodes content closely and use that
to create your own discussion and analysis (like the family stress and violence chapter, the mate selection
chapter, etc.).
So what youll be doing in this paper is discussing the family in the episode, and also analyzing what youve
seen.
Analyzing from a social science perspective is different than making judgements or expressing feelings, like
this family has good morals, or he is a bad father. Analyzing means trying to interpret and explain
information. Your text is your analysis guide. Well practice this in class too.
The textbook obviously gets cited, like any other book would.