Principles of Sociology Andrew Rollings, Ph.D.

Writing Assignment Expectations

These are my expectations when grading writing assignments in Principles of Sociology. When your graded assignments are returned, these expectations will appear as an attached grading rubric. The emphasis in these expectations is on thinking sociologically and analytically. While mastery of knowledge (information, facts, statistics, etc.) will be important in this course, the ability to consistently analyze questions, data, cases, examples, stories, etc. using a sociological perspective will have the most effect on your final grade.
Note: Writing assignments may be phrased either as questions or essay tasks. To simplify matters in the discussion below Ill treat assignments as if they always phrased as questions.

Basic Expectations
1. Relevant, complete, and accurate answers 2. Good organization 3. Logical, well-constructed analysis 4. Use of sociological concepts, ideas, and knowledge

EXPECTATION #1: RELEVANT, COMPLETE, AND ACCURATE ANSWERS

Relevant = Answer the question(s) asked Lower grade when: Answer not focused on the question(s) asked, answer not germane to question(s) asked, answer doesnt properly match the question(s)

Complete = Answer all parts of the question(s) Lower grade when: Accurate = Correct answer Lower grade when: Wrong answer, answer shows interpretation of the question wide of the mark Incomplete answer, partial answer, missed answering parts of the question, answers to parts of the question are skimpy

Relevance, completeness, and accuracy are minimal requirements. You can not get a better grade by being more relevant, complete, or accurate but your grade can suffer if you fall short of these minimal expectations. Beyond these minimal requirements, breadth and depth of your answer can lead to above-average grades. Questions usually imply multiple topics. The more topics you can cover in your answer, the broader you answer and potentially the better your grade. The more you drill down into any one topic, the deeper you answer, improving your chances for a better grade.

EXPECTATION #2: GOOD ORGANIZATION

Organization refers to the mechanics of your answer paragraph construction, paragraph transition, whole essay flow, grammar, spelling, and punctuation. For the most part I will not lower your grade for bad grammar, spelling, or punctuation, unless its really bad. The focus of my attention will be on your paragraph construction/transition and the overall logical flow of your answer. Paragraphs with clear topic sentences supported by the paragraph body are the building blocks of organization. Make sure you break you essays into logical paragraphs. Long, run-on essays with few or no paragraph breaks will tend to get a lower grade. Youll know this if you see lots of marks like this when you get your essays returned. There should be good transitions between paragraphs so that each follows from the one before and flows into the one following. The overall flow of the paragraphs should support the overall explanatory structure

Principles of Sociology - Writing Assignment Expectations

of the essay. The logical order of the paragraphs should be so clear I could easily summarize the essay into a hierarchical outline which I often do and this outline should summarize the thrust of your explanations. Each paragraph should play a role in the overall essay; there should not be any irrelevant or unnecessary paragraphs.
Suggestion: Since Ill be looking for an outline-type structure in your answers, you might try outlining your answer before writing it.

Like relevance, completeness, and accuracy (expectation #1), good organization is a minimal requirement. It is expected so you dont get a higher grade for good organization, just a lower grade for poor organization. You can shoot for a higher grade by going beyond the mechanics towards essays that are original, creative, and have literary merit.

CONCEPT OF THE RAPID READER

Imagine you're writing for a rapid (even lazy) reader, the norm in professional communications where people (bosses, clients, customers, regulators, administrators, etc.) dont have the time to read slowly or even carefully. They must read very quickly. Since they dont have the time or incentive to work out what you're saying, your ideas, etc. must be clearly and logically stated. If not, theyll be ignored, rejected, misunderstood, etc. For our purposes this means a lower grade. Rapid readers have very low levels of frustration, so you must help them by making it as easy as possible to follow your analysis and arguments. Lead them by the hand, step by step. Imagine them walking through a garden. Each of your sentences, paragraphs, and paragraph transitions is a stepping stone they must follow. The rapid reader should be able to clearly see the stones and follow them easily through the trees, bushes, and flowers. Rapid readers get easily lost and give up pretty quickly. Clearly lay out your logic in an easy-to-follow form. Make it very apparent. Dont make them assume anything or work very hard. Dont make them guess or have to fill things in or figure things out. Remember they're lazy, distracted, and very short on time. Provide verbal and visual clues. Short, clear, and focused sentences and paragraphs. Easy clear paragraph transitions. Section, headers, bullets, etc. No extra verbiage. Focus and clarity. Get to the point quickly. No long introductions. Summarize frequently. Short focused conclusions.

EXPECTATION #3: WELL-CONSTRUCTED ANALYSIS

Expectations #1 and #2 are basic and elementary. Satisfying them won't get you a good grade but you must satisfy them to get a good grade. In other words, they're necessary but not sufficient. On the other hand, Expectation #3 will have major impact on your grade. Analysis is simply taking things apart to see what they're made of, putting them back together as multidimensional objects, and using these reassembled things to explain why stuff happens in the world. Analysis has three phases (or steps) Identification, Description, and Explanation. Now actual analysis doesnt really occur as three discrete, sequential steps. In real world analysis these phases get mixed together. The discussion here is an analysis of analysis, not a concrete description of how analysis actually occurs. Lets quickly skim through all three phases and then come back to add some detail to each one. Identification Analysis starts by identifying the units making up some event, behavior, outcome, situation, etc. Units are the things, objects, entities, items, etc. making up the world. Examples of sociological units would include groups, organizations, communities, networks, persons, social classes, schools, families, categories, workplaces, or situations.

Principles of Sociology - Writing Assignment Expectations

When doing your written assignments, you first need to identify the sociological units involved in the assignments problem or narrative. Description Units have properties. Properties are the qualities, features, or characteristics we use when describing and distinguishing a unit. For instance we could describe an ocean beach as being wide and flat with soft white sand, gentle, rolling waves and warm water. Analytically the beach has four properties: sand texture, contour, wave quality, and water temperature. We can not only use these properties to generate a precise, detailed description of this beach but, more importantly, we can use them to compare this beach to other beaches and develop generalizations. Description deconstructs solid objects into analytical properties and then reassembles them using those properties, going from simple, surface descriptions to in-depth, multidimensional descriptions. During the written assignments you're expected to break down units into their sociological properties. Explanation Using cause-and-effect logic, the goal of analysis is to understand how the world works, why things happen and under what conditions, why specific outcomes occur and not others. Understanding means accounting for outcomes or effects by identifying and describing causes and showing in detail the mechanisms through which the cause brings about the outcome or effect. All explanations have the same basic form: What explaining with Cause Conditions What is being explained Effect Outcome

The arrow indicates some mechanism(s), link(s), or process(es) connecting the Explaining-With to the Explained. These mechanisms, etc. transfer causal power from properties in the Explaining-With to properties of the Explained. Explanations show how specific properties of the cause trigger (generate) specific properties in the effect. During written assignments you expected to use sociological concepts to produce logical, wellconstructed explanations that answer the assignments question(s) or complete the assignments tasks. When successful, analysis identifies the conditions, mechanisms, processes, factors, properties, features, etc. which create (generate) what is being explained. In this class analysis should clearly demonstrate how social conditions, etc. [what is being used to explain] are linked to and account for social outcomes, life chances, behavior patterns, social structure, etc. [what is being explained].
Some examples of sociological mechanisms, processes, etc.: socialization, social control, group pressure, gendering, deviance, discrimination, division of labor, labeling, institutionalization, selfidentity, norms, ethnocentricism

If you do a good job (and therefore deserve a higher grade), I should be able to easily reconstruct your analytical logic as a series of connected statements that adequately account for the outcome. Usually A Very Rough Grading Rubric Better grades will be given to essays that provide better, deeper, more detailed, more complex, and more logical analysis, especially if analysis involving the use of sociological concepts and ideas and are supported by facts, data, evidence, and/or comparative cases and examples.

Principles of Sociology - Writing Assignment Expectations

Lower grade when:

No analysis Weak (shallow, skimpy) analysis Analysis lacking sociological concepts or ideas Analysis that dont hold up logically

While identification and description are important, explanation is a higher-order skill. Given that we can construct a rough grading rubric for analytical skills. F-level grade D-level grade C-level grade B-level grade A-level grade Missing assignment Irrelevant answer Missing parts of the answer Poor analysis or no analysis Description but little or no explanation Very good in-depth description with some steps towards explanation Strong, multidimensional descriptions with logical, in-depth explanation

While the actual grading rubric used the writing assignments will more complex, it will certainly incorporate this rubric.

EXPECTATION #4: USE OF SOCIOLOGICAL CONCEPTS AND IDEAS

Since this is a sociological course, the content of your answers or essays should hinge on using sociological concepts and ideas, using the right ones, using them correctly, and, most importantly, using them analytically. The more concepts you use, the better your chance for a good grade, as long as you use them analytically. The more sophisticated and advanced you use concepts to analyze and explain, the better your chances for a higher grade. Even if you dont use the actual words, your grade improves when your ideas are couched in a sociological form or express sociological ways of thinking and analyzing. The more you use concepts and ideas to make generalizations and distinctions and describe patterns and regularities, the better your chances for a higher grade. Lower grade when: Little or no use of sociological concepts or ideas Wrong ones used or used incorrectly Shallow use, i.e., used just as labels with little evidence the writer understands their meaning and little integration of the concept(s) into the larger discussion (see discussion immediately below on analysis)

This is a sociological course so the preponderance of your concepts and ideas should be sociological and not common-sense notions or concepts from other disciplines, especially psychology (with its tendency towards individualistic analysis and explanations). That doesnt mean you can never use common-sense notions or concepts from other disciplines, but their use should be subordinate and minimized compared to the use of sociological concepts and ideas. You can get extra credit (and hence a better grade) if you can link sociological concepts/ideas to those in other disciplines or show the sociological content implied in common-sense notions. Better grades will be given for answers that move beyond a focus on individuals to a focus on sociological units of analysis, such as group, status/role, organization, institution, society, network, culture, community, interaction ritual, etc. Show you understand the properties of sociological units and can think and analyze in terms of such units and youll be well on the way to a higher grade.

Principles of Sociology - Writing Assignment Expectations

GOING DEEPER INTO ANALYSIS

Above we skimmed through the phases of analysis, lets go back over the same territory and add some detail and depth. Identification [A] Dont make the mistake of thinking that individuals are the main (or only) units in sociological analysis. Sociological units include such supraindividual units as groups, organizations, families, networks, societies, etc. and analytical units such as social classes, situations, systems, occupations, populations etc. Typical sociological units include: Dyad Group Category Organization Family Network Society Occupation Institution Class Situation Setting System Population Community

[B] Get used to looking for units at different levels of reality, Units can run from small to big, micro to macro, close to far away. Micro units (small, close) are individuals and small groups; they are faceto-face interactions, local interactions in small group settings, and interactions taking place in relatively short periods of time. We can easily observe micro units. They are what makes up our everyday reality. Macro units (big, far away) are societies, cities, communities, corporations, organizations, and social classes; they are large, grand scale units and the units that make up history. We read about and hear about these units but dont really experience them directly. They shape our destiny but also seem to live beyond our daily, mundane world. They make up the environment and context of our daily lives. Description [A] Properties are the features that make a unit what it is, its shape or anatomy. Properties are abstract and conceptual, not real. We create them for the purposes of analysis and they exist only within analytical discussions. Here are some examples of units and their properties: Units Family Car College class Community Retail store Cell phone Election Some Possible Properties Size, marital status, number of children, parents education level, income, type of residence Horsepower, weight, type (coupe, sedan, SUV, etc.), price, miles per gallon, features (GPS, stereo, cup holders) Group size, duration, frequency, gender ratio, academic subject, % time spent in discussion Poverty rate, crime rate, housing values, school dropout rate, % paved roads, value of commercial property, park acreage Square feet, daily sales, type of products sold, number of employees, payroll, location, number of cash registers Type (flip, slider, etc.), weight, thickness, features, service provider, color, accessories Voter turnout, type, cost, number of candidates

Principles of Sociology - Writing Assignment Expectations

[B] Science talks about analytical properties as variables (the different ways a unit can vary) and scores (measures) on those variables. For instance, a desk can be measured on such variables as width, height, weight, material, and color. A specific desk might score as 30, 60, wood, and brown. Other desks could score differently so that each desks set of scores would represent its unique identity as a unit. Conversely, different desks could score the same representing a class or category of desks with similar anatomy. [C] Analytical description allows comparison and contrast (similarity/difference) between different examples of the same unit. Now we can distinguish a crappy beach from a beautiful one by comparing/ contrasting them on sand texture, contour, wave quality, and water temperature. Even more powerfully we could investigate a sample of potential beaches using these properties and preemptively distinguish beautiful from crappy ones, thus saving us the heartbreak of wasting time at crappy ones and maximizing our time at beautiful ones. Performing such comparisons based on analytical properties is a basic skill any college-educated person should be able to do. Analytical descriptions are the basis of generalizations. Units with similar properties (white sand and wide and flat) can be grouped together into classes or categories and compared/contrasted with other categories of beaches (course sand and narrow). Other properties of the class or category can be investigated and analyzed, e.g., location, surrounding geography, etc. Maybe we find that generally sandy, wide beaches are found on coastal plains while rocky, narrow ones are in terrain where mountains and the ocean meet. [D] Analytical description is one of the foundations and starting points for explanation. Explanations are based on identifying relations between properties of the cause (antecedent conditions) and the properties of the effect (outcome). The basic model is that properties of the cause trigger off properties in the effect such that a certain state of being in the cause (a certain scores on variables of the cause) will result in a predictable state of being (resulting scores) in the effect. Therefore, accurate, in-depth identification and analysis of analytical properties is essential to explanation. [E] All semester long you will learn sociological analysis. Clues, guidance, hints, and explicit knowledge about sociological properties will be presented in the concepts, ideas, and knowledge reviewed in the textbook and class lectures. Explanation [A] Explanations spell out in some detail how the world works, how and why things happen in the world. They reveal how things in the world are connected together; how events in one part of the world impact events in another part of the world; the specific conditions under which things happen and dont happen. Explanations specify the mechanisms or processes connecting the Explaining-With to the Explained and how these mechanisms or processes transfer causal power from properties the Explaining-With to the Explained. Causal power = trigger off, generate, bring about, produce, responsible for changes in the effect, responsible for how the effect appears. Some examples of explanations:
Note: These examples are just bare sketches of the kind of explanations you'll be expected to produce. Also to save space and increase readability they are written as simple outlines whereas you'll be expected to present them in full prose (sentences, paragraphs, etc.) with detailed information.

High poverty rate High crime rate: Communities with a high poverty rate tend to cause a high crime rate because (a) Lower housing values lower tax income less school funding lower quality schools less job skills low opportunity in labor market openness to nonlegitimate avenues of action (b) Hopelessness and frustration openness to non-legitimate avenues of action (c) Middle-class families leaving the community fewer positive role models weak socialization openness to non-legitimate avenues of action.

Principles of Sociology - Writing Assignment Expectations

Main unit = Community. Other units: Individuals and Families (a), (b), and (c) = specification of the causal mechanisms translating poverty into crime. Notice the micromechanisms specified in a, b, and c Higher inter-group conflict Higher prejudice: Economic competition between ethnic or racial groups leads to inter-group hostility. Hostility motivates strong in-group bonding along with strong negative views of out-groups. Negative views harden into prejudices. High exposure to TV Higher aggression: Children who watch more hours of TV tend to be more aggressive in their behavior because (a) TV watching reduces attention span which leads to lower coping skills (b) TV content presents violent images and more exposure to such images makes violent behavior seem normal and expected (c) watching TV means less social contact which stunts social skills and makes people less sensitive to others Unit = children Lower income High divorce rate: Couples with lower income tend to have higher divorce rates because (a) Low income leads to conflict and fights and eventually such conflict destroys the marital bond (b) Low income individuals tend to have low education levels which usually means low coping skills with which to resolve marital conflict Unit = couples (spouses) [B] Causality = Specified level (score) of one or more properties in the cause creates (generates) a level of one or more properties in the effect. For instance in the first example above, high poverty rate triggers off a high crime rate high in the cause generates high in the effect. Another way of saying this: If we see high in poverty rate, then we should see high in crime rate. Explanations commonly have this if., then logic (also described as a because., therefore logic). The language of science labels causes as independent variables and effects (or outcomes) as dependent variables. So scientifically we would say causality is when a specific independent variable score tends to create a specific score on the dependent variable. This relationship between independent and dependent scores is known as the direction of the relationship. Direct relationship: Score on dependent variable goes in the same direction as the score on the independent variable If the independent variable is high, then the dependent variable is high If the independent variable is low, then the dependent variable is low Inverse relationship: Score on the dependent variable goes in the opposite direction as the score on the independent variable If the independent variable is high, then the dependent variable is low If the independent variable is low, then the dependent variable is high. Scientifically an hypothesis is a statement about the possible direction (and perhaps strength) of the relationship between the independent and dependent variables. For instance, a hypothesis might state: When the tax rate goes down, the differences in health outcomes between middle and lower class individuals gets worse. (direct relationship: independent variable [tax rate] down = decline in dependent variable [differentials in health outcomes].) [C] Even though the examples above are presented in the basic form of Explaining-With Explained, with the arrow indicating mechanism(s) or process(es) by which the cause triggers off the effect, notice

Principles of Sociology - Writing Assignment Expectations

much of the time the arrow really indicates a chain of causes linked together by the same logic of mechanism(s), etc. generating effects. Each prior term is a cause generating an effect, with that effect then becoming a cause which generates the next effect (the next link in the chain), and so on. It is common for causality to be chained in this way. When answering the writing assignments you should try and capture at least some of the causal chains involved. Causal chains mean some causes are proximal while others a distal. Proximate causes are ones occurring near the effect, with nearness being either a spatial concept (in the nearby vicinity) or a temporal one (occurring just before the effect). Distal causes occur far away in either space or time. [D] Causes often branch into channels. For instance in the first example above: Poverty crime has three channels channel a runs through school, channel b is a psychological/emotional channel, and channel c runs through role modeling and socialization. Often causal analysis must identify and describe such complex, multiple causal influences. [E] Causal explanations rely on the same comparison/contrast logic as description, except now instead of differentiating units according to their properties, causal analysis compares different conditions or situations to find out when an effect or outcome does and doesnt happen. Why did this happen here and not there? Why now and not then? Why this outcome under these conditions and not those? Why does it happen to this unit and not that kind of unit? For instance: Compare communities with different socioeconomic profiles (e.g., affluent neighborhood, lower middle class community, and poor neighborhood) to see which one has the highest crime rate Compare families at different income levels (rich poor) to find out which ones have the highest divorce rates Compare college classes by size (number of students) to see which ones have highest discussion rates This approach can be flipped around Start with an effect or outcome and see how the conditions or situations in which it occurs differ from the conditions or situations surrounding other effects or outcomes, Start with high crime communities and see how their conditions differ from communities with lower crime rates Start with divorced families and see whats different in them compared to intact families [F] Causal explanations in sociology usually involve environmental effects, i.e., the causal impact of the situation, setting, or context on individuals, small groups, or organizations. Environmental effects are causes coming from the outside, as contrasted with causes coming from the inside (inside = some property or properties of the smaller unit, i.e., the individual, group, or organization).
For instance: When the economy goes sour (recession), many individuals decide not to attend college in the Fall
Economic environment has causal effect on individual decisions State of economy = supraindividual property; college attendance decision = property of individual

Individuals from poorer families tend to have more mental health problems
Poverty = property of the family; mental health = individual property

Principles of Sociology - Writing Assignment Expectations

On a macro level sociological explanations focus on the relations between and causal influences between supraindividual units, such as the effects of institutions on organizations or the effects of communities on institutions. It is not unusual for individuals to be completely missing from sociological explanations. Another way of saying this, it is not unusually for sociological explanations to only refer to supraindividual units and not the individuals who make them up.
For instance: As income rises in a community or society, church attendance drops
Inverse relation (income up = attendance down) Income level and rate of church attendance = properties of supraindividual units

Democratic institutions tend to reduce class conflict in a society

Level of democracy and level of class conflict both = properties of the society

Get used to thinking in terms of supraindividual units, environmental effects, and context. Get used to thinking in terms of relations between supraindividual units. Get used to thinking in terms of relations, instead of essences (essence = stable, unchanging properties of individuals, such as personality traits, that individuals carry around from situation to situation; relations = dynamic properties of the connections or transactions between people). Get used to thinking in terms of macro units and their relations. [G] Explanations are logical accounts (or narratives) of how causes create (generate) effects or, flipped around, logical accounts of which causal conditions tend to be associated with effects or outcomes. You will be asked to provide such accounts in the writing assignments. All semester long youll be learning about sociological explanations in the concepts, theories, ideas, and knowledge reviewed in the textbook and class lectures. Explanations in your writing assignments should be logically structured, with each step in the causal chain clearly spelled out and logically connected to what comes before and after. It should be easy to reconstruct your explanations as an outline or an input-output diagram. In fact, Ill often use both of those techniques when grading assignments. Easily reconstructed explanations get better grades.

ANALYTICAL ATTITUDE
College-educated people think analytically. Professors look for the trait. More importantly, so do employers. In Introduction to Sociology you are expected to think and speak analytically by seeing, describing, and explaining your world using sociological concepts. Unfortunately, although it is an important college-level skill and assumed in all academic work, professors usually dont talk much about analytical thinking and rarely is it taught as an academic subject. Hopefully this modest guide can fill in some gaps. At a minimum, this guide teaches you the language of analysis, but hopefully it does more and guides you about the logic of analysis. First, it examines how to do analytical work in general and then how to be analytical in sociology. Second, it gives you some practical tips on how to think and communicate analytically in this course and generally in college-level courses. What does it mean to think analytically? How is analytical thinking different from everyday thinking? It means seeing the world through the lens of concepts; in our case, sociological concepts. Everyday thought focuses on practical tasks. We generally just accept things as they appear, unless there is a specific reason to question or distrust them. Then we only question things to get an answer to our immediate, practical problem. Analytical thought focuses on the underlying mechanism producing the appearance of things. Rather than just accepting things as they appear, analytical thought assumes different workings of that mechanism could produce a different world. Analytical thought requires us to stop the flow of everyday experience, step back, and continuously question how things came to be the way they are and how they might be different.

Principles of Sociology - Writing Assignment Expectations

Approaching a doorway in an everyday way would require no more thought than it takes to reach out, grasp the doorknob, and open the door. Analytically we would have to stop and ask such things as: Why is there a door here? Does the door have to be wood? Couldnt it be metal or plastic? Why does it swing in? Why doesnt it swing out, and why to the right? Is this the best weight to strength ratio? Could we make it thinner and still have sufficient strength? Why a doorknob? Couldnt it be a switch .. Notice that from an everyday viewpoint, analytical thought resembles obsessive mental illness. Analysis asks you to go beyond what you believe or have experienced. It asks you to suspend everyday acceptance of the world. When thinking analytically, you take what you know or have experienced and break it down, compare it, run mental experiments, develop hypotheses, and test those hypotheses. Then you reconstruct the world using analytical concepts, comparison, evidence, and logical argument. The purpose of this hard, obsessive work is to get behind your everyday encounter with the world and see the often invisible causal forces that produce the world as we know it and could produce a different world than we know everyday. Concepts are the foundation of analysis. Concepts are words or phrases we use to explain how we think the world works. They describe abstract properties, forces, relations, dynamics, dimensions, processes, etc. we believe create the world as we know it.

PRACTICAL MATTERS
Analytical Attitude and Personal Opinion: As a general rule you should NOT express personal opinion in your answers or couch your answer as personal opinion. Phrases such as I think, I believe., I feel, etc. should not appear in your answers. Frankly I dont really care about your opinion. What I do care about (and what Ill evaluate you on) is your ability to think analytically and sociologically. In fact, the word I should rarely, if ever, appear in your answers. Answer in the third-person passive using analytical thinking and scientific concepts. Professional Writing and 3rd Person Voice An analytical, objective, passive third person voice is the norm in professional writing, although faculty in the English department would probably be horrified by this assertion. Experienced professional writers can be more creative than just the passive 3rd person but you need to learn to crawl first before you can walk or run. You, your experiences, your beliefs, your viewpoint, etc. should not be taken as the measure of things. Show you can move beyond your necessarily limited experiences and generalize using conceptual ideas. Your answers should be based on ideas, information, evidence, research, knowledge, theories, etc. learned in this course (and others). You should be able to step out of yourself bracket your ego, beliefs, experiences, etc. and base your conclusions on a body of culturally-stored knowledge. Length The expected length of an answer to a writing assignment will be approximately 1800 2700 words (4 6 pages double-spaced with normal margins and 10 point font). While double spacing isnt required, it does make it easier for me to give feedback. Theres good news and challenging news in this length expectation. The good news is each assignment is relatively short, only a couple or few pages. The challenge is that you must complete the assignment in that length. Keeping it to that length requires a well-organized, well-thought out analysis if you want a decent grade.

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Principles of Sociology - Writing Assignment Expectations

Headings, Subheadings, and Divisions While it is NOT mandatory to use in the assignments, sections, with headings or subheadings, can be a very powerful method of organizing your answer. This is a common practice in professional writing. It greatly helps the rapid reader see and understand the logic of your writing and requires you, the writer, to organize your answer in a logical, clear fashion. Recommendation Prepare a structured outline of your answer before writing. Use the main points and subpoints as the sections and subsections of your answer. Bullet Points Using great caution and using them very judiciously and strategically, the use of bullets and bulleted lists is allowed in these assignments, although be aware they can easily overused and used incorrectly, both of which can lower your grade. The use of bullets is a common practice in professional writing because they can improve readability by making the texts structure more visible than it would be in plain prose, thus helping the rapid reader, and removing duplication in a sequence of sentences. For lots of advice about using bullets and formatting them, google use bullets writing. Introductions and Conclusions You dont have to write an introduction to your answers, just get right into the meat of the assignment. If you just can't do it without writing an introduction then make it short, dont repeat the assignment instructions, and use it to preview what you're going to do. Similarly you dont need to write a conclusion. If you feel the need, make it short, review what youve said, and dont go offering personal opinions. If you really want to practice an advanced skill, try putting the conclusion at the beginning. (Huh!) In professional writing this is known as an Executive Summary and appears at the top of the report, memo, etc. and gives the reader an overview of what the report, etc. says. Footnotes and Bibliography No need for formal footnotes or bibliography. While they are the standard in academic writing, they're rarely used in professional writing. Citations and Quotes The use of citations is important for assignments with additional readings where you are asked to use information from those readings to complete the assignment. In those cases the citations should be very simple, just the name of the article (even a shortened version of the name) and the page number where the information can be found. For instance, suppose you had to read an article titled The Code of the Street and on page two of the article it discussed why wearing bling is an important cause of violence. In your answer you might write a sentence such as: Wearing fancy, expensive jewelry, shoes, etc. is an important symbol of status in the neighborhood. The wearer is sending a message that Im tough enough to wear this stuff in public. But of course any such symbol can always be, and often is, challenged, even violently. The wearer of bling has to constantly be on guard for any challenge and constantly has to show he is tough enough to protect his display. (Code, 2) Thats all you need to do, put the name of the article and the page in parentheses following sentence(s) where you make your point or state your fact. Citations in these assignments simply signal to the reader (the professor) that youve read and understood the assigned readings and that your conclusions are supported by information found in the assigned readings. They also allow the reader (professor) to verify your answer. Supported answers will get a better grade. Dont go overboard and cite everything, but also be careful to support your

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Principles of Sociology - Writing Assignment Expectations

descriptions, arguments, analysis, etc. when needed with information from assigned readings. Strike a balance! You may also want to cite material from the course textbook or lecture, showing the reader youve read the text (or listened to the lectures) and can link your assignment answer to this material. Direct quotations should be avoided or used very sparingly. Ideas, conclusions, arguments, findings of fact, etc. should be written in your words. Collaboration Since these are take-home assignments, its OK to collaborate with other students in the class when completing them. In fact it is encouraged. Your final completed assignment should be your own, written in your words, but collaborating on reading the articles, analyzing the assignment, sharing ideas, etc. is more than OK. Think about it, how would I know, so long as you produce a unique product in your own words? Prewriting While NOT mandatory, you can probably improve your grade by separating the acts of thinking and writing. Think first, then write. Think on paper by outlining (or brainstorming, mind mapping, etc.) your answer to the assignment. Revise the outline. Use the revised outline as your blueprint for writing. The order of main points in the outline should tell you the order of your paragraphs, and the content of the main points should be a short summary of the topic sentence of each paragraph.

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