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Sociology 206: Sociology of Family Gettysburg College |
Spring, 2009 Jean L. Potuchek |
Term Paper
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The term paper provides an
opportunity for an in-depth exploration of the social causes, characteristics
or consequences of some particular aspect of families that interests you. The
paper should be built around a very specific research question that you are
trying to answer about the relationship between two variables. It may
be based entirely on library research, or it may combine your own original
data collection with library research. (Please note that original data
collection requires time and careful planning; if you want to do this kind of
research, you should begin research early and get my help with your research
design.) The final product should be about 14-16 pages long. The term paper is expected to be a
major, semester-long research effort and will be evaluated as such. Therefore,
it is essential that you choose a topic and get started early. In order to
help you in this regard and to provide you with regular help and feedback,
the term paper assignment is divided into several stages. General
instructions: All steps in this term paper assignment must be typed.
Although only the final paper will be graded, failure to submit any of the
earlier steps will result in penalty points being deducted from the final
term paper grade.
At this stage of the research
process, you need to identify the general topic area that you are interested
in researching. (The syllabus, the Table of Contents of the Ferguson reader
and the Handbook of Marriage and the Family, on reserve in the
library, are good places to get a sense of appropriate topic areas in family
sociology.) On this date, you will turn in a typed description (a word,
phrase or sentence) of your general topic and a bibliography of at least five
items that you can read to learn more about the issues of interest to
sociologists in that topic area. All sources in this preliminary bibliography
must be written by sociologists or published in sociological
journals. A review essay on your topic from either the Annual Review
of Sociology or the Handbook of Marriage and the Family is often a
good choice for one of your sources at this stage of your
research. It is important to think broadly at this stage of the
process; don’t try to narrow down your topic.
I will then meet with you individually to help you further narrow your
topic and define your research question.
The purpose of this conference is
to help you narrow down your topic and search for appropriate sources. You should read most of your preliminary
sources before this conference.
By now, you should have read
several general sources and research articles about your topic area and used
that information to help you formulate a specific, narrowly defined question
as a focus for your own research. The purpose of your paper will be to come
to some conclusion about this research question by systematically assessing
the available evidence. On this date, you will turn in a typed page (or two)
with your clearly delineated research question (one sentence, in the form of
a question) at the top, an indication of whether you are planning to answer
your question through library research alone or through a combination of
original research and library research, and a bibliography of at least twenty
items that will help you to answer that question. At least ten of these
twenty items must be articles from sociological journals. Bibliographies must be in a standard
bibliographic format (preferably ASA style).
The purpose of this conference is
to help you think about what you have learned about your research question
and how you might organize that information in your term paper. By the time of this conference, you should
have read more than half of the sources in your bibliography.
You will submit two drafts of your
paper. I will not grade the first draft; rather, I will write extensive
comments on it. These comments will be designed to help you clarify your
argument and to revise and rewrite your paper. This will provide you with an
opportunity to receive extensive feedback on your paper prior to
receiving a grade. (Note: You should plan to spend considerable time
revising your paper after you have received comments on your first draft.
This will be the final, polished product of your
semester-long research effort. If you spend time and effort on each step of
the research process, you will learn a great deal and will end up with a
paper to be proud of.
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