Semester Project Assignment Sheet
Sociology 205: Social Problems
The largest parts of your grade for the course will come from a 10-12 page research paper and the four graded steps that will guide you through this process. These steps, along with the collaboration of your fellow classmates, your professor, and external resources at the college — such as the Library and the Writing Center — should prove helpful along the way. If you have never written a 10-12 page research paper before then the length may seem daunting, but it is perhaps best to think of this as two 5-6 page papers brought together in the middle. Further, these assignments and resources should walk you through and ease the process so long as students keep up with the project’s steps, do their part along the way, and ask for help as needed.
The overall format of the project will be to select a social problem (as defined in Lesson 1 on D2L), become familiar with the scientific literature and research on that project, and then propose viable solutions to the problem. The first half of your final paper (5-6 pages) will explain the social problem, its social context, and the current research related to the problem; including using and citing a minimum of 5 scientific research articles to inform your position on the problem. The second half of your final paper will focus on devising a solution or set of solutions to ameliorate the problem, as well as discuss the sociopolitical implications and complications of solving the problem (process, implementation, funding, who wins/loses, support and opposition, etc.). The “high points” of the content for each “half” of the paper are outlined in Step 2: Semester Project Worksheet, and advice for content and style can be found in The Guide to Writing Successful Semester Projects.
This Assignment Sheet outlines each step of the project in brief, with more detailed instructions provided along the way.
Step 1: Readiness Quiz
This quiz in D2L will be over “The Guide to Writing Successful Semester Projects” (hereafter, “the Guide”), the “Library Guide,” and “Lesson 1,” which can all be found in the Content section of the D2L course website. Performance on this quiz will also be used to make referrals to a Librarian or the Writing Center as necessary.
Step 2: Semester Project Worksheet
Most of the essential questions that your final paper should cover are asked on this worksheet. The answers that you turn in for this grade should be relatively brief, but wise students will continue to add information to this sheet throughout the research and writing process after this grade is submitted until the final paper is completed.
Step 3: Abstract & Outline
You will have read several research articles for your project by this point, each of which will likely begin with an “Abstract,” or brief overview (usually 1 paragraph), of the entire article. For this assignment you will write an Abstract as well as an Outline for your final paper, which you will share on the course discussion boards set up for this purpose.
Step 4: Abstract Responses & Collaboration
For this step you will be required to respond substantively to at least two other students’ Abstracts and Outlines, offering sincere advice or insights, asking questions to help guide thinking about the work, provide citations for useful sources that the author may find helpful, etc.
Step 5: Semester Project Final Paper
10-12 Pages of Content (does not include title page or works cited list), double-spaced in 11pt Arial, Times New Roman, or Calibri font; properly formatted in APA style.
