Sociological Research and Theories

Purpose The purpose of this assignment is for you to conduct actual sociological research, use sociological theory and practice your written communication skills to share what you’ve learned about how sociology applies to how people interact.

Skills In this assignment you will practice the following skills that are essential to your success in this course, in school and in professional life beyond school:

1. Communicate your ideas effectively in writing
2. Demonstrate that you can take what you’ve learned in one setting and use it in another setting.
   Knowledge This assignment will also help you to become familiar with the
   following important content knowledge in this discipline:
3. How sociologists observe the social world and collect data about it
4. How sociologists analyze data they have collected
5. How to use what you’re learning in this course to analyze social interaction

Tasks

Part III-The Paper
For Part III of this assignment, you are writing a paper formatted in APA style that explains how the course concepts you’ve chosen help explain how people interacted while you were observing. The evidence for your argument will be examples from your fieldnotes.

Steps:

1. Review this sample Paper formatted in APA style, available in the paper 1 folder.
2. Review the rubric for Paper 1 in the Paper 1 Assignments folder so you can see how I will be grading your paper.
3. Using your chosen concepts and thesis statement, identify ways that you see these concepts illustrated in what you observed.
4. Draft a 5-6 page paper in which you explain how these concepts help explain how interactions you observed were structured. Construct an argument in which you convince your reader that these concepts apply to what you observed and then use examples from your fieldnotes to support your argument.
5. Be sure you are restating each course concept in your own words, then applying it.
6. Make sure your paper opens with a title page and abstract.
7. Make sure your paper includes an introduction and conclusion.
8. Consider swapping papers with a friend to check for clarity and typos.
9. Be sure that each course concept has an in-text citation in APA style. If you need help with how to do in-text citations and/or format a reference list in APA style, refer to this resource available through the Oakton library.
10. https://researchguides.oakton.edu/CiteItRight
11. Create a reference list in APA style. 12.Draft a title page and abstract.
    13.Submit your paper by the deadline to Assignments.
    Criteria for Success
    This rubric, available in the Paper 1 Assignments folder outlines criteria for success for this paper.

Your paper must be a minimum of five double-spaced pages (not counting the title page and the abstract) but may be as long as six pages and must include a clearly stated argument, an introduction & conclusion, and in-text citations and a works-cited page formatted according to APA style (which includes, among other things, a title page and abstract). Refer to the syllabus and to the SOC101 Grammar and Formatting Citation Contract in Assignments for additional guidelines for papers and make sure you follow each of these guidelines closely. Refer to the Paper 1 Assignments folder on D2L for a rubric for the paper.