WRITING ASSIGNMENT 1: COMPLETED. PLEASE REVIEW. Understanding writing assignment 1 and my research question is necessary to complete the other two writing assignments. Writing assignment 1 is attached to the email!
For Writing Assignment 1 your goal is to state a research question and explain why answering
this question is important. This initially posed research question will be the starting point for
developing a project you will work on for this class where you will collect and/or analyze
original data. The main goal of a research question is to orient and focus the work done in
planning a research project. Therefore, while the research questions selected can (and probably
will) evolve over the course of the semester, I will encourage you not to stray too far from the
original question.
The first part of the assignment is to simply state your idea for a research question. At first
glance, stating a research question may seem like a simple task. However, you need to struggle
with and think ahead about what type of project the research question will entail. Attempt to
write a research question that could be addressed through the efforts of an unexperienced
undergraduate student over the course of a semester during the time of a global pandemic. In
other words, it should (for example) not be so broad that a project designed to understand it
would take more than a lifetime to complete, nor require long-distance travel in order to address.
Preferably, it should be something you could address via the Internet, phone, or other
technology, such as conducting an online survey, a series of video or phone interviews, or
perhaps a structured collection of data from videos, websites, or digitized documents.
At the same time, you must guard against writing a research question that is so specific that
finding information related to the project will be difficult, or so simple that you can answer it
simply by looking up existing statistical information. Writing a research question that falls
between these extremes and is appropriate to the skill level and resources of the researchers is
difficult and takes practice. This assignment is intended to help you practice this skill, and I will
provide additional guidance if needed. The more thought you put into your question up front, the
easier your project will be down the road.
The second part of the assignment is to explain why finding an answer to the research question is
important. While it is not uncommon for people to want to research a question for personal
reasons, the broader public rarely cares about those types of reasons for doing research. You
should talk about both personal and more general reasons for interest in the question in this
assignment, but keep in mind that from here on out the focus of projects will be on non-personal
reasons as research typically focuses on the objective, general benefits of research and trying to
persuade others of the importance of that research. For example, if you were to want to do
research as part of your job, you would need to convince your supervisor and/or co-workers that
devoting your and/or their time to the project is worth it. Subjective reasons and personal
benefits are rarely persuasive. So, think about why or how people in general would benefit from
knowing the answer to this research question (which may or may not be related to reasons for
your own curiosity) and focus on those reasons in your explanation.
Examples of general inspirations for research questions:
• A perceived local, regional, national, or even global social problem (eg, Is this perceived
problem actually a problem? How informed are people about this problem? How can
people be effectively educated about this problem? Who is affected by this problem?
What exactly are the nitty-gritty details of this problem? Where is this problem most
commonly encountered? What do people believe are the best solution(s) to this problem?
What intervention(s) actually effectively prevent or alleviate this problem?)
• A public policy or set of public policy options (eg, How informed are people about this
public policy? How can people be effectively educated about this public policy? Who is
affected by this public policy? How would different policy options affect people
differently? Which public policy option(s) do people prefer? Why do people prefer
particular public policy options? What social problems do particular public policies
alleviate? What social problems do particular public policies create?)
• A little known or relatively new social group or social phenomenon (eg, How much do
people know about this group/phenomenon? What are people’s attitudes about this
group/phenomenon? Who is likely to identify with this group and/or participate in this
phenomenon? What do people who belong to this group/participate in this phenomenon
say about their experiences? Where and/or how does this group/phenomenon originate?
Where is it most likely to be found?)
• A local organization, such as a non-profit group, agency, business, or student club, that
might benefit from some type of sociological data or analysis (eg, What are people’s
attitudes about this organization? What are the experiences of the people who work
for/with this organization? Who partakes in this organization’s services/ products/
activities? Who is likely to benefit from this organization’s services/ products/ activities
but isn’t aware of them (and why)? When are this organization’s services or activities
most needed and/or utilized? How could this organization increase the effectiveness of
its services or activities? How could this organization broaden the appeal of its services
or activities?)
Formatting:
Research Writing Assignment 1 should be about 500 words in length. More or fewer words are
ok so long as you meet the expectations of the assignment. Refer to the General Formatting
Guidelines on the first page of the Appendix. If you include references, do not include a separate
reference sheet but simply list your references at the end of your paper.
What I’m looking for:
I want to see that you have a workable idea that you’ve thought about and are interested in. I
may modify the idea or make suggestions that come to mind concerning possible directions to
take in relation to the research questions. I encourage you to ask me questions about the
assignment, meet with me during office hours to discuss your ideas, and talk to your fellow
students about your ideas. They are probably thinking about the same types of problems as you.
WRITING ASSIGNMENT 2: NEEDED.
For Writing Assignment 2 your goal is to begin a formal review of the literature concerning your research question. The purpose of a literature review is to orient a research project in terms of the existing literature. Ultimately this means synthesizing the information you read in your sources, so you can apply it to your particular research question. You should not just summarize the information you read, but also analyze what is being said, including strengths and weaknesses of what is being presented as well as its applicability to your research question. While based on what you read, a literature review is mostly about your project. You’ll be using what you’ve read to strengthen or support your ideas or to show how your ideas differ from those that came before you.
Many people find it useful as a first step to create an annotated bibliography, which is a quick summary and evaluation of your sources. Information on writing an annotated bibliography can be found using this link (note the sidebar includes links to further discussion and examples) – https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/common_writing_assignments/annotated_bibliographies/index.html
However, your end goal (if not for this assignment for the final paper) is to create a literature review, not just an annotated bibliography. Literature reviews focus on connections between information in different sources – these might be such things as common themes, similarities and/or differences in theories or methods used, similarities and/or differences in populations/samples studied, similarities and/or differences in findings, etc. It does not have to be all of these things, but rather it depends on what stands out to you as important, interesting, and/or inspiring for your own research. Often literature reviews contain sub-headings (by topics/themes, theories, methods, social categories of interest such as race/class/gender/sexuality, education, religion, etc.) that can help you organize your thoughts and help your reader follow along. I encourage you to think about possible sub-headings and use them.
For this assignment, identify a combination of sources that matches one of the following mixes at a minimum: 4 journal articles OR 2 journal articles and 1 book OR 2 books. “Book” here means your use of the source references most or all of the text – an individual chapter such as from an edited volume is the equivalent of a journal article. “Journal articles” here refer to scholarly or scientifically reliable journals, not popular, journalistic, or trade publications. If you are unsure of the difference, a basic guide is available under “Content” on the D2L site. You are welcome to also include additional sources, including popular sources (magazine articles, newspaper articles, websites, etc), but popular sources will not count towards the minimum requirements.
PLEASE FEEL FREE TO USE SOME OF THE SAME SOURCES FROM THE TITLE IX PAPER. Please let me know if you need those sources again.
Also, this is another sociology course, so the same formatting you used such as breaking off into sections of “Theoretical framework” and so on in the other Sociology literature review works amazing here as well.
Citations/References:
ASA style in more depth – web.calstatela.edu/library/guides/3asa.pdf (APA also acceptable)
You need to cite your sources within the body of your paper and have “Works Cited” or “References” list at the end.
Formatting:
Refer to the General Formatting Guidelines on the first page of the Appendix in the syllabus. This paper should be about 1000-1250 words in length. More or fewer words are ok so long as you meet the expectations of the assignment. However, if you are only reviewing the minimum number of sources and you go way over 1250 words, you are probably including information not relevant for your current paper and/or overly reliant on summarizing. If you are well under 1000 words, you have probably not spent enough time evaluating the research and in particular explaining how the previous research connects with your team’s idea.
Real research protocols are quite detailed and explicit concerning data gathering and analysis. They lay out the exact procedures to be used for generating subjects or respondents, the exact questions to be asked or treatments to be conducted, the types of analyses expected to be done on the data, and all other research procedures (for large projects this might include things like the number of research assistants expected to be needed and/or a budget plan).
ASSIGNMENT 3: NEEDED.
For Writing Assignment 3 (and the Final Paper) I do not expect such a detailed account of your proposed research. What you should do for this paper is, first, choose a data collection method (surveys, in-depth interviews, field research, content analysis, or experiment) and explain why you think it is the best data collection method for your research question (this may include explaining why the other options aren’t as good).
I am doing a mass survey of all student athletes at my university to get their perspectives on my research question which should give me my results on my final paper (which is later this month). I will send this survey out through Google forms. I know we don’t necessarily have to go into detail about this on writing assignment 3, but I do know you have to know what type of data collection method I’ll be using, which is surveys.
Then, tell me what would be involved in collecting data using this method. This section will differ depending on which method you are using, but I anticipate most of you will opt for surveys or interviews. With surveys or interviews you will need to explain things like: what population you are trying to target for your research, how you will sample/recruit people from this population to take part in your survey or interview, and how you plan to administer the survey and collect responses or conduct the interview and record answers. If you think you may want to use another method and are unsure what to include feel free to contact me and ask. In any case, try to be as specific as possible. Walk me through each step necessary to generate your data. Here is where you should also identify any human subjects’ issues you can think of and how you will address such concerns in an ethical fashion (I expect to see at least one ethical issue addressed but there may be several that must be addressed).
Finally, tell me what impact using this data collection method will have on the type of data you will (and won’t) be able to collect. As an example, with surveys (and most interviews) you can collect information on people’s attitudes and beliefs, and what they report about their behavior, but you don’t generally collect direct behavioral observations. How will these limitations affect your research? To wrap up this section you should also briefly state whether you would plan to do qualitative or quantitative (or perhaps both) analysis of your data. Qualitative analysis is more descriptive and narrative – for example, quoting something a person says in an interview or telling a story about an event you observed, and then explaining how that quote or event points to some social pattern or phenomenon. Quantitative analysis is more statistical and numerical – for example, presenting percentages of people who gave particular answers to a question, and then explaining how those percentages point to a social pattern or phenomenon. I can help you answer what’s possible or appropriate given your method, so if you’re not sure, just ask.
After you have finished the narrative portion of the paper, you should put together your draft measurement instrument (for a survey or interview method this will be your list of questions) you intend to use to gather the data. Include this as an appendix at the end of your paper. Particularly for surveys this should look as close to what you would give to your participants as possible – so you should consider things like question order and answer choices.
Formatting:
Refer to the General Formatting Guidelines on the first page of the Appendix in the syllabus.This paper, not including the measurement instrument appendix, should be about 1000 words in length. More or fewer words are ok so long as you meet the expectations of the assignment. That said, in general if you wrote 750 or fewer words you probably left something out, and you should not need to write more than 1250 words for this paper. However, again, remember the measurement instrument appendix is not included in this word count because its length will depend entirely on your variable construction and how many variables you intend to collect – it will be at least an additional page and in most if not all cases should be several additional pages! In most cases you should plan for at least 10-20 questions for your survey or interview. In some cases it may be appropriate to have more. For surveys, in most cases each question should also have a set of answer choices. For interviews, most questions should also have a planned set of follow-ups.
This submission must be electronic. Refer to the formatting guidelines!
What I’m looking for:
I’m simply looking to see if you have an understanding of the data collection method you chose and if you have an understanding of how it will be a good method for your question, as well as an understanding of its limitations.
I’m also looking to make sure you have reasonable measures for all of your variables.
As always, feel free to ask me questions about the paper, and talk to your fellow students.