Final Project Research Essay —–As a culmination of your work in this class, you will analyze a contemporary (current) issue/social problem and how social inequality plays a role. Once you have made a topic selection, find a related media source from https://www.ted.com/talks (Links to an external site.) or a podcast from https://www.npr.org/podcasts/ (Links to an external site.) to use as a point of initial reference. Then, you will analyze, compare and/or contrast your chosen issue using at least two (2) sociological perspectives from this course (structuralism, conflict, symbolic interactionism, feminism).
This essay should be no longer than 3-4 pages, double spaced, 12-font, and Times New Roman and set 1 margins for top/bottom/left/right. All films, books, peer-reviewed articles, documentaries, podcasts and course materials must be referenced on the reference or bibliography page and cited within the essay text when referred to using proper ASA, APA or MLA formatting. I require the use of a title page, running head, pagination, in-text citations and a reference page that includes the course text.
Once you have selected your topic and media reference, you will begin to organize your essay by addressing the following:
Brief introduction of your topic, a statement of the problem/issue and why it is relevant for this course. Why is this topic important to you and relevant to a sociology course?
Provide a brief overview of the history of the topic including relevant people, places, events, policies, statistics, etc
Discuss the current status of the topic, interesting statistics, and include which theories from this class (Structural Functionalism, Conflict Theory, Symbolic Interactionist Theory or Feminist Theory) have strong contributions to this topic.
Summarize with brief thoughts on where this topic/issue/social problem is going. Support this summary with your sociological knowledge learned during this course and include course concepts such as social inequality, social stratification, ethnocentrism, racism and discrimination.
Integrate key terms and concepts from the course material and always use proper references in ASA, APA or MLA format.
This is a professional college essay and you should not use I or first person throughout your paper, with the exception of recommendations in the conclusion section. The paper must reflect a proper sociological approach and therefore you should not write opinions as to the right or wrong nature of your topic. Your work should be more of an academic examination of the various sociological positions of your topic. However, you may include your sociological opinion in the conclusion.
Technical Guidelines for writing assignments:
The essay should flow and make logical sense with the use of proper transitions and the grouping of similar concepts. This will strengthen your essay.
You will be graded on grammar, form and organization.
You must include your name in the upper right corner of the first page. You do not need to include an abstract.
Please include a title-page and a reference page.
If you use an idea that is not your own, you must reference in ASA, APA or MLA Style.
Using someone elses work or ideas that are not your own is plagiarism and is a violation of College policy.
Late assignments are not recommended and points may be deducted for late submissions.
Name your attachment to coincide with the assignment. However, do not use symbols, instead use only letter and/or numbers (FinalEssay) or (CourseEval) or (ExtraCredit).
If I cannot open a submission, I will contact you or the assignment could be assigned a Zero. Submitting early can help avoid this. Be sure to only use Microsoft Word or PDF no other formats are accepted.
Save all your course work to a hard drive, a flash drive, cloud, Google or in email storage. This will ensure that you have a record of all your work in case there are any computer issues. I practice these precautions too!
