Overview
Take Home Final Exam: 40% (Take home final exam, 6-7 pages). Due February 15th, 2025 8 am). No late exams will be accepted. No exceptions. Plan ahead! Please make sure you upload your assignment through Turn-it-in in time to meet the deadline. Those that are not submitted properly through Turn-it-in on time will receive a ZERO. Papers flagged for more than 50% AI-detection will not pass the assignment. Any AI and plagiarism detection above 25% should be of concern. Please avoid uninformed opinions. Any claims must be supported with empiricism, facts, and legitimate sociological sources.
Grading Rubric: Principle of the C's Writing System:
All writing assignments will be graded based on the following rubric:
1) COMPOSITION (20 points): thoughtful and mindful writing in which sentence structure enhances meaning, well written grammar, punctuation syntax, spelling, mechanics, & organization of the overall paper. Consider how you are using nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs in developing a more informative and even sophisticated essay. 2) CONTENT (20 points): how insightful issues and questions the paper raises, how well the paper provides evidence, examples from lectures, discussion posts, and readings, using the course materials (required readings, lectures, and discussions posts) to support the thesis (main ideas of the paper), and how the paper addresses all of the points and questions from the prompt. The essay must demonstrate students' knowledge of the course content and course materials (lectures, discussion posts, and readings). 3) CREATIVITY (20 points): how well does the paper demonstrate originality of approach and ideas, how well does the paper articulate an interesting, original style and voice; how well does the essay illustrate selection of specific & relevant quotes & passages, as well as integration of all of the class materials (from required readings, discussion posts, remote lectures, syllabus, video clips, etc.). 4) CRITICAL ANALYSIS (20 points): does the paper provide sociohistorical, political, legal context and incorporate structural conditions and historical events from the class materials? does the writer question his/her/their "taken-for-granted" assumptions when asking "how" and "why?" (Demonstrate how well do you apply sociological critical thinking tools).
5) CITATIONS (20 points): Students are being evaluated for their knowledge of course content and course materials. Students are required to make references of all of the required readings, each film clip, online Canvas posts, class lectures/discussion, and include a bibliography/works cited -page. Choose one format (MLA, APA, Chicago-style, etc.) and be consistent. Please do your own research on how to properly and formally cite published and unpublished materials. While you may use outside sources, you will be graded primarily on the knowledge of the course materials (course readings).
PROMPT:
What is the significance of doing sociological research? Develop your thesis. What are the ways of human knowing? How does sociology and the sociological scientific method fit into these "ways of knowing?" Incorporate how "objective knowledge" and "subjective knowledge" play a role in sociological analysis. How would you incorporate the sociological imagination into your sociological research topic? Discuss the sociological research steps/process. Give some examples from studies discussed in class. How is a sociological understanding of the world different from "opinions"? How do sociologists makes sense of dialectics when conducting research? How are "human subjects" dealt with? How do sociologists build on previous studies on similar topics?