SOC 101
“Doing Sociology” Project
One of the best ways to “see” sociology at work is to participate in it firsthand. For this paper, you will be “doing sociology” through content analysis and using examples in the media to look at your choice of a particular social phenomenon in society.
1. DOING THE RESEARCH
Choose one form of media from the following list for your research. You may select from:
MEDIA
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SAMPLE SIZE
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Song lyrics
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at least 8 (must then include all the lyrics)
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TV shows
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at least 5 episodes (1 hour) or 10 episodes of 30 minutes
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Movies
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at least 4
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Online news articles
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at least 10 (include a copy of the articles)
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Online ads
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at least 15 (must include ad images)
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**Any other suggestions, must receive permission by instructor beforehand.
Be careful how you choose your media (movies, TV shows, etc.). You can narrow your selection by certain criteria (which you’ll talk about in your methods) such as a specific time frame, highest ratings or movies based on a certain theme. Some good sites to utilize to narrow your search are: www.imdb.com (Internet Movie Database); www.tv.com; www.filmsite.org; http://www.hulu.com/; http://www.netflix.com/
Research question: How are the heroism and super-nature powers portrayed in U.S movies and dramas? (e.g Heros, Vampire Dairies, Spiderman...)
Create a coding sheet. This is a method of recording what you specifically want to look at.
Watch your movies/listen to your songs/read your newspaper articles. As you do so, you will fill out your coding sheet, writing down everything you notice.
Analyze your coding sheets. What patterns do you see? What stood out? What do the patterns mean? THEN…
2. WRITING THE PAPER
Think of a catchy title. Then, in about 6-8 pages, address the following sections. Use these headings.
I. Introduction (about 1 page)
Introduce your research question and why you chose it.
What makes this topic sociologically important?
II. Methods (about 1 page)
Content Analysis
Introduce the titles of the sources you analyzed and why (be specific; for example, if 4 different movies, which ones, what year and why?) What criteria did you use to select your sample? How did you decide which movies to watch?
How did you collect the data? (i.e how did you record your observations?) What specifically did you look at and why? What were the categories on your coding sheet?
How did you then organize your data? (i.e. how did you start to look for patterns?)
Did you run into difficulties in your data collection? What are the limitations of doing this kind of research? What are the limitations to this study specifically?
III. Findings and Analysis (about 4 pages)
Findings = description of patterns found; Analysis = what do the patterns mean?
This section should be the main part of your paper and should be organized and coherent. You cannot simply describe or summarize your findings, you must analyze them. That is, tell me what they mean.
Discuss any patterns you found and/or relationships between aspects.
Organize this section according to the themes or patterns you found (using subheadings). Use some specific examples from your data to support the themes. See the example posted online.
Connect to sociology. How might your findings relate to a sociological theory discussed in class? Can you connect some concepts discussed in the lectures/the text to your research?
So what? What do these patterns tell you about society? What consequences do they have?
See the sample paper I posted in the folder for a good example.
IV. Conclusion (about 1 page)
This should summarize the major points of your paper. What conclusions can you draw from your research?
What further questions about your topic need to be explored? (If someone else was to do a similar study, what should they look at?)
V. APPENDIX (separate page)
Include a list of the movies watched, song lyrics with details of dates, year, artist etc., and your coding sheets.
IMPORTANT NOTES ABOUT YOUR PAPER:
Papers must be typed, double spaced with 12 pt. font and one inch margins. Please page number your paper, no need for a title page. You will lose points if your paper is over 9 pages. (Presumably, you also lose points if your paper is too short as there won’t be enough material for me to grade you!)
OPTIONAL: Include a bibliography if you referred to other references or the textbook. (Considered additional to your 6-8 pages.) But, you do not need to reference other material nor should you be doing any outside research for this paper.
See the attached rubric for grading.
Any questions? Please feel free to ask me!
CHECKLIST:
My margins, font size and spacing are correct
I numbered my pages
I used headings/sub-headings
I included an appendix with a list of the media I used
I included my filled out coding sheets
I included a bibliography (optional)
I reviewed the grading rubric to see that I have all needed information
I reviewed my paper for spelling and grammatical errors
I got someone to proofread my paper
SOC 101 – “DOING SOCIOLOGY” - GRADING RUBRIC NAME _____________________________
DIMENSIONS
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BEGINNING
0-6
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DEVELOPING
7
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ACCOMPLISHED
8
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EXEMPLARY
9-10
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TOTAL
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1. INTRODUCTION
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Student’s research question, reasons and sociological importance are missing or vague
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Student introduces research question, but is missing reasons or sociological importance
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Student introduces research question, reasons and sociological importance
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Student clearly introduces research question, reasons and sociological importance in an interesting and engaging manner
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2. METHODS SECTION
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Student’s methods are general and vague
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Student’s methods are lacking detail and difficulties or limitations are missing
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Student’s methods, difficulties and limitations are stated, but missing details
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Student clearly states detailed methodology including difficulties and limitations
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3. FINDINGS/ANALYSIS
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Findings/analysis are too general and vague
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Findings, analysis and some examples present, but needs to be expanded upon
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Introduces findings and discusses patterns with some examples
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Clearly introduces findings, discusses patterns and gives specific examples
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X 2 =
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4. SOCIOLOGICAL CONNECTIONS
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Connections to sociology too general and vague
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Connections to sociology need to be expanded upon
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Good connections to sociology
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Connections are exceptional, the sociology is evident
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5. CONCLUSION
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Conclusion doesn’t make sense
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Conclusion summarizes some points of paper
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Conclusion summarizes main points of paper, draws a few conclusions and a few questions
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Interesting conclusion that summarizes main points of paper, draws detailed conclusions and introduces further questions
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6. DATA COLLECTION
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Coding sheets are too vague and sparse
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Coding sheets are general
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Coding sheets are well constructed, but could contain more detail
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Coding sheets are thoughtfully constructed, detailed and organized
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X 2 =
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7. ORGANIZATION OF PAPER/FLOW OF IDEAS
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Reader cannot follow paper/sequence of ideas
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Reader has difficulty following work because the ideas are scattered
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Paper is mostly organized and has a logical sequence
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Paper has a logical, interesting sequence which the reader can follow
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8. MECHANICS (SPELLING, PUNCTUATION, GRAMMAR)
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Paper has several misspellings and/or grammatical errors
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Paper has 4 misspellings and/or grammatical errors
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Paper has no more than 3 misspellings or grammatical errors
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Paper has no more than one or two misspellings and/or grammatical errors
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COMMENTS:
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TOTAL SCORE out of 100
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