Essay Format Guide – SOC 38H3



Essay Format Guide – SOC 38H3

Gender & Higher Education

Please the Academic Writing Centre for some excellent handouts on the writing process:



Topic:

Your paper should discuss an issue, dilemma or topic area that addresses a particular problem that we’ve talked about in class with respect to people’s experiences in Higher Education, or institutional constraints/barriers that affect our experiences in Higher Education. If you have an idea that we haven’t talked about during lectures, please feel free to email me with your thoughts.

Details about Format:

Your final paper will be no less then 10 pages and more than 12 pages of text, excluding title page and reference sheet.

Papers are due at the BEGINNING of class on Dec 4th, 2006.

Your paper should include the following

1. A Title/Cover Page with a title that conveys the subject matter in 15 words or less. Your name, student number, course number, date, instructor’s name should appear on the title page.

2. Introduction. Your introduction does exactly that -- it introduces the reader to your research essay: what it is, why it is relevant. Your paper is concisely laid out in your introduction so that the reader knows what to expect - it’s like a road map. Basically you recap everything in your essay, like an executive summary (many people do this part last):

• What is the paper about?

• Why is it important to talk?

• What are some of the debates in the literature?

• What theories will you discuss in relation to your topic?

• What did you find?

• Where might you go from here with all this information?

*Please keep in mind that your research essay needs to be written in a way that assumes that the reader knows NOTHING. Do not make any assumptions of what your reader knows.

3. Body of Paper. This section will demonstrate to the reader (me!) that you can contextualize an issue in the area of Gender (race/ethnicity, class etc) & Higher Education within the issues and debates addressed in the course. Library research is necessary and expected.

You need to discuss the following:

• That the intention of your paper is to examine a particular issue or topic area in regards to Gender (etc) & HE. Discuss the topic or issue – what’s the problem?

• Why is this important to analyze/discuss?

• What theoretical approach are you using to analyze and discuss your issue/topic? Discuss the theory and its strengths & weaknesses, but be sure to incorporate

• What are some of the debates, issues, concerns or problems in regards to this area of study that is raised in the literature? Discuss strengths and weaknesses of these debates (etc).

• What are some suggestions you might have in terms of how to approach the issue?

4. Conclusions. In your conclusion, you review your paper briefly (almost restating the intro, but in different words). What did you learn from all this discussion? Once your basic conclusion has been stated, now is your chance to consider what some of the theoretical and sociological implications are of your discussion. What does this all mean? What did you discover and why is it important? Where do we go from here? Any good piece of research will raise as many questions as it answers; what are some further issues that arose from your paper? What are some policy implications? What are some of the wider social issues that your research paper raises or addresses? Are there any answers or just more questions? Think of the bigger picture here.

5. References. Start your references (this is not called a bibliography) on a separate sheet of paper. Only the sources you actually cite in the body of the manuscript should appear in the reference list at the end, which will be in alphabetical order. See any publication manual, the references at the back of a text, or the references in any journal article, to determine the appropriate format for the various kinds of sources you have (e.g., books, articles in books, journal articles, government reports, web pages). Please be consistent using either MLA or APA. You are required to have (at least) eight sources. You can use two course readings towards your eight (six must be found on your own)

Other notes:

• Late papers lose 5% per day including weekends. You must submit an essay to pass the course. You must submit to before you submit the paper copy to class. If it is not submitted to Turnitin, it will not be graded.

• When writing your paper in the paper-writing frenzy of the last two weeks of class, always keep an updated back-up copy on disk, and keep occasional hard copies. "I accidentally deleted my file," or "The computer ate my disk" are not excuses that will gain you a sympathetic ear. It happens to someone every year; make sure you're not this year's victim of the computer goddess’s revenge;

• Use double spacing throughout the paper (except for references and block quotes), and leave enough of a margin for comments (at least 1.25 inches all around);

• Use a 12-font (Times Roman or Arial, preferably) on everything except block quotes (which can be done in 10-font);

• Number all your pages, and make sure you do not exceed the page limit for the body of the paper. Page one is not the cover page.

• If you want to do well, do not hand in your first draft. Expect to write at least two drafts [a characteristic of excellent researchers is that they are compulsive about getting it "right"]. Get a friend to read it in exchange for your reading his/hers -- there's nothing like a new set of eyes looking at your paper to help you find things that are redundant, not explained clearly enough, or omitted, that will make your paper a better paper. Having someone read your work also helps your typos, grammar and spelling errors that seem to run rampant in your papers.

• Staple your paper together or apply a heavy-duty clamp so that pages do not get lost.

• Do yourself a favour and start researching for the paper early in the course and do not wait until the last minute.

Turnitin:

Your paper must be submitted to by the due date as well. Here are the instructions:

1a. If you don't already have an account, please set one up at

Click on create user profile

Click student

Class ID =   1729889 

Password = gender

Enter your email address.

Create password for website.

First Name, Last Name.

Select Canada.

Click I agree to terms.

The go to Login Page. You are ready to start - go to #2.

1b. If you already have a turnitin account, Log In. Click Enroll in a class.

1c. Class ID =   1729889 Password = gender

2. Click on the class ‘Higher Education’.

You will see the ‘Essay’ assignments listed

Click on Submit

Fill in the fields and upload your essay.

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