Current Social Problems: Gender Inequality

For this assignment, you will write a 4–5 page, double-spaced, research paper about your social problem. The purpose of this paper is to expose you to the social science literature and the research and writing process. The intent is not for you to write superficially about a broad topic, but to explore in detail a more narrow focus. I expect your paper to contain information that is not known by your parents or roommates. This paper will be graded on organization and writing as well as content.

Remember that you should have a somewhat narrow topic, which was approved in your proposal. You must follow your proposal. If you choose to write about something different, make sure you resubmit your proposal, with your new topic, and wait for approval, before you start working on this assignment.
Guidelines

Write a 4–5 page research paper about your topic. This is not an opinion paper, but a research paper. You are free to share your opinion in your conclusion, but should leave it out of the rest of your paper. You need to support your arguments with sources. You must include at least five sources. At least two of the sources need to be from peer-reviewed journal articles. Your paper should have a descriptive title that tells the reader what the paper is about. Also, make sure that your name is on the paper.

If you choose to write on a controversial topic, try to keep your paper as impartial as possible. Give each side equal attention in your paper and avoid sources that are overly biased. Ideally, I should not be able to tell which side of the issue you agree with until I read your conclusion.
Format

Every paper should have three sections, the introduction, the body, and the conclusion.
Introduction

Your introduction should draw me into your paper, telling me why it is important or why I should be interested. The most important part of your introduction is your thesis. The thesis should be the last sentence of your introduction. It should act almost like a mini outline of your paper. I should be able to read your thesis, independent of the rest of your paper and know exactly what your paper is about. It should tell me each topic that will be discussed in your paper and even the order in which they are discussed.

For example, my thesis could be something along the lines of “In this paper, I will discuss the history and current status of charter schools in the United States, and some of the benefits and problems of these schools.”
Body

The body is the main section of your paper in which you will present your research. Make sure that the body follows your thesis, talking about the topics mentioned in your thesis in the same order that they were talked about in the thesis. Make sure that the body is well organized and that everything you tell me is supported by your research. This is not a place to share your opinion on the topic.

Using my thesis example above, in the body of my paper, I would first talk about the history and current status of charter schools. I would then discuss the benefits of charter schools. Finally, I would explain the problems associated with charter schools.
Conclusion

The final part of your paper is your conclusion. This is the part of the paper where you can summarize and wrap up what you have said in your paper. This is also the part of your paper where you are welcome to share your opinion about your topic. It should be short though, no more than one or two paragraphs long.
Sources

As mentioned previously, you need to have at least five different sources in your paper, at least two of which come from academic peer-reviewed journals. The other three sources can be almost anything, including websites. Just make sure that your sources are trustworthy and not overly biased. Do not use Wikipedia as a source. It is a great place to start the research process, but if you find information you would like to use in Wikipedia, you need to go to their sources and find the primary source. You can then go to that source and find the information so you can cite it in your paper.

Make sure that you cite your sources appropriately. I do not care which style you use as long as you are consistent and you provide the necessary information. The typical way sociologists use citation references is to put the name and date of publication in parentheses following the information that came from that source: Students who read the text do better on examinations (Smith, 1999). You would also include the page number if you were giving a direct quote. Remember that you must cite your source anytime you give any information that did not come out of your own head. Since this is a research paper, most of the information should come from sources and not from your own head. Remember, you need to cite your source even if you are just paraphrasing the information and not using a direct quote.

You also need to have a works cited page at the end of your paper (this does not count towards your page count). Again, I do not care which format you use, but please be consistent. Here is an example of how sociologist generally format sources on their works cited page:

Smith, William (1999) Text reading and examination grades. Journal of Teaching Sociology, vol. 30, pp. 101–125.

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