Sociology 427 – Course Guide

This course will guide students through writing professional quality research papers and contributing in an original way to the discipline of sociology. The course leads you through the basic steps of the typical research and writing cycle, which, depending on the type of project being undertaken, includes initial formulation of the idea through literature review, conceptualization of research, execution of the research project, and writing a final report of findings. Students may choose to approach topics from either a theoretical or an empirical perspective.

If you choose the theory route, you will formulate an idea, undertake a comprehensive literature review and, finally, write a theoretical paper on the topic or problem of your choice. The main challenge to contributing an original theory paper is developing a comprehensive overview of the theoretical area of interest and finding gaps, lacuna, or opportunities for new theoretical twists and perspectives. Original contributions in theory require a comprehensive understanding of the area and significant intellectual consideration (i.e., you have to spend much time thinking about the area of interest).

If you choose to conduct an empirical research project, you will develop an idea, conduct a literature review, execute a mock research study, and finally write a research report in typical journal style (i.e., introduction, methodology section, results section, and conclusion or discussion section). The mock research study includes everything from a literature review through development of a research proposal to actually writing the research report. Students are not expected to collect original data but should rely on available secondary data sources.

Upon completion of this course, you should be able to

• conduct a comprehensive literature review.
• develop a comprehensive overview of a research area of interest.
• identify areas where further empirical research or areas where further theoretical considerations would benefit the discipline of sociology.
• execute a research study.
• write a senior-level theoretical paper or research report.
• compile a comprehensive bibliography for an area of interest.