Sociology 90W Senior Seminar

I have finished grading and updated the gradebook. Use GradeQuery to see your final score and grade.

Congratulations on finishing the seminar. It was a lot of work, and you deserve credit for your efforts. I hope you found the experience of conducting your own empirical research rewarding. I enjoyed seeing your projects develop. Everyone who finished the course displayed a satisfactory mastery of visual ethnography, and some of you did very interesting and original work. Well done!

I have feedback on your research essays. Stop by my office in the spring for a copy.

You have two choices to deliver your research report. You may post it on the site, using the slideshow content, or you may send your word processor document (MS Word, or the equivalent) to me as an email attachment.

(1) Slideshow. Click the link to slideshow under create content. Paste your report from your word processor into the body section of the form. Remember to insert [slideshow] in the body where you want the pictures to appear. Upload your photos, one at a time, as you did before for the earlier slideshow exercise. Do not write your essay in the form! Paste it from your word processor.

(2) Email. Insert the pictures into your Word file. You may put the pictures in the interpretation section or all together at the end of the document. Save the file as .doc, .rtf, .odt, or .pdf -- if you have another format, let me know in advance and I'll verify I can open such a file. Send me the file at professor@shortell.org and remember to put Soc 90 in the subject line.

If you have questions, stop by during office hours this week. I am here T, W, Th from 3:30 to 8pm.

I've added in points for the demographic profile. Use GradeQuery to see your score. I'll pass back written feedback on Tuesday.

Some of you have not turned in the demographic profile. Indeed, some of you have not yet turned in the literature review. Together, they are worth up to 45 points, so you can't pass the course without doing them. I can't grade what I don't have — get me your work as soon as possible.

I would like everyone to make an appointment with our writing tutor, Anna Szymanski, within the next two weeks. Bring your literature review draft or your demographic report with you so that Anna can give you some advice about your writing. She may recommend additional appointments. I encourage you to take advantage of her assistance.

Your interpretation of data requires that you make a sociological argument about the aspect of culture you are investigating. A sociological argument is a kind of assertion that offers an explanation of some aspect of the social world. It is not enough to simply describe it. You must explain it.

The difference between description and explanation when applied to visual data can be subtle. When you describe, you are stating what is the case. So, with visual data, you are calling attention to aspects that are visible in the photos or for which the photos serve as a point of departure. When you explain, you are drawing connections between elements in the data which make the sociological meaning of the phenomena clear and understandable. Sociological explanations turn empirical facts into social facts — that is, parts of social patterns.

Select one photograph from your data. Identify some aspect of the photo that is relevant to your research question. (1) Write a sentence in which you describe that aspect as strong evidence of or a clear sign of your interpretation of the data. (2) Rewrite the sentence by making your assertion more tentative, as if you have less confidence that the aspect in the photo fits into your interpretation.

Post your sentences below and we will discuss.

Now that our attention is turning to the research reports, we'll spend more time in class working on various writing and presentation tasks. To begin, let's think about how to introduce your topic (in the report and in the presentation).

Write an opening sentence in which you make an assertion about the sociological importance of your topic — that is, why it should be of interest to sociologists generally. This will require a light touch. If you make a too generic statement, you will sound trite. If you make too narrow a statement, you will sound obscure. What you are looking for is a hook into the kinds of questions that are animating current sociological discussions. Think about what core sociological concepts are relevant to your work and see if you can construct an opening sentence that uses one or more of them to frame your topic.

Post your sentence as a comment to this page, and we will discuss.

Anna Szymanski, our new writing tutor, will hold office hours Mondays from 5-8pm and Thursdays from 4-8pm in 3416 James. Use the link in the right margin to contact her.

The research report will consist of the literature review, the demographic report, your interpretation of the visual data (with presentation of some of it), and your conclusions about what you found. The first two parts are the two stand-alone assignments, of course, so in writing drafts of those parts, you are just about half-way there.

Introduction
Introduce your ethnography. Begin with a broad statement of the sociological import of the topic and narrow down to the focus of your particular project. Next, briefly explain why you did a visual ethnography on this topic. Finally, give a hint at your findings and what you see as your contribution to the literature.

Don't begin with narration: My topic is... or I decided to study... You want to frame the work as a piece of professional sociology, not as a paper assignment in a class. Part of the purpose of the senior seminar is to give you an opportunity to learn about modes of professional communication. Write to the discipline, not to me. Remember your professional diction.

The Literature

Use the community profile from NYC.gov (see research links in the right margin) that includes your neighborhood. Identify the census tracts that cover your area of study. Consider both land use and population. Write a couple of paragraphs describing your neighborhood from the point of view of this data. Include in your summary at least one fact about the physical environment and at least one fact about the population.

Post your summary as a comment to this page.