Soc 3361 Thought Paper Guidelines

Thought Paper

Guidelines

The grading rubric (see below) used to score thought papers has three dimensions: depth, mechanics, and answers. A paper with good "depth" will have a key quote or two from the readings, with elaboration and examples to make clear points. A lack of depth is evident when students find the answer in the reading and then "cut and paste" it into the assignment. "Answers" refers to how well the student address the questions asked in the assignment. The thought papers are generally not "summaries" of the readings. The questions are designed to make students think more critically about the readings. Good papers directly answer the questions. As the rubric makes clear, writing mechanics "count." Good writing includes attention to grammar (write in complete sentences), spelling, style (use paragraphs, maintain academic tone), and citation (cite properly, don't steal others' cites). Students should note that good paraphrasing is different from copying/pasting language from the assignment and then using a thesaurus to change every third word. I refer to the latter as "pseudo-paraphrasing."

Element	0 points	1 point	2 points	3 points	4 points
Depth	No proof that student read anything. Largely "making stuff up."	No depth. Only passages lifted from readings, no elaboration.	Mostly direct quotes and paraphrasing with little elaboration and detail.	Some detail and elaboration, demonstrates some advanced knowledge of topic.	Great use of detail, elaboration from key quotes, evident that student comprehended readings.
Answers	Failed to answer questions in any meaningful way.	Missed significant part/s of questions, answers wrong or off base for both questions.	Addressed but did not fully (unclear/confusing) answer questions. Missed or incorrect on major part.	Directly addressed all questions correctly overall. May be unclear or wrong on minor point or two	Fully and correctly addressed all points raised in questions.
Mechanics	No cites, failure to use quotes for quoted material; paper marred by spelling and grammar mistakes.	Some minor mistakes (or omissions) in citation, a few grammar or spelling errors, style problems (no paragraphs, informal language).	Free or almost free of grammar errors, citation is correct and used properly. Good writing style.

The following are tips designed to help students improve their writing and scores for the thought papers.

1. Answer the questions--negatively, this means you should not go off on a "rant" or get off the point. However, you should answer the questions completely. Using an example to illustrate your point is often a good idea. If you use a quote, try to follow the quote with elaboration--using your own words (As noted in the next point, do not start the follow-up sentence with the word "meaning").

2. Assignments should be checked for grammar and spelling. These things will count towards the grade you receive on your paper.

Write in complete sentences. Do not use sentence fragments. A complete sentence has a subject and a verb. DO NOT start a sentence with "Meaning...." If you have to use this word, the proper way to start a sentence is "This means that..." Alternatively, you could use, "In other words..."
Authors of formal (academic or professional) papers avoid using personal pronouns (I, we). Although it is difficult to write in this manner, students are encouraged to make an effort to avoid using "I" or "we" in assignments. The exception to this rule is when I specifically ask for your opinion.
USE THE GRAMMAR AND SPELL CHECK FUNCTIONS in your software. Do not just "ignore" and definitely don't turn them in still underlined in red and/or green. Failure to "right click" and fix the mistakes suggests a certain level of laziness.

3. You must CITE PROPERLY for anything that you take from other's work. Failure to do so is plagiarism-a form of cheating. If you fail to cite properly, you will be penalized in the assignment. The penalty will range from point deductions (for small or unintentional infractions) to a zero (for lifting complete sentences without any citation). If you use the assigned reading, only in-text citation is required (no reference page).

Please follow the following format. When you paraphrase someone's work, you need to cite with the author(s) and date:
(a) There is no evidence that the death penalty deters murder (Cullen and Gendreau, 2001)

(b) Van Voorhis and Salisbury (2016) point out that cognitive-behavioral treatment is the current gold standard in corrections.

If there is more than one author, you should initially list each author. If you repeat the cite, you may then use the "et al." abbreviation:

There is much evidence that properly run cognitive programs reduce recidivism (Van Voorhis, Braswell, and Lester, 2016).
Conversely, there is little empirical proof that tickling criminals reduces recidivism (Van Voorhis et al., 2016).

When you use a direct quote, the text must be in quotes, and the cite must include the author(s), date, and page number:
(a) As Currie (1998: 12) points out, "In 1971 there were fewer than 200,000 inmates in our state and federal prisons."
(b) "Labeling theory as an explanation of criminal and deviant behavior is derived from general symbolic interactionism theory in sociology" (Cullen and Agnew, 2003: 122).

PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING BASED ON PAST STUDENT SUBMISSIONS

If you "cut and paste" from some outside reading, (e.g., Wikipedia or the first article that pops up when you Google) you will receive a zero for that assignment.
Changing one or two words of an author's work does not give you license to avoid citation. If you are in doubt of whether you should cite, or whether you should use quotes, error on the conservative side…CITE….USE the QUOTES!!
Do not make up your own citation format. Use the authors last name, date, and page number (for quotes only). Do not use the title of the book chapter or article.

4. Please do not "pirate" a cite from the from an assigned article. If you really need to repeat a quote that was taken from another source, please use the citation formats below.

For a quote taken from a article by Maahs and Pratt (2010) that is cited in Cullen (2019): "Antisocial behavior tends to remain stable over time; it is the mother of all that is evil" (Maahs and Pratt, 2010: 205; cited in Cullen, 2019).
Paraphrasing from an article by Maahs and Pratt. Antisocial behavior shows stability over time (Maahs and Pratt, 2010, Cited in Cullen, 2019).

5. It is generally a good idea to review any feedback from your assignments. Students often repeat the same errors (e.g., citation problems, grammar, conceptual issues) and get docked points because they never look over their graded papers. Generally, you will get a marked up version of your paper in the Moodle feedback.

6. When you have a quote and a period, the period is generally inside of the quote. The only exception is when the quote is followed by citation parentheses. This is a minor point but one of my pet peeves. Notice where the period is in each the following quotes.

According to Maahs (2019: 44) "Scared Straight type programs are pure evil."
"Scared Straight programs are pure evil" (Maahs, 2019).

Last Updated 8/10/2019