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What is Sociology?
This hand-out was designed for a sociology class to help develop a "firm understanding of the assumptions and expectations of the discipline." The handout describes: What is sociology?; Assumptions and conventions; and Typical assignments
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Rosemary Powers (Faculty)
I have not used this yet with students, but I will be doing so as it offers useful resources for thinking about and writing expository papers for sociology.
Technical Remarks:
This resource is clearly written, with good examples of the various ideas presented. While it does not presume prior sociological knowledge, it will be of most use to students with some background in sociology who may be familiar with the ideas (e.g. "unit of analysis", quantitative/qualitative research, "ecological fallacy") but need reminders of fundamental points to consider and pitfalls to avoid in producing a piece of sociological writing. An instructor could use this resource with introductory students by revising it to focus on fewer issues or walking through it with them with reference to a specific assignment (and providing more specific examples with opportunities to practice). Since there is so much text (and thus may be difficult to hold attention, especially for a student anxious about how to tackle a research assignment), an alternative to the pdf might be to provide the on-line source using a more outlined approach to the various sections with links to specifics and additional exaamples.

Lynn Ritchey (Faculty)
This site provides some good advice on writing sociological papers for students. I think this site provides good advice for students above the mechanics of writing sociological papers. This would be a good additional resource for students trying to write sociologically. I think this would be good for students at all levels.
Stephanie Medley-Rath (Faculty)
Generally, I like the UNC Writing Center's handouts and have used them previously. My concerns are that the description implies this is about sociology, but in fact it is about writing in sociology. The description needs updated. Also, there are books about writing in sociology and sociology has its own styleguide. These should be listed as resources and to some extent, should be incorporated into the handout.