SOAN 453B: SENIOR SEMINAR:
Senior Seminar: Issues in Contemporary Sociology:
Social Problems in Global-Historical Perspective
WED 2:45-5:15 AL 432
Colgate University
Fall 2004 Professor Thomas Hall
Office: 408 Alumni, x7083, email: tdhall@mail.colgate.edu
OFFICE HOURS: Tu 2:45-4; W 1:30-2:30 & 5:20-6, Th
12-1, & by appt
Thesis Intro and Discussion Draft
Last Updated 9-29-04
Due
WEDNESDAY
October 20 at Seminar,
or sooner!
For this week you should have a near-final-form draft of the introduction and the discussion of the problem for you thesis. See the outline in What is A Thesis for general guidelines.
NOTE: If you are in the [very good] habit of writing your intro last, then sketch out what will go in it.
By "final-form" I mean that spelling, grammar, in-text references, endnotes, and bibliography are all in final form, NOT draft form.
WHY? There are several reasons, or goals, for this exercise:
It gets you moving and writing
It allows me to see how you are thinking about your problem at this stage
It will help me to help you find further resources, new questions and directions for your thesis
It will allow me to make sure you have all the mechanical and format issues done correctly.
It will allow me help you from wasting time going down a blind
alley.
This, and the <body of the thesis> draft assignment are direct suggestions from past seminar students. They felt that with the pressures to get things done for other classes, it was too easy to let work on the thesis slide, and then be very jammed up at the end of the term. This will help you to avoid this situation.
And, even though especially the introduction, but even some of the discussion will need to be rewritten to fit with what you develop in the body, the presentation, and from the critiques, it is FAR, FAR easier to revise an intro that to write it from scratch.
REMEMBER, that this assignment, like the proposal, the annotated
bibliography, is a step toward the final product, it is not the final product.
Send comments or questions to tdhall@mail.colgate.edu
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