SOCIOLOGY 4978 – SENIOR HONORS PROSEMINAR I

 

Spring 2001, Tuesday 1-3:30 in Room TBA

 

Professor: Christopher Uggen          uggen@atlas.socsci.umn.edu  

1160 Social Sciences: 624-4016       www.socsci.umn.edu/~uggen/

Hours: Th 1-3:30 or appt.                  www.socsci.umn.edu/~uggen/4978.htm

 

Course Description

 

The Senior Honors Proseminar II is the final course in a three-semester sequence designed for honors students majoring in sociology. In consultation with the seminar director and other faculty, students in Sociology 4978 will conduct their empirical analysis, write the results, discussion, and conclusion sections of the honors thesis, and develop a plan for disseminating their research. By the end of the semester, students will have unified the component parts of their thesis into a coherent whole, defended it before a three-person faculty committee, and developed a plan for disseminating their research. The course will operate as a seminar, with group discussions of individual projects and peer review of oral and written work.

 

Objectives of the Course

 

In the first (Fall) Senior Proseminar, we emphasized conceptualization and measurement. You narrowed your topic to a thesis-sized research question, secured the data and permissions necessary to proceed with your work, started identifying your three-person thesis committee, and began thinking about your analysis. In the second (Spring) Senior Proseminar, you will focus on data analysis, presenting your results, and writing and rewriting your thesis. You will unify its component parts into a coherent whole, defend it before your committee, and consider outlets for publication or dissemination of your work, such as the 2001 Sociological Research Institute, April 28.

 

Organization of the Course

 

A full 50% of your grade will be determined by your final thesis. The remainder will be determined by your results section draft (10% of course grade), complete draft (including discussion) (15%), oral presentation (5%), 2 written critiques and proofreading (10% total) and class participation (10%). I expect everyone to be an active participant in the course, but attendance is optional for several workshop and troubleshooting sessions.

 

Required Texts

I already distributed the first text last semester, so you need not buy it again. The second text is Babbie’s methods book (I told you not to sell it!), which will be an invaluable reference. Other materials will be made available in class. Each of you will also need some specialized resources that I expect you to buy (or at least order) the first week of classes. I have identified several paperbacks tailored to your individual needs below.

 

1.      American Sociological Association, 1997. ASA Style Guide. 2nd ed. Washington, D.C.: American Sociological Association.

2.      Babbie, Earl. 1998. The Practice of Social Research. 8th or 9th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. [NOTE: The 9th edition includes some new qualitative material. I’m assuming that everyone who participated in the seminar last year already has the 8th edition. Please let me know if you would like help obtaining a copy]

 

Specialized Resources – You need to buy at least one of these

1.      Qualitative Work: Lofland, John, and Lyn H. Lofland. 1995. Analyzing Social Settings: A Guide to Qualitative Observation and Analysis, 3d. ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Amazon price: $31.95 (25.56 used) [may also be available in Bookstore].

·         Comprehensive guide to fieldwork and interviewing (e.g., Megan, Les)

·         Interpreting and reporting results of qualitative studies (e.g. Megan, Les)

2.      General guides to using SPSS: Babbie, Earl, Fred Halley, and Jeanne Zaino. 2000. Adventures in Social Research: Data Analysis Using SPSS 9.0 and 10.0 for Windows 95/98. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press (Sage Publications). $44.95 from www.pineforge.com

·         Creating and coding your own data (e.g. Brian, Theodora, Marty)

·         Creating composite measures (e.g. Kris, Eric, Mary)

·         Multiple linear regression  (e.g. Diana, Lauren, Rachel)

3.      Or: Dowdall, George, Kim Logio, Earl Babbie, and Fred Halley. 1998 Adventures in Criminal Justice Research. $44.95 from www.pineforge.com

·         Creating and coding your own data (e.g. Brian, Theodora, Marty)

·         Creating composite measures (e.g. Kris, Eric, Mary)

·         Multiple linear regression  (e.g. Diana, Lauren, Rachel)

·         Logistic regression (for dichotomies/Dowdall book only) (e.g. Rachel)

4.      For those already comfortable in SPSS, who want to understand how regression really works: Allison, Paul D. Multiple Regression: A Primer. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press (Sage Publications).  $24.95 from www.pineforge.com

·         More detailed and comprehensive presentation of multiple regression

·         Includes (good) presentation of statistical assumptions and diagnostics

·         Modeling nonlinearity, interaction, and other tricky stuff.

·         Examples from SAS and SPSS

 

A Few Other Excellent Texts and Resources

5.      QUANTITATIVE METHODS: Hagan, John, A.R. Gillis, and David Brownfield. 1996. Criminological Controversies: A Methodological Primer.” Boulder, CO: Westview.

6.      SPSS  HOW-TO: Green, Samuel B., Neil J. Salkind, and Theresa M. Akey. 2000. Using SPSS for Windows: Analyzing and Understanding Data, 2d. ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. [more geared to pysch. students, but decent coverage]

7.      WRITING & ORGANIZING: Becker, Howard S. 1986. Writing for Social Scientists: How to Start and Finish Your Thesis, Book, or Article. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

8.      WRITING & THINKING: Becker, Howard S. Tricks of the Trade: How to Think About Your Research While You're Doing It. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

9.      WRITING CLEARLY: Strunk Jr., William, and E.B. White. 2000. The Elements of Style.4th Ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Earlier edition online: http://www.bartleby.com/141/index.html

10.  WRITING BASICS: Richlin-Klonsky, Judith, and Ellen Strenski, eds. (The Sociology Writing Group). 1998. A Guide to Writing Sociology Papers. 4th ed. New York: St.Martin's.

11.  Uggen's Link Page: http://www.socsci.umn.edu/~uggen/links.htm

 

Course Policies, Expectations, and Friendly Reminders

1.      GRADING.

·         50% Final Thesis

·         10% Results section draft

·         15% Discussion section/Complete draft

·         5% Oral presentation

·         10% Two written critiques and proofreading (5% each)

·         10% Participation and short exercises

2. LATE ASSIGNMENTS:  Assignments are due on the dates noted in the syllabus. Late assignments are penalized 5% per day.  If family or medical emergencies prevent you from attending class, you may also fax the assignment to the department fax machine at (612) 624-7020 (preferred) or email them to uggen@atlas.socsci.umn.edu

3. PLAGIARISM. If you have any questions about whether you are plagiarizing work, please discuss them with me. When in doubt, use quotation marks and full citations.

4. TEACHING PHILOSOPHY, COLLEGE, AND DEPARTMENT POLICIES: ATTACHED.

 

Tentative Class Outline

 

INTRODUCTIONS

 

Week 1: 1/16

See the thesis, be the thesis…

·         Individualization and troubleshooting

·         Split squad workshops and working together

·         The nomadic classroom

 

DATA HANDLING AND DESCRIPTION

 

Week 2: 1/23

Data Workshop I: Setting up your own file for analysis

·         Mandatory: Brian, Theodora, Marty,

·         Recommended: Les, Megan

 

Week 3            : 1/30

Data Workshop II: Cleaning archived data

·         Mandatory: Lauren, Kris, Rachel, Mary, Diana, Eric

 

Week 4: 2/6   

No class – individual meetings to troubleshoot data issues

·         NOTE: All should have their hands dirty by now, actively conducting analysis.

·         Please work together as much as possible

 

Week 5: 2/13

Table 1: Presenting descriptive results in ASR style

·         Describing your sample and writing it up

·         Creating ASR-style tables of basic descriptive statistics (means, percentages, standard deviations)

·         Creating figures from SPSS output in Excel

·         BRING: Questions, preliminary results or descriptive statistics for discussion

 

ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

 

Week 6: 2/20

Analysis Workshop I: Troubleshooting Quantitative Analysis

·         Crosstabs, Chi-square tests, T-tests and other bivariate approaches

·         Multiple Regression and other multivariate approaches

·         BRING: Your data and output and any problems you might have

 

Week 7: 2/27

Analysis Workshop II: Troubleshooting Qualitative Analysis

·         Textual analysis and computer analysis of qualitative data

·         The qualitative portions of quantitative theses

·         BRING: Your data, field notes, or interviews and any problems you might have

 

Week 8: 3/6   

No class – Individual meetings on analysis issues

 

DUE: Real draft of results section due to Uggen and critic by Friday, 3/9

·         Organization: for the draft, I want everyone to follow the same general pattern (you will have freedom to deviate from this later on).

o        Front end (I want to see the whole thesis, so attach your front-end)

o        1-paragraph section introduction

o        At least one table that describes your data (follow conventions in ASA style guide pp. 24-26) and complete text describing this table

o        At least one figure that graphs a key relationship or levels of key variables and complete text describing this figure

o        At least one table that presents your analysis and inference and complete text describing this table.

o        A narrative summary of key findings

 

Week 9: 3/13

Results Workshop: Bring overhead transparencies of key tables, figures, direct quotations, or other results presented in your draft

·         Critics:  Bring the marked-up copy of the draft (making corrections for errors in grammar, spelling, diction, etc) and two copies of a neat list of at least 5 critical but constructive comments on your partner’s discussion and conclusion draft.

 

INTEGRATING THE COMPONENTS

 

Week 10: 3/20           

No Class – Individual meetings on results and discussion

·        Make sure that you are writing now – you can continue to fine-tune the analysis if needed, but don’t put off the actual writing.

·         Sometimes research questions “evolve” while conducting the analysis. Make sure that the discussion connects the results to the issues raised in the front end.

 

Week 11: 3/27           

Spring “Break” – No class

 

Week 12: 4/3

No Class – Individual meetings on writing 

 

DUE: A real draft of your complete thesis (including discussion and conclusion sections) due to Uggen and critic by Thursday 4/6

·         NOTE: You will be scheduling your oral thesis defenses throughout the month of April (don’t plan to get your committee together the last week of classes), so make sure your draft is something you can show your committee without apology.

·         THE WHOLE ENCHILADA, CONTAINING EACH OF THESE COMPONENTS:

o        Title Page

o        Abstract

o        Literature Review, Theory, and Conceptualization (but don’t call it that)

o        Data, Measures, and Methodology

o        Results

o        Discussion (but try to find a substantive title that fits your thesis)

o        Conclusion (brief summary of results, caveats, remaining questions)

o        References

·        CRITERIA: Completeness; Clarity and internal logic; Style and presentation (syntax, spelling, punctuation); Appropriateness, specificity, and extent of literature review; Appropriateness and quality of analysis; Effectiveness of discussion in linking results to research questions, conceptualization, and literature review; Appropriateness of conclusions, caveats, and directions for future research.

 

Week 13: 4/10           

Writing Workshop

·         Working on continuity and flow

·         Critics:  Bring the marked-up copy of the draft (making corrections for errors in grammar, spelling, diction, etc) and two copies of a neat list of at least 5 critical but constructive comments on your partner’s discussion and conclusion draft.

·         Oral defenses

 

Week 14: 4/17           

No Class – Individual or small group meetings (predefenses) as needed

·         Oral defenses

 

Week 15: 4/24

Oral Presentations

·         Oral defenses

 

Saturday, April 28: Sociological Research Institute Presentations

 

Week 16: 5/1

Celebration!

 

Drop-dead due date for your spell-checked, proofread, thesis: 5:00 on 5/8

·         This is the formal deadline, but I expect many of you to turn in your theses soon after your oral defense.

·         Not to put any additional pressure on you or anything… but, I really expect you to deliver a high quality final product. I can’t recommend the University’s highest honors designations (or assign an “A” grade) unless the thesis is complete, polished, and fully realized.

 

 

                      Uggen's Teaching Goals and Philosophy

 

1. Respect for Students.

The other points are really a subset of this one. Education is a service industry, but you cannot simply purchase a unit of education the way you would buy other commodities. Instead, you must devote time and energy to learning. I respect those students who must make work, family, or other commitments their top priority. Nevertheless, to benefit from the class and to be rewarded with a high grade, you must find time to do the work.

 

2. Procedural Justice or Fairness.

In my non-statistics classes, I typically grade exams and papers anonymously (by identification numbers rather than names) to avoid favoritism or other biases. Universal standards and strict deadlines are the best way I know to provide equal opportunities for all stude