The preparation for your final assignment begins with your weekly participation. SOC(X)325 is structured around approaches that define what it means to think sociologically. And thinking sociologically is key to understanding societies. Hence, every week the course material (readings, lecture) provide you with information on what is involved in a particular approach or key area of society and what we can take from it to understand societies. You apply this in your final assignment, the small sociological analysis.

Participation for internal as well as external students means to think and discuss with others what thinking sociologically means in reference to a given week in preparation for your final assignment. Your contribution will be assessed on the basis of your familiarity and understanding of the weekly course contents from the lecture and the reading(s). Discussion means further that you are required to engage with others. The focus is not so much the quantity, but the quality of your contributions.

Participation in SOC(X)325 has a clear goal: To prepare you as best as possible for your final assignment, the small sociological analysis. How?

Based on the lecture material and the reading(s), the tutorial is the space where you learn how to think sociologically, clarify your understanding of the readings or questions that come up from the lecture. You are welcome to bring in your own interpretations and examples. However - and this is crucial for your final assignment - they need to be focused on a topic, example and maybe a concept.

For external students participation requires discussions on iLearn on the weekly discussion boards. Internal students are, however, welcome to contribute if you feel like doing so. We encourage you to share and discuss with others what you think about readings, approaches and topics. You can share your thoughts about concepts, ideas, examples and discuss them with others in preparation for your final assignment.

We expect you to post within a week after the lecture (Wednesday). There are no extensions possible. Should you have problems or serious reasons for not being able to post within a week, please let me know by email (norbert.ebert@mq.edu.au).

For internal students participation means engaging in on campus tutorial activities. Here too, we encourage you to share and discuss with others how you would answer the key question of the week by bringing a draft to the on campus tutorial.

Over the weeks, the tutorials and discussion boards will provide you with guidance to work towards your final assignment.

Together with your participation, the online quiz is the next step in preparing you for the final assignment. Internal as well as an external / OUA students are required to complete a basic online quiz each week on iLearn. The purpose of the quiz is to make sure you identify and know the key points from each week so you can apply one or several of them in your final assignment, the small sociological analysis..

The quiz questions focus on the contents from the lecture and the reading(s) and they will help you identify the main points from a week.

The essentials about the quizzes are as follows:

• The quizzes are based on the content of the lecture and the reading(s).
• There is a total of 10 quizzes. Each quiz comprises six (6) questions and is worth a total of 3 marks (0.5 per question).
• The first quiz will open in week 2, the last one in week 11.
• Each week you have 8 DAYS to complete the quiz. Quizzes open on Wednesdays 6pm and close on the following Wednesday before the next lecture 1pm.

HINT: Start early on the quiz, do not leave it to the last minute :-)

IMPORTANT: There are no extensions possible including for last-minute technical problems or forgetting to 'save and submit'. If you miss a quiz you will need to provide documentation for the entire time the quiz was open in order to successfully apply for a disruption of studies. The convenor will not respond to emails requesting to reopen quizzes, to extend deadlines or open quizzes early. Remember, before you submit you can save and retry as many times as you like, but once you save and submit, you cannot change your answers. 

The goal of this assignment is that you demonstrate that you can apply your sociological tools or one of them. To do so, you are required to do the following:

a) pick a sociological concept or approach from one of the weeks and define it clearly

b) pick an example that you would like to interpret and analyse sociologically. Describe your example with enough, but not too much detail!

c) interpret and analyse a) with the aid of b)

Your example can be sourced from a reading, a clip, a movie scene, a newspaper article. The most important point is RELEVANCE. What ever choice you make it needs to be clearly focused and linked to your approach so that a meaningful sociological analysis is possible.

A FEW HINTS to start with:

Make sure your assignment is not just a description. Describing a phenomenon well is important, but it is not the same as an analysis / interpretation.

Sometimes we choose topics, because they are close to our own interests. That is generally fine and good. However, the risk is that we start to advocate rather than analyse or interpret. Try and stay on the analytical level of your writing.

Balance between sociological concepts, the example and the analytical part of your assignment is important too. Make sure you do not use up, for example, 1500 words describing your example with only 500 words left for concepts and interpretation.

It is good to have a clear structure with, for example, 2-300 words introduction, 5-700 words main parts (concepts, example) and a 3-500 words conclusion.

An introduction is like a promise. You promise what you will do and the point is to then do it in what follows.

A conclusion is not a summary, but this is the point where you CONCLUDE what the results of your analysis are.