SOC100: Introduction to Sociology I
Professor McIvor
TERM PAPER INSTRUCTIONS

I. General Assignment Details:

Worth: 30% of Final Grade

Due dates:
Deadlines: Due Date: Grace Period End Date:
Term Paper Deadline #1 Tues, Jan.31 by 11:59pm Tues, Feb.7 by 11:59pm
Term Paper Deadline #2 Tues, Feb.14 by 11:59pm Tues, Feb.21 by 11:59pm
Term Paper Deadline #3 Tues, March 21 by 11:59pm Tues, March 28 by 11:59pm

• You are only required to submit one debate paper and you can submit for whichever of the
papers/due dates appeals to you most. You do however, have the option of submitting up to two
papers to try and improve your grade, but to do this you MUST submit your first paper for
deadline #1 or #2 (if you submit for deadline #3 you will NOT have the ability to re-submit
even if you are unhappy about your grade). The option to submit a second (new and original)
paper is provided so that you have the opportunity to reach the grade you desire in the course.
If you are unhappy with your first paper grade, you can learn from the feedback and try again
on another paper (it must be a different topic and an entirely new paper from the first
submission).

How to Submit:

• Students MUST submit an e-copy of the paper which will be turned in on Quercus. On the
course’s Quercus homepage click “Assignments” and you will see the folder to submit your
assignment. Papers must be in word or pdf format, if your paper is in a pages or other format it
won’t be readable in Quercus so we do not accept them.

• Please note that a student is responsible for submitting a readable document. NO
ACCOMODATIONS WILL BE GIVEN FOR a submitted file that is corrupted, un-openable,
or contains only symbols.

• Please Note: We check all papers for plagiarism THOROUGHLY. Any instances of plagiarism
whether intentional or not are automatically given a grade of 0. Please consult the course
writing guide for what constitutes plagiarism.

• When you submit your paper to Quercus, it will be screened through the plagiarism detection
tool Ouriginal. Ouriginal is the University’s plagiarism detection tool, and it conducts a review
of textual similarity and plagiarism. In submitting your essay, you agree to allow it to be
included as source documents in the tool’s reference database, where it will be used solely for
the purpose of detecting plagiarism. The terms that apply to the University’s use of this tool are
described on the Centre for Teaching Support & Innovation web site (https://uoft.me/pdt-faq).

Extension & Late Policy:

• Everyone is welcome to use the 7 day grace period associated with each deadline without
having to email/ask us for permission. As long as we receive your paper by the end of the listed
grace period, no late penalties will be applied.
• An assignment that is not turned in on Quercus by the end of the grace period will:
o For paper deadlines #1 and #2, results in the paper needing to be submitted for the
following deadline.
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o For deadline #3, results in a 10% late penalty per day which is assessed at the START
or each late day. For example, if you submit at 10am Thursday March 30th you will lose
20% (10% for the 29th, 10% for the 30th).
• Unless there are severe extenuating and verified circumstances, I do not grant extensions on the
term papers. Please start your assignment early so that an illness, computer problem, paper
shredding dog, or other circumstance does not prevent you from meeting the deadline. There
are multiple opportunities to submit a paper, you have been aware of the paper deadlines since
the start of class, and a 7 day extension was provided for everyone for each deadline, this is
why I do not offer extensions lightly. Further, any extension for the third deadline requires
evidence that you have been unable to work on the paper since BEFORE the actual third
deadline. Please be advised though, if you plan to use the 7-day grace period and something
happens (you get sick, a personal emergency, etc.), then you will only get a further extension if
your circumstance happened BEFORE the 7-day grace period and affects you throughout the
grace period. In other words, the grace period should be used as just that (a grace period for if
something goes wrong and not a time you plan ahead to write your paper during).


II. Specific Assignment Details:

Paper Topics:

• You can pick ONE of the below paper topics and can also pick which lecture you associate
with the topic. The paper topics include:

1. Using a Sociological perspective to identify them, what are the three biggest
challenges/issues within the field of (choose a lecture topic) .** (see below for lecture
topics)

2. Using a Sociological perspective to identify them, what are three solutions to make
improvements within the field of (choose a lecture topic) .** (see below for lecture topics)

**Education, Culture, Media & Technology, Social Class & Economic Inequality, Work &
Labour Markets, Gender & Sexuality, Racial Inequality, Health & Mental Health,
Deviance/Crime & the Law, Social Change.)

Paper Format & Requirements:

• Assignment MUST be a 2.5 pages long with a maximum of 2.5 pages. These pages must be
double-spaced (not including the title page and works cited page).
o You MUST use 12-point Times New Roman Font and “Normal” or 1 inch margins.1
o *NOTE: we will not read anything after the page limit; it is important to be able to be
concise and respect page limits. No exceptions will be made.
• You MUST have a cover page stating your Title, Name, Course, Professor, citation style used,
and date of submission. This page should also include a sentence stating that you understand
what plagiarism is and have used citations when borrowing the ideas or words of others. And

1 If in doubt about whether your margins are normal, in Microsoft word select the “Layout” tab at the top then select
margins (1st option on the left) and normal.
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another sentence acknowledging that the minimum penalty for plagiarism is a grade of 0 on the
assignment. (see Assignment template)
• You MUST use page numbers.
• You MUST include a works cited page.
• You can use ANY citation style you wish. HOWEVER, you must be consistent and use only
one style, you must state what style you used on the cover page, and it must be a documented
and well-known style (i.e. no making up your own, otherwise any documented style is fine).2
• You MUST use a minimum of SIX sources.
o That is, you must look at sixt sources that DO NOT INCLUDE my lecture slides or
materials I have assigned to you for AM quizzes (you can use and cite these, they just
don’t count towards the 6 sources required). In other words, you must find and consider
at least six other valid sources of information that are not part of this course
o Three of the sources must come from academic journal articles (Google scholar and the
library are great resources for finding such articles).
o For the other three sources, I will allow any source that has undergone any type of
review process. For example, academic articles, journal articles, books, magazine
and/or newspaper articles, documentaries, videos of news reports, official reports from
government organizations, and other similar sources are all acceptable. Personal blog
posts or other unedited sources of information are not. PLEASE NOTE: You have the
responsibility to judge the validity of your source’s information. There are bad sources
that fit within the type I allow and good sources that do not. Use your judgement and try
to make good decisions. If you have questions about a source, you are ALWAYS
welcome at my office hours.
o You DO NOT need to cite all 6 sources within the paper text, it is entirely possible to
review sources and not use their ideas. Just remember that if you do use a source’s ideas
then you need to include it as an in-text citation.
• PLEASE BE ADVISED: I have posted an Assignment Template that you can use for your
assignment. It has the correct margins and other technical specifications. This is to make life
easier for you and to take out the guesswork of whether something is formatted correctly. You
are NOT required to use this exact template, it’s just to show you what the paper should
generally look like.

III. Basic Assignment Advice:

• For your assignment, take on the role of a court judge when determining your arguments (i.e.,
base your arguments and conclusions on the facts of your research versus what you personally
believe). In other words, state your arguments and the justifications for them professionally and
without the use of personal pronouns. This isn’t about what your personally believe, this is
about the conclusions that an unbiased analysis of the facts leads you to.
• All good papers regardless of structure have some key elements:

2 Purdue’s Online Writing Lab is a good resource for citation styles if you need assistance/inspiration:
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/asa_style/index.html
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1. Critical Analysis:
▪ Good papers and analyses do not just accept information like that presented in a
documentary or in a news article at face value, they research it further to get the
view of a few different sources and use critical analysis to dissect it and form their
own opinion. You are not limited to 6 sources and can have more.
2. A Thesis:
▪ All good papers have a point. In other words, papers are written with a purpose (and
the reason for your paper should not be simply that I assigned you to write one!).
Your paper should have a point, it should have an overall argument that you want to
make clear to whoever reads it, this is your thesis and everything in your paper
should be included only because it contributes to that thesis: in other words, if
something you want to say in the paper does not add to your thesis then do not
include it. Your thesis for this assignment should take the form of stating what your
overarching point is that the three body paragraph arguments come together to form.
IV. Assignment Structure:

• The expected structure of your paper is as follows:

Introduction
(1 paragraph, half a page)
State the issue, state it’s importance and give some context,
outline the three arguments of your body paragraphs, then state
your thesis.
Body Paragraph 1
(1 paragraph, half a page)
Topic sentence, 3 sentences that outline and substantiate with
evidence your first argument, sentence summarizing the
paragraph’s contribution to the thesis.
Body Paragraph 2
(1 paragraph, half a page)
Topic sentence, 3 sentences that outline and substantiate with
evidence your second argument, sentence summarizing the
paragraph’s contribution to the thesis.
Body Paragraph 3
(1 paragraph, half a page)
Topic sentence, 3 sentences that outline and substantiate with
evidence your third argument, sentence summarizing the
paragraph’s contribution to the thesis.
Conclusion
(Roughly 1 paragraph, half a
page)
Tie everything together and state the main points/arguments of
your paper for the reader. Tell them what they should take away
from your paper, i.e. the main message or argument. Remember
this is a summary, nothing new should be included here.

V. Additional Advice
• See Professor McIvor Writing Guide.