Mills College – Soc190 – Spring 2007 – Th 6:45-9:15 pm
Instructor : Dan Ryan
Overview
Our overall strategy will be to interleave practical research skills,
preparation
for senior thesis, and review of sociological concepts. The goal
of the course is for students transition from passive receivers of
sociological
knowledge to active processors of empirical information informed by
sociological
concepts, methods, and vision. In short, we hope to reinforce
your
possession of and stimulate your use of a “sociological imagination.”
Building on my observation that, to a person, students say that they
wish they’d known at the beginning of the thesis project what they know
at the end, one theme in this course will be “methods in
reverse.”
What I mean by this is that we will begin very early on with finished
scientific
papers, rough drafts, and real data and move from there to study design
and literature reviews. The thinking behind this is that the
thesis
project proceeds too much in the spirit of the student not really
knowing
what comes next and how what she is doing today fits into the final
product.
Some possible topics
-
How to read a scientific paper. Students will be required to read and
report
on a selected research paper. Probably repeated two or three
times.
A related exercise will introduce them to review articles (as found,
for
example, in the Annual Review of Sociology).
-
Data “processing” – coding, storing, retrieving data for maximum
flexibility.
Or “how to squeeze every last drop of interesting information out of a
limited dataset.”
-
Project planning and work scheduling. Team work.
-
Appreciation for wide variety of types of sociological studies (pushing
beyond observation and surveys)
-
Using the WWW for what it is good for, recognizing what it is not good
for. Intensive introduction to other research resources.
Hard
core “scavenger hunt” type exercise.
-
Substantive Background: On the Importance of Becoming a
Non-sociological
Expert on Your Topic
-
Drafting and redrafting: Crafting a zeroth draft early in the research
process
-
A substantive paper related to thesis topic. No sociology, just
overview,
facts, background, etc.
-
Connections between research and contemporary theory: or sneaking a
little
of the latter into a research seminar. We’ll probably read a few
interesting recent monographs.
General Rules and Regulations of the Course
-
The largest part of your grade for this course will be based on your
keeping
up with the course, meeting deadlines, etc. No late work will be
accepted for evaluation during or after the semester. An
allowance
will be made for average levels of encounters with the vagaries of
fate,
but otherwise, excuses and explanations will not interest us. If
you are especially talented at attracting personal disasters, please
plan
accordingly.
-
Punctuality, attendance and participation are mandatory. Serious
illness, incarceration,and abduction by aliens provide the only excuses
for absence or tardiness that will be considered.
-
One goal of this seminar is for each of you to reach the end of the
semester
with a project underway. "Underway" will be defined differently
in
each case but will include things like having submitted a human
subjects
review proposal if necessary, having a funding proposal in hand, being
ready to begin fieldwork, etc.
-
You topic will almost certainly narrow and perhaps even change
completely
over the course of the semester. That is normal. It is also
normal to be unable to decide among several possible topics. That
being said, you will be responsible at all times to have a topic du
jour.
Weekly exercises and assignments will always be built around this
topic.
If you change topics it will be your responsibility to go back and redo
previous exercises for your new topic to the degree that they would be
useful in the construction of your final project.