Humanities Homework Help

As a student in the course, you are required to write a series of Discussion Group posts on the course materials (readings).  This week, your post should focus on the theoretical ideas of DuBois, Simmel, or Gilman. Your initial post is due on Friday by 11:59pm.  You will then reply to at least two of your discussion group members’ posts in order to provide analytical feedback/comments.  The goal of the feedback is to help your peers think analytically and define, discuss, apply and compare/contrast social theory concepts.  You can also respond to any questions they pose.  Your peer feedback/comments are due by Sunday at 11:59pm. Details on the discussion posts follow.  Please be sure to meet the specified criteria, including deadlines, as they will be used to grade your posts/feedback.  Also, please read the grading rubric, which links the assignment criteria to the points you can earn for successfully meeting the criteria.  

Initial Post (due Friday at 11:59pm)

Your posts are NOT SUMMARIES OF THE READINGS. Instead, you should focus on one concept (or perhaps two interrelated concepts) or ideas expressed in the reading materials for this week (see this week’s module section “Important Concepts/Ideas” for some potential concepts/ideas, although you are not restricted to writing only about these concepts/ideas). Which concept/idea did you find most intriguing or powerful?  The gist of the assignment is for you to engage—in an analytically sound way—with the theories (the explanations) we cover in the course.  Your initial post should be 300-500 words.  Finally, be sure to cite properly (using ASA style) throughout, including providing a list of references (1 entry in your reference list is fine if you’re focusing on 1 theorist).  

Peer Feedback (due Sunday at 11:59pm)

You are required to provide feedback to at least two of your discussion group peers.  In your feedback, try to be analytically/theoretically helpful, pointing out strengths that exist in your peers’ posts.  Also provide feedback/comments that point your peers toward the readings this week (and cite properly in doing so) that help strengthen the analytical content of their posts.  The goal is to use online discussion to help enhance everyone’s sociological understanding of the specific theorists’ concepts/theories.  

Tips

Remember, this is a social theory course.  You should be engaging with the theories/concepts form a theorist, not their biography.  Although you may cite some information about their biography to the extent that their biography is relevant for their theories/concepts, you should not make the theorist’s biography the focus of your post.  To be sure, some of the people will read are heroic and impressive individuals, but you must engage with their ideas, not summarize their biographies.  

Also, you should be careful to cite properly all sources you use.  I’ve created a module to help you cite properly here . Also, you can find information on citing at the Purdue Owl’s website dedicated to ASA citation style (Links to an external site.) (this is required reading in the Harriet Martineau module); pay special attention to their information on “in-text citations” and “reference page” formatting.  You don’t have to have a separate reference page–simply put “References” at the bottom of your posts, and then list the materials that you’ve cited there.  Note that all of the readings in our Lemert text and all of the original theorist readings within the L&N text are formatted in accordance with the “Chapter in an Edited Volume” item on the Purdue Owl “reference-page formatting” page.  This means that you cite the author of the specific reading and NOT Lemert or L&N, who are the editors of the text.  Note, too, that you cite the year of publication for our course texts, not the original publication date by the original author.  Thus, an in-text citation for a Lemert reading is: (Authorlastname 2016) and (Authorname 1998) for an L&N reading.  And the format for a reference page entry for each of the texts are: