Checklist for an Amateur Sociology Research Paper
Usually, I will try not to write articles from a position of authority, but I will have to make an exception in this case, because this article will be meaningless if I don’t show I have knowledge in the field. Besides, this article still fulfills my mantra of helping the public prepare to be active, empowered, knowledgeable participants in society without the interference of power interests. So, I did receive a Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology. You can verify this by going to the website YuVerify, clicking on “Begin Your Search,” making sure you’re on the page “Search by Name,” and then typing in my name Kevin Zuccherato.
Please be aware that this list is not exhaustive and will be continuously updated.
· Academic sociology papers use lots of technical and unfamiliar terminology, but that shouldn’t scare you off. Set yourself apart from academics by writing in terms that the public can understand. Sociology isn’t complicated enough that it needs to be conveyed through specialized vocabulary, but universities do that anyway, keeping laypeople’s voices out of the knowledge-creation process and preventing the masses from contributing to social change. For your study to connect with the public, you can’t write it like an academic journal.
· When planning your study, make sure you explicitly state what falls within the scope of your study and what doesn’t. For example, if you’re studying employment, you must decide whether you want to study all employment, if you want to focus only on full-time employment, or if you want to research other employment arrangements. If you’re studying violence, make sure you have an idea of what forms of violence you will be studying. Even if you’re studying all forms of violence, list all the forms of violence you can think of, just so the reader can feel reassurance that your study is well-structured.
· Do some research on sampling techniques and choose the one that’s best suited for your study. This page is a fantastic resource for learning about sampling techniques.
· Your introductory section should contain your research question, your scope (as mentioned earlier in this article), and an argument stating why your project is worth carrying out.
· If you’re not a member of an academic or corporate institution, ethics boards won’t be interested in reviewing your plans. Because of this, let your readers know that you are not a professional or trained researcher and that this precludes you from submitting your paper to an ethics board.
· When describing your methodology, note where you will be collecting your data, how much data you will be collecting, and the data’s time span.
· Also in your methodology section, be sure to constantly refer to the scope you’ve set in your introduction and show that you are consistently applying that scope to your data.
· Assess the ethical quality of your study.
· Near the end of your paper, discuss the weaknesses of your study and speculate on how it could have been better. This will open up new topics for other researchers to explore.
· If you used questionnaires or an interview guide in your study, place them in the appendix, located at the very end of your article.
Hopefully this will inspire you to collect meaningful data that could help guide people to develop strategies for a better future!
Article also available at https://medium.com/illumination/checklist-for-an-amateur-sociology-research-paper-2165ddc99919.