Sociology of Deviance Essay

What Are You Being Asked To Do?

An unusual but essential part of the course work is evaluation of “exemplars.” They may not exceed 750 words. As I think it unlikely that you are “expert” in different methodologies, this requirement implies writing carefully and critically about methodologies with which you are only marginally familiar. The article must be one of those assigned in class, uploaded in the ‘Files’ on Canvas. — attatched

What Should You Focus On?

Focus your attention on the specific methodological issues in the article (how reliability, validity, generalizability, causal inference, etc. are dealt with, well or poorly, in the particular design the author chose, and how that design could be improved on to meet the author’s goals). The key question you want to answer is how much sociologists should trust the results, and the evaluation should be specific and constructive (aimed at producing more trust-worthy answers), rather than an attack on the author’s choice of problem or epistemology. NO research is perfect; ALL papers could be improved without thereby being “bad” (but some may be). Asking “good questions” about the paper is the goal and thus the criterion on which you will be graded.