Sociology the Saints and The Roughnecks Question

 

 

What Are You Being Asked To Do?

ONLY AN OUTLINE IS NEEDED (DO NOT WRITE PAPER, JUST CREATE A DETAILED OUTLINE)

This requirement implies writing carefully and critically about methodologies with which you are marginally familiar.

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

How Should This Paper Look?

For evaluations, you should assume I have read the article you are evaluating, and should provide a very brief – one paragraph or 150 word – summary of what you believe the authors were attempting to do in the paper before going on to consider some aspects of the way they did it in more detail. You should attempt to prioritize your comments to focus on what you believe to be the most significant aspects of the authors’ methodological choices. These may include, in various mixes: (1) things you found praiseworthy about what the researchers did; (2) things you thought the researchers might/should have done differently or additionally; (3) things you thought the authors were mistaken about; (4) things about how the research was conducted that you believe they should have said more about; (5) things that enhance or detract from authors’ or others’ ability to replicate or extend their research; (6) the degree of confidence you have in the conclusions that the authors draw or the conclusions that you think they should have drawn but didn’t.

How Will You Be Graded?

Article evaluations will be graded on how well they engage central issues constructively but they cannot be comprehensive; the goal is to suggest what the authors could do better to answer their own question more credibly. Each evaluation should explicitly prioritize critiques and should draw a conclusion about the overall trustworthiness of the contribution that the article claims. Evaluations need to be clear and grammatical but they are not intended to be your most polished prose.

I will send more information and helpful details when question is accepted.