SOC b2500
Sociological Writing
(“Making Sociology Speak”)
B. Nadya Jaworsky
Office 3.66
Consultation Hours:
Wednesdays: 13.00-14.00 or by appointment

Some observations on the
social issue essays
•Re-writing! Not just minor cosmetic changes but a down and dirty editing will improve  your
writing. Writing is a process that improves your skills and style. •Howard Becker says write the
text you think is good and then cut 30%
•You are not trying; you are doing (I will try…)
•

TQS shorthand for entering a conversation with your readers:
•I am working on the TOPIC of…
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•…because I want to find out how or why... (QUESTION)
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•…so that I can help others understand how or why.... (Significance/SO WHAT)
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•

Research Goals
•Ask a question worth answering
•Find an answer you can support with good reasons
•Find good data that you can use as evidence to support your reasons
•Draft an argument that makes a good case for your answer
•Revise that draft until your readers will think you met the first four goals.
•

Questioning your topic
•Ask how the topic fits into a larger context
•Ask questions about the nature of the thing itself
•Turn positive questions into negative ones
•Ask speculative questions
•Ask “What if” questions
•Ask questions that reflect disagreement with a source
•Ask questions that build on agreement

Questioning your topic
•Ask questions analogous to those others have asked about similar topics •Look for questions other
researchers pose but don’t answer •Find a professional discussion forum on your topic, then “lurk,”
just reading the exchanges  to understand the kinds of questions being asked.

Evaluating your questions:
•You can answer too easily or descriptively (What…? or Does…?)
•Their answers are settled facts you could just look up
•No one could plausibly disprove the answer because it seems self-evident
•Their answers would be merely speculative
•Their answers are dead ends
•You can’t find the evidence to support the answer (no facts; a matter of taste) •You would find so
many sources that you cannot look at all of them (too broad)

•Two types of research questions – practical (what we should do) and conceptual (what should we
think?) •Think of your argument as the container for answers to readers’ questions.
•CLAIM + REASONS + EVIDENCE
•DON’T FORGET ALTERNATIVE ARGUMENTS & COUNTERFACTUALS! • But what about this other view? Give
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT & RESPONSE.
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Planning for an answer:
•Propose some working answers (WRITE don’t just think them)
• If you can’t find an answer, argue for your question.
• Build a storyboard to plan and guide your work.
• State your question and your working hypothesis
• State your reasons.
• -Different ways of organization – chronological, cause and effect, relative importance,
complexity, length etc.
• Sketch in the kind of evidence you should look for.
• Look at the whole project
• Join or organize a writing groups
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•  Conscious Style Guide
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•https://consciousstyleguide.com/

•  NEXT WEEK’S ASSIGNMENTS
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•REQUIRED READING:
•Somekh & Lewin – Chapter 2 “Working with Literatures” (8 pp.)
•Becker, Writing for Social Scientists, Ch. 8 (14 pp.)
•HOMEWORK DUE: 3-5 sources for final essays, Due May 3 in the Homework Vault, formatted to ASA
Style

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otCpCn0l4Wo