Social Conflict and Social Values

Willard Uncapher, Instructor / Fall, 2003

SOCY 1005 (UC Boulder)

(Short) Paper 1: What are your personal values and your processes of dealing with conflict?  Please explore your personal framework. 

This will include a sense not only of general ‘character’ values, but also a sense of how you frame your goals?  Do you relate your ‘personal’ goals to larger scale community, social, cultural goals?

Try to be very clear and analytic.  Analytic means being able to look as dispassionately as possible at what might constitute distinct elements and processes, which elements and processes might be missing.  You can integrate this work with outside readings and research that will clarify your investigation.  Please include (at least) two outside book or articles.

Length – 4-6 Pages [Any bibliography would be integrated onto the end of the paper – it doesn’t count as a separate page].

^Format

1. Title- please include a title.

· This way people can refer to you work, and can have a sense of what it is about.

2. No need for special cover sheet.

· You can provide one, particularly if you want to include some goovy graphic, but generally there is no need to waste paper. A typed, stapled, page numbered document without a cover sheet is fine! [Particularly in a paper this short!]

3. Number your pages. And staple or connect them together.

· They do get separated! You don’t have to number the first page.

^Content

1. Follow the topical instructions.

· Did you properly explore some of your key goals and values?

· Did you identify how you might deal with conflict?

· Did you or do you wish to relate these values to larger social or cultural conflicts?

· Is they anything special about your approach?

2. Relate your ideas to some outside text or source?

^{General Organization}

1. Present a Thesis/Overview/Key question near the beginning of your work.

· This tells your reader what you are going to discuss. It gets them interested and focused. Even papers on people need a focus.

2. Present your work clearly?

· You might explain the position of someone who would disagree with you, or your goals and values, and explain why or how your perspective is the better.

^{Grammatical / Style Points}

1. Spelling and grammar- these do count.

· Don’t just use a spell checker. Give yourself enough time to read over your paper. The point of having good grammar to make yourself clear, and to avoid ambiguity.

2. Avoid large generalizations / Questions without answers are OK.

· Yes we know that ‘the Internet is changing society.’ People tend to use large generalizations since it helps the writer feel that she or he is on to something important. However, if the writer keeps suggesting vague things that the reader knows, the reader will lose confidence in the writer. Instead of generalizations, consider asking more questions!

· Questions without answers are known are rhetorical questions. Feel free to ask more questions than you answer! Part of the point of education is to alert you, and for you in turn to alert you readers to what the important issues are.

3. Avoid using the word ‘it’ too much.

· Yes it is useful to use the word it to avoid redundancy. But see if you can find another word. The word ‘it’ often hides vague thinking. Writing and thinking are hard, and part of the struggle of writing is converting vague writing into something focused, evocative, and informative. Getting rid of as many ‘its’ as possible is usually part of the final rewrite.

4. Avoid the ‘passive tense.’

· Another struggle in good writing is trying to convert the passive tense into something active, trying to name the ‘agent’ in an action, trying to give a name to the group or individual doing something.

5. Avoid clichés.

· Like ‘everyone knows that…