Instruction
At least one (short) paragraph of your paper should describe the article or source you choose. Please include the name of the source here. Simply give an overview of it. At least one paragraph should then describe the concept or term from the reading. This part is important! What does the author mean by this term? How is it used? Please try to explain this as much as possible in your own words. That is, I don’t want you to quote the text. Rather, I want you to be able to understand this enough to use in plain language. Then, write one paragraph explaining how this concept or term relates to the reading you choose. You have leeway here, but I will be looking to see how well you can apply this. You do not need to cite your piece you’ve selected at the end. Simply noting the name of the article (or podcast, story, etc.) and the source in the text is fine. I will be looking for several things. Perhaps the most important is your ability to describe a concept or term from the readings and apply this to whatever you read. In addition to the requirements listed above, I will look for how clear your writing is as well as grammatical errors. A Note on Choosing a Source For a source, please choose something recent. Let’s call “recent’ something written in the last year or two. However, there is no hard cutoff. If there is something you’re really drawn to or something you read in another class from five years ago, it’s not a big deal. Please also use “legitimate” sources. What is a legitimate source? Excellent theory question! In fact, there are many interesting things written about what counts as a “legitimate” source in our society (or, if you’d like, “fake news”). That could be easily linked to Marx’s idea of ruling ideas, Weber on technical expertise, Du Bois on propaganda, and Durkheim on the conscious collective. …OK, that’s not answering your question. The answer is just to use your best judgment. I don’t want to limit you only to conventional news outlets only (e.g. New York Times). The Internet has given us countless specialty sources, commentary and opinions, research, essays, blogs, magazines, and podcasts of the highest quality. The Internet has also given us…a lot of really bad sources (to put it nicely). If the website peddles conspiracy theories or has ads for extremely bizarre products and miracle drugs on the sidebar, maybe it’s not a good source.