Sociology 448
Seminar: Social Change
Fall 2003
Dr Scott Schaffer

Term Project Presentation Guidelines

Remember that your paper is due and your presentation is to be delivered on the date you signed up for at the start of the semester. The schedule is at the end of this handout for your recollection.

Presentation Format

The general format for the research presentation phase of the course will be like a mini-conference. Each person will present their research, and at the end of the session there will be a question and answer period.

Your presentations should be approximately 10 minutes in length. All presentations will be cut off at 12 minutes regardless of how many people are presenting on that day, so please make sure that you rehearse your presentation prior to delivering it in class and check the time. The presentation must include the elements listed below (note that this is not an outline, but a checklist you should use in developing your presentation and I will use in evaluating it):

Ø     A short summary of the research project;

Ø     A statement of the research question that motivated your research;

Ø     A discussion of your research method (if appropriate; if your work is library research-based, you don’t need this discussion);

Ø     A discussion of your theorist and analytic framework, with particular reference to the issues that are raised on the “Analytic Framework” handout;

Ø     A summation of the evidence or data you collected;

Ø     A summation of the analysis, including how it is that you used the analytic framework to highlight certain elements of your findings;

Ø     The most important insights gained through doing this research.

The presentation is designed to spark discussion on your research, so you should make sure that it provides your audience with enough information about your research to talk thoughtfully about it. You should also anticipate certain kinds of questions from the audience (i.e., issues with your research, how you carried it out, why you looked at what you did, etc.) and prepare responses to these questions.

It is the responsibility of the audience members to formulate questions about each presenter’s research. Hence, you should be prepared to take notes on what the presenters offer and be ready and willing to engage in discussion about their work. You should feel free to be constructively critical about their work; don’t just ask for mere restatements of what they said or pose “softball” kinds of questions.

All presenters need to email me the abstract for their papers no less than 24 hours prior to their presentation date. I will forward these abstracts to the class so they can be aware of what they’ll be hearing about on that day.

The attached evaluation sheet will be used to assess the strength and quality of your presentation. This will be attached to your research paper, which will be returned on your completion of the final examination for the course on Fri Dec 12/2003 from 1015am to 1215pm.

Presentation Schedule

Mon Nov 24: Don Sulpizio, Steph Zolomij

Mon Dec 1: Holly Nagy, Sean Boyer, Amanda Brown

Wed Dec 3: Chris Daly, Sarah Jacobson, Jesse Bradley, Jerry Lapp, Donna Drew

Mon Dec 8: Jill Smith, Kristen Seip, Evan Gentry, Brian McCue, John Walton