GENERIC GUIDELINES FOR BRIEFS/TAKE-HOME ASSIGNMENTS 1. Your assignments should have strong, coherent thesis statements at the beginning of the paper. The thesis statement should be specific and clear. It should tie together the different points you will address in the paper. 2. Description is necessary, but not sufficient. You are advised to include a brief but specific summary of what you are writing about (eg, a film, a book, a website) that introduces the features on which your analytical arguments will focus. There is relevant and irrelevant information about your topic of discussion (e.g, a film); make sure that the information you include in your summary is relevant to a) explain the overall premise of what you are discussing in relation to the course and b) ground your analytical argument. DO NOT let description and summaries dominate your paper! 3. Instead, the bulk of your papers should be comprised of a serious analysis of the particular topic in relation to the course. Here you will want to employ the terms, concepts, theories, and insights garnered from the course in your analysis. Consider one or more of the following framing questions: a. What insights into globalization does the film, or website, or reading reflect? b. What concepts or terms doe the it illustrate, and how? c. What theory or theories of globalization does the film or reading or website (etc.) promote or refute or illustrate, and in what ways? Your specific answer to one or more of these questions could comprise your thesis statement! 4. Citations should always include the author’s last name, year of publication, AND PAGE NUMBER. 5. Please use 12 point, Times New Roman font, and 1” margins. Don’t forget page numbers! 6. In every one of my classes I have discovered a number of students who plagiarize. The sociology department now has software that makes it extremely easy to discover plagiarism. If you are caught plagiarizing you will get an automatic failing grade for the course. If you are not sure what constitutes plagiarism please ask me to go over this in class. General Feedback from Briefs– Advise on How to Improve them Like every essay you write in college (and in life), your assignment should have a strong, coherent thesis statement at the beginning of the paper. The thesis statement should be specific and clear. The opening paragraph should link the specific assignment (whether a discussion of films, of a book, or of a particular topic) to the larger themes of the course, e.g., Globalization and Resistance, Global Inequalities. Here is feedback put together by my TAs with regard to some of the main issues that have afflicted student’s papers in previous quarters-and for which they end up receiving lower grades than expected. Use it as a cautionary tale to help you avoid them altogether and help you improve your papers and thus avoid losing points. A) Many of you get carried away with the descriptions and summaries. Remember that the point of these briefs should be on analysis. You are learning how to become critical thinkers–let your papers show this. B) Although most of you do incorporate some materials from class into your analysis (as you are supposed to do), often there is not enough to help you make a good analysis and support your arguments sufficiently. Many papers only had one or two references/quotes from class materials. Remember that you can use any of the materials from class including, articles, videos, lectures, etc. Use class materials to your advantage. C) Another related issue to the point above is that many of you do not back up your points/arguments with evidence from class materials. You should avoid stating your opinions and feelings on the paper, however, if you do state your opinion, you should always back it up with evidence, i.e. an informed opinion. D) There is often a lot of “extra stuff” or “fluff” in many of the papers. By this I mean, sentences and words that don’t add any content to your paper. Many times, this came in the form of overly lengthy descriptions and repetitions. Please, be advised that we can tell immediately if you are just trying to “BS” your way through the paper! You won’t fool anyone! E) There are a lot of unnecessarily complex “fancy” words and sentences (very often misused). In our experience this is done to disguise the lack of analysis. However, this quite often backfires, making your papers overly confusing and difficult to read, which often results in a lower grade. F) Several students forget to include a “references” page, automatically lowering the grade of your paper. Please make sure to always include a “references” or “works cited” page. This general feedback addresses the most common errors/issues seen in the first briefs, however it is not meant to be comprehensive or a guideline for how to write your brief, for this information refer to A) the syllabus and B) The “generic guidelines for briefs”. Don’t forget to also read the “Model Papers” that we have uploaded to Gaucho Space for your convenience. All documents are on Gaucho Space now. 
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