Q. Explain what the main differences are between how a conflict theorist and functionalist theorist would understand class inequality in Australian society.
1 Understanding Society Essay plan work sheet This work sheet is intended to help you draft your essay plan and more generally prepare you for the essay. The idea behind the essay plan is that it is an opportunity for you to get some feedback on your understanding of the ideas of the unit and your academic writing skills from your tutor before you write your essay. Having said that, it is also a marked assessment which means higher quality essay plans will get higher marks. Before you start on your essay plan you will need to pick which of the four essay questions you want to answer. They are on page 11 of your Learning Guide. Once you have done that you should check the provided readings for the essay which will be available on vUWS under the reading list link. Review the Marking Criteria You will find the marking criteria for the essay plan on the vUWS site. It has six sections • Breaking Down the Question • Defining the sociological concepts • Key Points and examples • Conclusion • Organising the ideas and structuring the essay plan. • Referencing You need to cover all of these criteria in your essay plan. Review the Marking Criteria as you are working on your essay plan and before you submit it to make sure you have covered all the sections. This work sheet will use these sections to guide you through the essay plan. 1. Breaking down the Question (The introduction) At this stage you may or may not have checked or read the readings for the essay on the reading list on vUWS. Some students like to break down all four questions to help them decide which question to pick. It is up to you if you want to do this. Breaking down the question is really about working out what sociological ideas and concepts the question is about and what it is asking you to do with them. Having a clear understanding of the essay question is an important step to answering it. The following information should be in this section of your essay plan: i. What is the key sociological concept or idea the question is using? This is one of the most important parts of the question. You need to know what specific idea or concept from the unit the question wants you to use. 2 How should you present this information in the essay plan? There are two good ways • You could present it like a short answer question. For example: ‘the sociological concept the question uses is Social Inequality. Social Inequality is defined as ….’ • Or you could use the information to create a paragraph that covers all the points (when it comes time to write your essay you will have to do this. It is up to you if you do it now). Do not use dot points. We need to see that you can write sentences and paragraphs ii. The questions all ask you to explain the relevant sociological concepts and theories and apply them to a particular social issue (e.g. unemployment). iii. Next you need to understand how the question asks you to apply the sociological concept or use them on the subjects. It might ask you to compare, contrast, explore, explain or give ways. iv. When you apply a sociological concept to a subject you can also use a sociological theory to help explain or explore or compare. Try to identify a sociological theory that fits the question and explain why it works (this can be hard, but if you do it well you will be rewarded with marks). When you write the full essay, the information in this section will form part of the Introduction to your essay. At this stage your introduction is more a brief paragraph, maybe only 100 words. Once you start to understand the question you will also start to interpret the question. If the subject is Australian Society, what parts of Australian society will you write about? Likewise what aspects of the sociological concept will you use? How will theory fit with this? It is good to think about this before you move on to the rest of your plan 3 2. Defining the sociological concepts You should provide a definition or explanation of the sociological concepts the question uses to show you know what it is and can explain it. Make sure you provide a citation for the resource where you got this definition from (probably your text book). You could use a direct quote for a definition, but a better idea is to explain it in your own words (with a citation of course). This is called paraphrasing. It shows strong understanding of the concept. If you can explain it in your own words, then the marker is sure that you understand it. You have some flexibility about where to put these definitions in your plan and essay, some students like to put it in the introduction while others might start their key points with these definitions. The point here is to make it clear to the marker that you are providing a definition. Maybe start that sentence with words like, ‘X is a sociological concept that is defined as…’ or something like that. Remember, there might be more than one concept, so you might end up providing a few different definitions. The better your definitions of sociological concepts and ideas, the better you will do in this criteria. 3. Key Points and examples An essay is a large answer to an essay question. Part of the reason it is large is that you not only have to present an argument or a position as the answer, but also you have to defend that position with evidence. As I mentioned in the lecture some students will read the essay question and know straight away what they want their answer to be. Others will need to read all the readings before they know what position they want to take. Both approaches are fine, but once you get to this stage you will have to read the readings to get your key points. The key points are justifications for your position or argument, but they must be defended with evidence from academic research. Some points about key points: Students often ask how many key points they should have in their essay. At university you are more likely to be rewarded if you can get into depth on your key points. This reduces the number that you can use. If you use too many key points, then instead of getting into depth you will start to summarise the topic. Instead of showing your knowledge and understanding, you will just be skimming the surface of the concept and the subjects. For this essay three or four key points would be a good number. 4 How should you present this information in the essay plan? Again, avoid dot points here. Instead use a few sentences to explain each key point. You only have 500 words for the plan in total so try to keep it tight. You can expand on the details in the essay. Don’t forget to add the citations for each key point. How should you present this information in the essay plan? Again, avoid dot points. Try to summarise your key points in a sentence or two. Explain how they support your argument/position. End the conclusion with a sentence or two that answers the essay question or finishes the answer you have developed. Your key points need to flow from the breakdown of the question, they need to use the sociological concept, the subject and topic of the essay and what you have been asked to do with them. This year’s assessment is really about explaining the sociological concepts/ideas and applying them to a topic. This means you will be able to provide examples that help show the marker that you understand the sociological concepts. As they are part of a position or argument, the key points all need to relate to each other in a logical way. Remember, the key points are meant to support the position or argument. Within the key points it would be a good idea to have a sentence or two that explains how you are going to use the sociological theory you have picked in the essay. And lastly you need to include a least one citation for each key point. Make sure you acknowledge what resource the idea or the evidence has come from. 4. Conclusion Both your essay plan and your essay need a conclusion, but the one for your essay plan will be much shorter. The conclusion for your essay will review your essay as a whole; you will mention your key points to remind the marker of how great they were. You will also explain how these points come together to defend your answer to the essay question. In the plan you need to provide an outline of that summary. How will these points work together and importantly, what is the ultimate concluding answer to the essay question? 5 5. Organising the ideas and structuring the essay plan We have included this in the criteria so we can reward student for giving their essays a clear structure and writing clear paragraphs. Obviously you have the introduction, body and conclusion as structures for the essay, but you also want to make sure that you have clear paragraphs within those sections. For example, a different paragraph for each key point. A paragraph should really be united around one central idea or point. That should be made clear in the topic sentence, which is like an introduction for the paragraph. It tells the reader what the paragraph will be about. Following the topic sentence is the body of the paragraph, the supporting statements that provide detail and discuss the central idea of the paragraph. It is worth spending some time on getting the order of these supporting sentences correct so they build meaning and show