Final Essay
Due when and where: submit one Word document (.doc or .docx) on Quercus by Friday, November 27th at 11:59pm EST
Possible points: 30
Despite progress with equality over the past few decades, there are still conflicts between social
groups including instances of prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination. For your essay, you will pick a specific and recent (2018+) conflict or tension between two different social groups and critically evaluate the situation using course theories and additional research. The goal of this assignment is for you to apply concepts and theories learned in the course to explain events happening around the world.
Your essay should be 4.5 – 5 pages long (excluding the title page, references, and appendices)
In your paper, you should:
a.Provide a brief background on the situation – who, what, where, and when details (who is involved, what happened, where did it happen, when did it happen?)
oProvide enough background on the topic so the reader understands what happened
oJustify why it is important to study this particular event/topic
oE.g., “In the past few years police shootings in North America against unarmed Black men have been reported with disturbing regularity…”
b.Provide an explanation/rationale for why the event/conflict is occurring
oThis section should provide the reader with explanations of why the event is occurring. What motivations, rationale, and explanations are relevant to explain the situation you have chosen?
oDepending on the situation you are discussing, different explanations and theories will be appropriate. You will need to assess that situation and determine what explanation (or what combination of explanations/rationales) best explains the situation. It should be clear why this is the best or most appropriate rationale
oE.g., “Despite the declining acceptability of explicit prejudice, many people in North America have negative implicit attitudes towards Black men. These attitudes have been shown to predict a range of behaviours, including…”
The structure of your paper may depend on your topic of choice and the complexity necessary to adequately describe the event and explain the behaviour. Do not provide an unnecessarily lengthy description of the event to fill the page count. Distribute each rationale/explanation however you see fit as long as you are within the overall page limit and have included proper support and critical discussion of the theories and ideas you include.
Formatting and Requirements
The final submission will include a Word document (.doc or .docx) with 4.5 – 5 pages of writing + a title page + references (+ appendices if needed, but not required)
You are expected to follow APA 6 or 7 formatting (e.g., 1-inch margins, double-spaced, size 12 Times New Roman font, etc.) – deductions will be made for not following APA.
Write for an educated audience but one that does not have a background in intergroup relations research or your specific topic. You should provide brief definitions for terms that are psych/intergroup specific. In general, avoid using jargon or complicated language.
You must include a reference to at least one news article that describes the event/situation you focus on in your essay
You must have peer-reviewed journal articles supporting your arguments for the essay
oAt least 8 peer-reviewed journal articles
oAt least 4 peer-reviewed articles must be from 2014-2020
oYou can include additional sources (including blog posts about your topic, newspaper articles, etc.) but you must have the required number of articles published in peer-reviewed journals
You will be evaluated on the quality of your rationale/explanation, whether course theories and research have been interpreted and applied correctly, whether additional research has been conducted, the quality of your writing, and your critical thinking skills
Tips Based on Previous Years’ Submissions and Questions
Content:
Make sure that the essay is about a specific event or incident and not a broad topic. If you cannot answer who/what/when/where details, chances are you have not picked an appropriate topic. Choosing an appropriate topic sets the tone for your entire essay. If your topic is not appropriate (i.e., does not follow instructions laid out here), it is highly likely that the remainder of the essay will be negatively impacted.
You can use what we learned in class to inspire your ideas about what theories or research you should research for the essay, however, you are expected to do your own research by conducting a review of the literature and going beyond simply what is covered in class. Papers that rely solely or largely on content covered in the course (readings, lecture material) will not be seen as meeting the expected requirements for this assignment.
Do not cite the lectures. Lectures are a secondary source and you are expected to draw conclusions based on primary sources (i.e., where the ideas originally came from). If you choose to cite content you learned about from lecture, you must find the original article and cite it. You should also conduct your own literature review and cite additional original research articles.
oNOTE: dissertations, theses, and book chapters are NOT empirical articles and are generally not appropriate sources for a research paper. They will not count toward the 8 peer-reviewed journal article requirement.
Writing:
Given that this is a research-based paper meant for an academic audience, claims should be based on evidence from research and not from personal opinions or anecdotes. The essay should avoid including highly emotional language, describing personal experiences, or making recommendations about what others should do.
Avoid beginning the essay with “the article I will discuss is…” or “I want to discuss…”. Instead, simply begin discussing the particular event/incident that the essay will focus on.
Avoid using terms such as “I think”, “I want”, “I believe”, or “in my opinion” because the reader already knows that what is written in the essay are your thoughts and opinions.
Avoid directly quoting articles. Direct quotes signal to the reader a lack of understanding or ability to write and formulate original ideas. Therefore, stick to paraphrasing using your own words (and don’t forget to cite).
Most sentences in the essay should have an in-text citation and many sentences in your essay should have multiple in-text citations. Keep in mind that anytime you present findings, ideas, or theories you must cite them. Even if you put two different ideas together to form your own logical argument, these two different ideas came from somewhere and they must be cited. If you have a paragraph or several sentences in a row with no in-text citations, then the essay is likely missing in-text citations, expressing a personal opinion rather than making research-based claims, and/or failing to write clearly and concisely. A lack of in-text citations should signal to you that the essay may need some large modifications and additional research.
Grading based on:
Background:
oEffectively and clearly summarizing the issue to be discussed (who/what/when/where details)
oJustifying why this is an important area to understand/study
Explanation:
oProviding an appropriate and logical explanation/rationale of what might motivate or cause the behaviours or actions described in the news article
oExplanation is supported by relevant research/empirical support. The evidence provided is of good quality, has been interpreted correctly, and includes both classic and recent research articles. Although theories discussed in class may be included in the essay, the essay goes beyond simply what was discussed in class.
oDescribing the relevant theories/explanations and applying them accurately
oClear explanation and justification of why these theories are suitable to explain the issue
Style and Structure:
oIntroductory paragraph introducing the topic/issue and providing a very brief overview of the material covered in the body of the essay
oProper grammar and sentence structure
oLogical development of ideas
oClear writing
oFocus is suitable to the issue and not overly broad (e.g., rather than attempting to explain all racism, focusing on one event or behaviour from a news article)
APA:
oThe entire essay from start to finish should be APA 6 or 7 formatted.
oHere is a quick guide to APA 6 rules from OWL Purdue: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/a…
oHere is a quick guide to APA 7 rules from OWL Purdue: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/a…
.doc file
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