Thesis Essay – (Due on D2L, Wed April 7, 11:59pm )
1200-1500 words not including long quotes, the cover page or the References page.
Double-spaced, 12-point Times New Roman font, one inch margins, page numbers, and word count. Must
include a References Page using 7th edition APA style. Name, student number, course code plus
section number, and a topic-specific assignment title should be included on the cover page.
No running headers.
IMPORTANT: You must have handed in a Proposal and Bibliography and had them graded
before you can hand in your Thesis Essay. Please reread the instructions for both those
assignments so you understand the relationships between them and this one.
You are expected to consider an issue, debate, controversy, or problem associated with the study
of the everyday, take a position on your topic with reference to an everyday object of study (i.e.
handshaking; drinking coffee; eating; sleeping and napping; watching TV; going to school;
studying; going to work; consuming social media; eating; dating; having sex; watching
pornography; etc.), and argue your point of view using evidence from course readings and
researched sources. Thus, based on the research you began in your Annotated Bibliography, and
the working thesis and plan of argument you developed in your Proposal, you will take a clear
and specific position on your topic that will allow you to critically analyze your everyday object
of study.
If you have not yet reread the instructions for the Annotated Bibliography, so that you
understand the research component for this assignment, please do so now. While this
assignment does not require any annotations on your References page (no annotations!), it still
requires the same minimum number and types of sources as were required for your Bibliography.
It would be best if most of your sources are the same or similar as those from your Annotated
Bibliography and Proposal; however, as this project progresses from Bibliography to Proposal to
Thesis Essay, adjustments and changes are to be expected, thus some of your sources can change.
You must cite each referenced source at least once (if not more) in your paper. Direct quotes are
acceptable but avoid long quotes and too many quotes. Paraphrase instead. Regarding your
everyday object of study, do not underestimate it. Your object of study will be the primary focus
of your paper. It is what you will analyze and make an argument about. Your thesis statement will
need to have something specific to argue about it.
If you have not yet reread the instructions for the Thesis Proposal, so that you understand
the role your thesis statement plays in this assignment, please do so now. This is a Thesis
Essay and therefore it must include a properly phrased thesis statement in your introductory
paragraph (i.e. your first paragraph). You will need to revise your thesis statement from your
proposal based on instructor comments. In fact, you can use your finished Proposal as a rough
draft of the opening paragraph of this assignment, just so long as you revise it based on instructor
comments. Indeed, this assignment will be graded based on the assumption that you read and
applied all the instructor comments provided on the previous two assignments. In other
words, properly following instructions for this assignment includes the requirement that you
incorporate the feedback you received on the previous two assignments into this one. For
example, if you were told not to use a specific source, do NOT use that source. If you were told to
rephrase your thesis, then you had better rephrase your thesis as advised. If corrections were made
to your use of APA style, then you had better make those corrections.
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Just as with your Proposal, you should NOT begin your essay with your thesis statement. You
need to introduce your topic and set up your thesis statement first, citing sources as you go. And
just as with your Proposal, please begin your thesis statement with the phrase: “In this essay,
I will argue that…” Please see the Proposal instructions for further guidelines on how NOT to
phrase your thesis statement. Do not forget to also include a brief outline of how you will argue
your thesis in your opening paragraph, after you state your thesis. You should organize the body
of your essay using descriptive subheadings but do not confuse a subargument topic with a
so-called “body paragraph”. Please forget everything you learned in high school about how to
structure an essay if you were taught to write a so-called “five paragraph” essay. That is NOT
how you write a university essay. You will not know how many paragraphs your essay will need
until after you have written it, but it should probably be a few more than five.
Please be reminded: How you discuss your everyday object of study will depend on your choice
of topic and nature of your thesis statement, but regardless of topic your analysis will need to
consider it in relation to the power relations that socially construct culture, society, and identity.
Please also remember that this is not a psychology course. Your analysis can draw on one
psychology/psychiatry/medical source but no more. No effects-based research topics.
The essay is worth 25% of your final grade.
You will be graded based on the following criteria:
1. Clarity, quality, and depth of introduction and thesis statement
(5/25)
2. Clarity, quality, and depth of overall argument (5/25)
3. Structure and organization of argument (5/25)
4. Quality and implementation of research (5/25)
5. Spelling, grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure (2.5/25)
6. Following assignment and formatting instructions (2.5/25)
i HAVE UPLOADED MY THESIS ESSAY PROPOSAL AND ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
THIS IS THE FEEDBACK I GOT FOR THE ANNOTATED BIBLIGRAPHY Criterion Feedback
Okay but there are errors either in your formatting of the document and/or there are errors in your use of APA style. Please either review the instructions for this assignment or review the basics of APA style. You also had to resubmit this assignment for not following instructions the first time.
The following are some reminders about APA style, addressing some common errors that may or may not apply to your references–please check to see:
a) –APA style uses a hanging indent and lists all sources regardless of type in alphabetical order–never number sources or use bullet points.
b) –APA style lists the full last name of an author, but only the first initials of their given names, with the last name first.
c) –APA style includes the date in brackets immediately after the name of the author or authors (or title of the source if no author is provided).
d) –Academic sources, including journal articles, usually only provide the year for the date, but newspaper, magazine, and blog post articles include the year, month, and day.
e) –APA style does not capitalize every word in a title, just the first word, the first word after a colon (or question mark, or dash, etc.), and any proper nouns.
f) –APA style italicizes book titles, journal names, newspaper and magazine names, blog names, report titles, film titles, TV series names, video game names, etc., but it does NOT italicize chapter or article titles (whether journal articles, or newspaper, magazine, or blog post titles) or the names of individual TV series episodes.
g) –For journal articles, APA style lists volume, edition, and page numbers as follows 1(2), 3-4 (note that the volume number is italicized, but the edition and page numbers are not)–APA style does NOT list them as vol 1, no. 2.
h)–You should not reference an edited book on its own but rather choose individual articles from the book and reference them separately by the author of each article.
i)–Articles or chapters in edited books are not referenced the same way as chapters in non-edited books–please know the difference.
j) –For articles or chapters in edited books, the author or authors of the individual article or chapter begins the reference. The editors of the whole book are not listed until after the article or chapter title but before the title of the book.
k) –APA style references movies, TV series, TV series episodes, YouTube videos, video games, social media websites, and many more forms of media each in its own way–please check the Owl Perdue website for details
l) –I require you to reference chapters in books as chapters in a book. Please see Unit B&P to see how. This is so I know if you are only using one chapter and which chapter you’re referencing.
m) –If you used an automatic citation generator without checking to ensure it provided you a correct reference, it is likely there were errors in the reference. Automatic citation generators are notoriously inaccurate because most students do not know how to use them properly
FEEDBACK FOR THE THESIS ESSAY PROPOSAL
Not bad but please watch your sentence structure and phrasing, as well as your punctuation. Style is awkward and wordy or generally imprecise. Please try to write more succinctly and more clearly.
There are significant errors in your use of APA style AND/OR you did not follow through on other aspects of following instructions. See my notes on your submission, but if there are errors in your use of APA style, I did not correct them this time. Please review your annotated bibliography comments for details about APA style.
Okay but you needed to say significantly more to introduce your topic and everyday object of study and set up your thesis more effectively. This also needed to be rooted in your research. Cite your sources
Okay topic but your thesis needs significant clarification. It is either not yet phrased as an analytic thesis or it is far too vague and unclear (or both). Regardless, it needs to be much more clear and specific and it needs to go deeper. Do not list your subarguments in your thesis. Make one overarching claim that ties them all together.
A thesis is an argumentative claim. It does not just state a fact or an accurate observation (or a vague observation). A good thesis makes a claim that something very clear and specific is or is not the case and then answers “how?” or “why?” or to what effect, albeit in brief, and for this essay it needs to be about your everyday object of study. What exactly will you argue about your everyday object of study? Please review the resources I posted on how to develop a thesis. And when writing your actual paper, don’t forget that your thesis is a road map for your whole paper. Your thesis explains your whole paper in one sentence because every aspect of your paper needs to operate in service of your thesis.
Okay but your plan of analysis still needs more of a logic to it’s structure and your sub-points could be clarified and phrased more clearly as sociological arguments designed to analyze your everyday object of study. Your arguments could be more clear and focused. They need to flow from a stronger thesis. Consider also how to structure your sub-points to build to your conclusion. Each of your subarguments need to be in service of your thesis.
