Sociological paper---Philadelphia crime paper

Sociological Insights Paper Guidelines

SOC 115 – Social Problems

“It’s the Summer of 2007. Philadelphia – the city of brotherly love – is in the midst of an

inexplicable murder wave. The homicide rate predicts that there will be almost 400 intentional

killings in the city this year alone, which is a jarring figure even by Philadelphia’s fairly violent

standards. The city’s newspapers are enthralled with the startling phenomenon, but most coverage

of the ‘Summer of Hate’ is pure sensationalism: gruesome details of how victims were killed,

speculation on why individual killers were driven to commit their crimes, and so on.

You – as the talented sociologist/journalist that you are – decide to write a feature for the big local

newspaper. You will address the issue of murder in the city from a sociological and social

problems perspective. You will give the reader insight into what truly underlies crime and homicide

from disenfranchisement to guns to masculinity to poverty and so on. The reader should have a

much deeper, nuanced understanding of the violence he/she is witnessing this Summer after

reading your piece.”

Here are the requirements for your final paper:

1.) The paper should be 4-6 pages long with normal spacing, font, and type-size.

2.) The paper must include discussion of at least 3 topical areas (weekly themes) from class with

respective citations to those readings.

3.) The paper must include at least 3 sources from outside readings that contribute to the article

(official crime statistics, input from outside academics that we did not read in this class, etc.)

A few notes:

• This paper should be written as if you are writing for the general public. Be sure to explain

concepts and facts thoroughly so that the average newspaper reader could understand your points.

• Although this paper is about the murder wave in Philadelphia in 2007, you do not have to explain

exactly why that particular year was so bad. Use what you’ve learned from this course to talk about

how these various social issues impact crime and how these might be driving forces for the

Summer of Hate.

• Your outside sources should come from legitimate news, government, or academic sources. No

blogs, private websites, Wikipedia entries, or entertainment sources will be accepted. Good news

sources include the Philadelphia Inquirer, other major US newspapers, US news outlets such as

NBC/CBS/ABC, high-quality foreign news sources such as al-Jazeera/The British Broadcasting

Corporation/etc.

You must also include a reference page. Your references and in-text citations must be written in

ASA (American Sociological Association) format. If you are unfamiliar with ASA format, please

consult the following resources:

o For parenthetical (in-text) citations:

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/583/02/

o For reference pages:

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/583/03/

Lastly, your paper must be submitted through BlackBoard as a .doc or .docx file. No other file type

will be accepted.