Urban Sociology Midterm Exam

Is community even possible under the conditions of modern city life? Sociologists have argued for quite some time as to whether community should be regarded as Lost, Saved, or Liberated (Wellman 1979).  Which alternative best describes the way we live now, based on what we’ve read? And how does the experience of your neighborhood(s) shed light on this question?  Please be specific—use examples and relate them to the thinkers discussed in the syllabus! You must use a minimum of five of the readings from the syllabus in constructing your answer—but I encourage you in addition to employ other sources, whether journalistic (e.g., neighborhood blogs, local newspapers), photojournalistic, literary, documentary, cartographic, ethnographic, demographic (2010 US Census data), etc.

Format

• Maximum word count for the body of the text (i.e., not including bibliography, appendices, etc.): 1,000 words. If the word count for the body of the text is more than 1,000 (e.g., 1,001), I’ll send it back and ask you to resubmit!
• Print the word count on the front of your paper.
• Do not write your name anywhere on the paper.
• ASA style for in-text citations and bibliography.
• Double-spaced, 12 font.
• You’ll be submitting this exam as a Google Doc. All you need to do is post a link to your document on Blackboard; here’s a video that shows you exactly how to do that.

A Note on Grading

I will make a number of cryptic comments on your papers; they are explained HERE.

Further Reading/Notes Toward a Future Canon

‘Argument Papers’. 2018. Purdue Online Writing Lab. Retrieved 28 May 2018 (https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/common_writing_assignments/argument_papers/index.html). Contains valuable instructions as to how to organise your argument, as well as how to write introductions and conclusions — these paper sections are often the weakest in undergraduate writing.

Caulfield, Michael.  ‘How “News Literacy” Gets the Web Wrong’. Fact-checking in three easy steps.

Weida, Stacey, and Karl Stolley. 2017. ‘Organizing Your Argument’. Purdue Online Writing Lab. Presents a valuable recipe for connecting claims to supporting evidence and reasoning. It’s worth checking out related material on the OWL website, e.g., ‘Introductions, Body Paragraphs, and Conclusions for an Argument Paper’.

References

Wellman, Barry. 1979. Wellman, ‘The Community Question’. American Journal of Sociology 84(5):1201-31