Civil Behavior

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Costa Rica: Instructions for Paper


For those of you interested in writing a paper to complete the class, you must go through the following steps.

1)  Choose a relevant topic:   global warming, endangered species management, deforestation, eco-tourism, gender/race in Costa Rica, etc. 
2)  You must get the topic approved by me prior to beginning the paper.  Please come by my office so we can chat.
3) You must write a 10-15 page paper about the topic of your choice. 
        A) The paper must have at least 5 scholarly sources.  Scholarly papers are ones that have been published in peer-reviewed journals or books.  For more information about what constitutes a scholarly source, please click here.   This web-page will also provide information on definitions of plagiarism and how to cite other peoples' work correctly.  You will need to avoid plagiarism and cite correctly to receive credit for the paper.  If you have any questions, please come by and we can talk in person!!!!   You may have more than five sources, of course,  but at least 5 must be scholarly!!!!!!!!!!!
     B) Paper format must follow these steps:

            i)STATEMENT OF SOCIAL PROBLEM (2-3 pages of the paper) – Students  will describe some issue that causes a social problem relevant to Costa Rica.  In this part of the paper, the student will a) define the social problem and b) provide evidence that the social problem exists in Costa Rica.   The definition must come from the literature that discusses the issue.  Further, you must provide statistical evidence that the problem you are discussing exists; outlining exactly which groups are affected, how they are affected, etc.

For example, if you are doing deforestation,  provide statistics on how much of the rain forest in Costa Rica has been deforested;  what are the most common problems with deforestation.  How is animal life affected?  How are people affected in Costa Rica?  What about the rest of the world?  Only discuss facts that are relevant to the existence and consequences of the social problem.  For instance, if your social problem is the existence of deforestation, you would not provide information on debates about global warming.
  
                   ii) THEORY  (3-4 pages) – This section helps you discover WHY the social problem exists.   Life is complicated, so my guess is that several theories will be able to explain why your social problem exists.    You must, however, make sure the various theories make sense together.  In other words, you cannot use theories that contradict each other in logic.   Given that this class is a sociology class, all theories must be sociological in nature.

If you are doing deforestation, again, you are only looking at theories of WHY deforestation exists. You are not looking at how some people argue deforestation is over-stated or how certain species should be deforestsed.
DO NOT DEVELOP YOUR OWN THEORY.  The theories you provide must be from the scholarly sources you’ve chosen. 

                    iii) SOLUTION FOR CHANGE  (2-3 pages)— You will provide recommendations for future change that help reduce the social problem.  The solution must logically flow from both the statement of the problem and the theory.    Thus, if you argue that deforestation is caused by over-consumption, than you must provide solutions that reduce over-consumption  The solutions cannot be ABSTRACT suggestions.  They must be policies that can actually create change.   Look for policies that have already been tried in other countries or in this country, but only been applied experimentally or in another context.   But remember, the solutions must derive from the theories!