Communication and Social Change Fall 2022 Final Paper Details: To demonstrate your understanding of course material and skills in theoretical analysis, synthesis, and written and verbal communication, you will write a conference paper, which should be between 9- 11 pages. Your paper should engage some aspect of what we have covered this semester in terms of communication and social change, which means that there is quite a bit of flexibility for topic. You might write something about hashtag activism and racial politics. Or you might engage with work that historicizes media culture’s impact on social change (e.g., television as compared to social media today). There are many possibilities, and I’m happy to discuss your ideas individually during office hours. As part of this assignment, you will also write a paper abstract; ideally, you will submit this abstract (or the entire paper, depending on the conference) to an upcoming conference. Writing a conference paper is an essential skill for academic writers. A conference paper should:
• Be succinct. You are making an argument in a short amount of space. Because it is a short paper, you can develop and support two or three—maybe four—clear and well- argued points.
• Be sure to clearly signal your argument (“In what follows, I argue…”) and what is to come—because a conference paper is often presented orally, you should make sure to include a lot of signposting of your intentions with the paper.
• Your topic should be specific and your argument not overly broad. Further, your theoretical support (from class readings) should be sustained and interwoven, not simply relegated to a few paragraphs.
Alternative option: If you are not planning to attend an academic conference and/or want to use this assignment toward a thesis or larger project, you have two additional options:
1) THEORETICAL OPTION: Trace, compare, contrast and evaluate the ways in which scholars have theorized a particular dimension of social change and communication. You should carefully engage with at least three class readings, as well as additional readings of your choice. The paper should be evaluative, not merely descriptive, and may serve as a preliminary literature review for a future research project. For example, you might trace how scholars have theorized the role of media in shaping social change.
2) RESEARCH/ANALYSIS OPTION: Draw from at least three class readings, as well as other
relevant literature, to research and analyze a particular dimension of social change and communication. The paper should be evaluative, not merely descriptive, and should produce new insights about a specific process, artifact, or manifestation of feminist media and cultural studies. This differs from the conference paper primarily in terms of style.
Format: Double-spaced, 12-point Times New Roman, 1-inch margins. Please include page numbers. Key dates:
• Topic proposal (1-paragraph) due via email by November 10 • COMPLETE rough draft due via email on December 1 for peer workshop
• In-class presentations on December 8 • Final papers due on Canvas on December 15 by 11:59 pm
Grading and guidelines:
1) Make an original argument about your topic.
2) Be 9-11 pages and follow the formatting requirements exactly.
3) Draw from at least three course readings. You might need to do additional research.
4) Demonstrate an understanding of course material.
5) Be free of grammatical and spelling errors.
In graduate school, you should really not be submitting work that would receive anything below a B. However, I am including an A-C scale to make clear my expectations:
An “A” paper: Follows all paper guidelines; essay is clear, well organized, carefully edited, and free of spelling, grammar, and syntax errors; all citations are complete and accurate, following MLA or Chicago style; essay is between 9-12 pages; essay provides a detailed, persuasive argument, substantially using the work of at least three course theorists to support the argument.
A “B” paper: Follows most paper guidelines; essay is mostly clear and easy to follow; few grammar or syntax errors; all citations are complete and accurate, following MLA or Chicago style; essay is between 9 and 12 pages.
A “C” paper: Follows some paper guidelines; frequent sentence-level errors interfere with meaning; essay is unclear at times, suffers from poor organization, and needs further editing; citations are incomplete or do not adhere to MLA or Chicago style; essay does not meet the page requirement.