Criminology, Law & Society Writing Guide

Title Page

Title pages should provide your name and G#, the title of your paper, the course, your professor's name and the date. Unless otherwise specified there is no need to include a running head section.

Tips for Creating Titles:

1. Scan the titles of published articles from journals in the library database or from your textbook. Try to emulate the tone and formatting (note: not the ideas) of one that you find effective.
2. After you have crafted a title, ask yourself these questions: Does my title establish an academic tone? Does my title introduce my paper in a unique way? If I were thumbing through a journal, would this title interest me enough to read on?
3. Your instructors are looking for independent thinking, so plucking a phrase from the assignment prompt and using it for your title will not be enough.

Examples of Titles from CLS Publications:

• Our Drugs Are Better Than Yours: Schools and Their Hypocrisy Regarding Drug Use (Taken from the Contemporary Justice Review)
• Pretty in Punk: Girls' Resistance in a Boys' Subculture (Taken from the Canadian Review of Sociology & Anthropology)
• Repeat Burglary Victimization: A Tale of Two Theories (Taken from the Journal of Experimental Criminology)

Introduction Section

Introductions help to frame your paper, allow you to tell your reader why this topic is of interest and outline your approach.

Tips for Writing Introductions:

1. Be general—but in the context of your topic. Avoid sweeping phrases, such as "Throughout history" or "Mankind has always been …" These statements may sound formal, but they don't inform the reader about your topic and are much too broad. Keep in mind that you should try to teach your reader something new—vague generalizations don't allow you to do that.
2. Define terms—but use academic sources, not the dictionary, and try to build onto the definition by adding your own perspective. One aim of academic writing is to move beyond simple definitions and engage in a conversation that addresses complexities—using dictionary definitions doesn't allow you to do this.
3. Begin with a quote—but choose a quote that fits your topic and propels you logically into your paper.
4. If you want, write your introduction after you have written your paper. Also, if you have a first draft written and aren't happy with your introduction, see if your conclusion works better as the intro. You can write a new conclusion afterwards.
5. Many published articles use more than one paragraph to introduce the paper. If you are writing a term paper and are struggling to craft a single-paragraph introduction, try to break it into two or more paragraphs with your thesis statement appearing in the last of these paragraphs.

Thesis Statement

Academic papers provide a clear thesis statement that serves as the focal point of the paper and a roadmap for the reader. The thesis statement usually comes at the end of your introduction, is one-to-two sentences long, always makes a claim, and should be specific. One approach is simply to state: "This paper will argue that…" For other ideas consult the GMU Writing Center's Thesis Statement Workshop, their Thesis Statements Handout (PDF), or the Creating a Thesis Statement page at Purdue's OWL.

Tips for Writing Thesis Statements:

1. You can craft your thesis statement at any stage of the writing process: before you begin your essay, while you're writing the essay, or after. Often, the strongest thesis statements will take shape during all of these stages.
2. If you've written your paper and still don't have a thesis statement, read through your paragraphs and summarize the main point of each in one or two words. Combining these words and phrases can sometimes lead you to a thesis statement.
3. If you can't find arguments that oppose the claim you make in your thesis statement, the thesis is probably weak and should be revised.
4. After you've written a working thesis, ask yourself so what? questions—Why does what I'm saying matter? What's at stake here? Why should someone read on? If you can't come up with answers to these questions, re-work your thesis by trying to address the grey area of an issue.

Examples of Introductions and Thesis Statements (bolded) from CLS Publications:

The post-revolutionary cinema of Iran has gained international recognition for its subtle and cogent penetrations of the human social condition within a culture that confronts the perplexities of rapid globalization. While several prominent Iranian filmmakers, Ghasem Erahimian, Darnish Mehrjui, Abbas Kiarostami, Jafar Panahi, Hamid Jebeli, and Abolfazl Jalili among others, have engaged the ambiguities of their society's tensive movement from religious and social intolerance to a problematic Westernized globalization, perhaps Mohsen Makhmalbaf has explored alternative social consciousness more deeply and poignantly than any other. In films such as A Moment of Innocence (1996a), The Silence (1988), and Gabbeh (1996b), Makhmalbaf suggests new ways of valuing human relationships and communities that move beyond particular ethnic and class divisions towards a world of human understanding, tolerance, and appreciation of otherness. For Makhmalbaf, this new vision is best represented through an awareness of natural beauty, the steadfastness of interpersonal relationships that overcome social stigmas and oppressive roles, and an inclusive vision of national history.

Passage taken from Page 67 Over, W. (2006) "Worlds Transformed: Iranian Cinema and Social Vision." Contemporary Justice Review Volume 9, Issue 1 March 2006.

In the last few years, meth (methamphetamine) has become a major concern for law enforcement officials in rural America. A way to understand the social construction of the meth scare is to apply the moral panic conceptual framework. A moral panic is a social condition that becomes defined as a threat to community values and whose 'nature is presented in a stylized and stereotypical fashion by the mass media' (Cohen, 1972, p. 9). The official reaction to the social condition is 'out of all proportion' to the alleged threat (Hall, Critcher, Jefferson, Clarke, & Roberts, 1978, p. 16). Reporting about a moral crisis involves a continuous exaggeration of the problematic aspects of the social condition and an ongoing repetition of fallacies. Before I deal with the moral panic criteria and apply this framework to the meth scare, I suggest we first answer the question: What is meth? Discussions of meth tend to obscure its nature while heightening horrors that immediately promote a limited and inaccurate notion of the nature of meth. The emergence of the idea that meth is something new has activated a particular set of social responses that have a harsh impact on those designated as meth users.

Passage taken from page 427 Armstrong, E.G. (2007) "Moral Panic Over Meth." Contemporary Justice Review Volume 10, Issue 4 December 2007.

Definition(s)

It may be useful to provide a definition of the topic your paper explores. Use academic sources (not dictionaries!) to provide a working definition from an authoritative source. In some cases there be a disagreement about a definition. Try to find common elements in the different definitions and offer your own insights as well.

Evidence

Evidence for your thesis

These are arguments found in academic sources that support your thesis.

Evidence against your thesis

These are arguments found in academic sources that challenge your thesis.

Tips on Gathering Evidence:

1. Start by searching journals (accessible through the library database) that your professors have been published in, such as Criminology, Law and Society Review, and Law and Social Inquiry
2. Get in the habit of reading articles from academic sources not only for research papers but on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis—after all, as a student you have access to these journals for free.
3. Use the reference page of a published article to lead you to other relevant sources.

Discussion

In this section you consider the arguments you have presented that support and challenge your thesis. You want to consider which arguments are more convincing to you and why.

Conclusion

Conclusions should restate your thesis, remind the reader of your main points and draw your paper to a close. They should mirror without reproducing your introduction.

References

Lists ALL sources used in your paper in APA format. See References for more information.