The Social World (SOCU 1003)
Assignment checklist
The Social World (SOCU 1003)
Essay Plan Assignment
Word target: 650 words | Weighting: approximately 15% of overall mark
Course objectives being assessed are: CO1, CO2
This assignment checklist is meant to help you understand what some of the core elements of the essay plan assignment are. Before filling out this checklist, you should carefully read the assignment description and examine the feedback proforma document to gain a proficient understanding of what the essay plan assignment constitutes. Please note that not all of the items listed below are weighted equally.
Have you closely examined the Essay assignment description?
Have you followed the Essay assignment instructions and selected a topic from the pre-set list of topics to write your major essay on?
Have you decided which sociological concepts (drawn from two separate weeks of the course) you will use to explain how your chosen topic can be analysed from more than one sociological perspective?
Have you produced a title for your Essay that succinctly describes what it is about?
Have you found 6 sociological sources that you will engage with to address its main topic?
Are all of these 6 texts academic sources? Have you made sure none of them come from textbooks?
Do your 6 listed sources adhere to the APA 7 Referencing style?
Have you produced a thesis statement that demonstrates that you have competently followed the instructions of the major essay assignment?
Does your thesis statement that clearly and succinctly describes what your major essay intends to focus on and what it intends to argue?
Have you identified 3 main points your major essay will make?
Are all of these main points directly linked to your thesis statement and are they unique from one another?
Have you written a paragraph after each main point, which discusses how the scholarly sources you identified earlier support or have bearing on each of the main points you are making?
Is the discussion you provide in each of your paragraphs accurate? Do your in-text references adhere to the UniSA Harvard referencing style guide?
Have you made sure your essay plan has stayed within 10% of the 650 word target?
Have you numbered your pages?
Is your essay plan mainly written in your own words, with quoting kept to a minimum?
Is your essay plan word processed in a 12 point font (e.g., Arial, Calibri or Times New Roman) with 1.5 line spacing?
Have you submitted your assignment via Learnonline as a Microsoft Word document (.doc or docx)?
Assessment feedback
The Social World (SOCU 1003)
Essay Plan Assignment
Word target: 650 words | Weighting: approximately 15% of overall mark
Course objectives being assessed are: CO1, CO2
Marker:
Student:
Key components of this assignment Performance on this component
Very Poor Poor Fair Good Very Good Excellent
Title
A title is produced which succinctly describes what your Essay is about.
Sources
6 scholarly texts are cited, following the APA 7 referencing style, which you will engage with to write your Essay.
All texts cited are appropriate academic sources that are situated in the field of sociology. None of these texts are permitted to come from textbooks.
Thesis statement
There is a thesis statement that clearly and succinctly describes what your Essay intends to focus on and what it intends to argue.
Your thesis statement demonstrates that you have competently followed the instructions of the Essay assignment. Your thesis statement specifies which topic from the pre-set list of topics you have chosen to write on, and it indicates which major sociological concepts (drawn from two separate weeks of the course) you will be using to explain how your topic can be analysed from more than one sociological perspective.
Possible main points
3 main points that your Essay will make are listed. All of your main points are linked to your thesis statement.
After each main point, there is a short paragraph, which discusses how the scholarly sources you identified earlier relate to each of the main points you are making.
Writing/referencing styleExpresses ideas without any errors (spelling, grammar, typos, etc.).
Stays within 10% of the 650 word target (inclusive of all references)
Comment by marker
Grade Notation Notational % Grade description Assessment grade
High distinction HD 85100 An exceptional piece of work in every regard Distinction D 7584 A good attempt exhibiting high quality work in most areas Credit C 6574 A sound attempt exhibiting high quality work in some areas Pass level 1 P1 5564 A sound attempt Pass level 2 P2 5054 Just passable Fail level 1 F1 4049 Not passable - some areas requiring significant improvement Fail level 2 F2 below 40 Not passable - most areas requiring significant improvement
Sample Essay Plan
*Note: This essay plan was written in response to the following essay prompt: How do sociological perspectives deepen our understanding of why zombie stories have become such a prominent part of popular culture in the contemporary modern world? This is NOT the topic your Essay for SOCU 1003 (The Social World) is meant to be on.
By Eric Hsu
Word count: 617 words
Essay title
Zombies and the sociology of globalization, risk, and culture
Sources
Castillo, D. (2016). Zombie Masses: Monsters for the Age of Global Capitalism. In D. Castillo, D. Schmid, D. Reilly & J.E. Browning (Eds.), Zombie Talk: Culture, History, Politics (pp. 39-62). Palgrave Macmillan.
Dawdy, S.L. (2019). Zombies and a Decaying American Ontology.Journal of Historical Sociology, 32(1), 17-25.
Platts, T. (2013). Locating zombies in the sociology of popular culture.Sociology Compass,7(7), 547-560.
Reed, D., & Penfold-Mounce, R. (2014). Zombies and the sociological imagination: The walking dead as social-science fiction. In L. Hubner & M. Leaning, P Manning (Eds.), The Zombie Renaissance in Popular Culture (pp. 124-138). Palgrave Macmillan.
Schweitzer, D. (2018). Going Viral: Zombies, Viruses, and the End of the World. Rutgers University Press.
Wonser, R. & Boyns, D. (2016). Between the living and undead: How zombie cinema reflects the social construction of risk, the anxious self, and disease pandemic. The Sociological Quarterly, 57(4), 628-653.
Thesis Statement
In this essay, it will be argued that sociological theories of globalization, risk, and culture can help to explain the popularity and cultural significance of zombie stories in contemporary modern societies.
Possible Main Points
Main point #1 Zombies reflect growing anxieties about the phenomenon of global capitalism in the contemporary era.
According to Castillo (2016) and Schweitzer (2018), one of the reasons why stories involving zombies have become extremely popular in the early 21st century is because they represent current anxieties that some people have about the dangers of global capitalism and consumerism. Contemporary zombie stories, like the Walking Dead television series, do this by showing what happens to a society when large hordes of people become mindless consumers who have the potential to deplete natural and human resources everywhere they go. More than just being a conduit from which to voice concerns about global capitalism, Castillo (2016) and Reed and Pend-Mounce (2014) contend that zombie stories also prompt people to reflect on the ways society might be organized differently.
Main point #2 Sociological studies of culture help us to understand how the cultural interpretation of zombies is not uniform.
Platts (2013) notes how zombie media stories are constructed and perceived in a multitude of ways. While some believe zombie films and television shows promote subversive narratives to the existing social order, others contend that zombie narratives can be used to reinforce more conservative values. For example, Platts notes that storylines for zombie television series often emphasise the importance of owning and using deadly firearms. Dawdy (2019) further articulates the cultural complexities of zombie stories but noting that the reactions people have to zombie stories have not remained static. Zombies no longer simply elicit feelings of horror as they once did, and this is acutely evident in the way zombies are now sometimes cast in a more comedic light, as illustrated by the 2004 film, Shaun of the Dead.
Main point #3 Zombie stories reflect the way in which risk is constructed and experienced in contemporary modern societies.
Wonser and Boyns (2016) argue that zombie films commonly reinforce Ulrich Becks sociological theory of risk society. Zombie films speak in particular to Becks idea that the dangers people face in the contemporary modern world tend not to originate from supra-natural sources. Rather, they tend to be unintentional by-products of rational, scientific activity. This facet of zombie cinema is evident in the stories that are often told about the origins of zombie apocalypses. One common trope about zombie outbreaks is that they are caused by the accidental creation and release of a virus from a scientific research laboratory, when that laboratory is trying to solve some kind of societal problem, as depicted for example in the film, 28 Days Later.
