Sociological paper---Philadelphia crime paper

Sociological Insights Paper Guidelines SOC 115 – Social Problems “It’s the Summer of 2007. Philadelphia – the city of brotherly love – is in the midst of an inexplicable murder wave. The homicide rate predicts that there will be almost 400 intentional killings in the city this year alone, which is a jarring figure even by Philadelphia’s fairly violent standards. The city’s newspapers are enthralled with the startling phenomenon, but most coverage of the ‘Summer of Hate’ is pure sensationalism: gruesome details of how victims were killed, speculation on why individual killers were driven to commit their crimes, and so on. You – as the tal ented sociologist/journalist that you are – decide to write a feature for the big local newspaper. You will address the issue of murder in the city from a sociological and social problems perspective. You will give the reader insight into what truly underl ies crime and homicide from disenfranchisement to guns to masculinity to poverty and so on. The reader should have a much deeper, nuanced understanding of the violence he/she is witnessing this Summer after reading your piece.” Here are the requirements f or your final paper: 1.) The paper should be 4 -6 pa ges long with normal spacing, font, and type -size. 2.) The paper must include discussion of at least 3 topical areas (weekly themes) from class with respective citations to those readings. 3.) The paper must include at least 3 sources from outside readings that contribute to the article (official crime statistics, input from outside academics that we did no t read in this class, etc.) A few notes: • This paper should be written as if you are writing for the general public. Be sure to explain concepts and facts thoroughly so that the average newspaper reader could understand your points. • Although this paper is about the murder wave in Philadelphia in 2007, you do not have to ex plain exactly why that particular year was so bad. Use what you’ve learned from this course to talk about how these various social issues impact crime and how these might be driving forces for the Summer of Hate. • Your outside sources should come from legitimate news, government, or academic sources. No blogs, private websites, Wikipedia entries, or entertainment sources will be accepted. Good news sources include the Philadelphia Inquirer, other major US newspapers, US news outlets such as NBC/CBS/ABC , high -quality foreign news sources such as al -Jazeera/The British Broadcasting Corporation/etc. You must also include a reference page. Your references and in -text citations must be written in ASA (American Sociological Association) format. If you are unfamiliar with ASA format, please cons ult the following resources: o For parenthetical (in -text) citations: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/583/02/ o For reference pages: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/583/03/ Lastly, your paper must be submitted through BlackBoard as a .doc or .docx file. No other file type will be accepted.