RESEARCH PAPER!!!!!

Review Essay: Social Scientific Approaches to Polygamy, Polyandry & Polyamory Sexuality Studies

Instructions

II. Essay Topic/Content Expectations for the five-page paper (five pages not including references).

A. Carefully follow these steps:

1. Read and outline the following article available at eReserves @ iLearn:

Emens, “Monogamy’s Law: Compulsory Monogamy and Polyamorous Existence” from University of Chicago Public Law and Legal Theory Working Paper.

1. You will be using Google Scholar for this assignment. Read the entry in Wikipedia about “Google Scholar”. This entry will help you understand how Google Scholar works: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Scholar. Read this entry before conducting a search in Google Scholar.

1. Use Google Scholar and locate a primary research article on the topic of polygamy, polyandry and/or polyamory published in the last 10 years in a peer-review journal. The article you locate must be primary (not secondary) research. You will need to read about “primary” research at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_research.

1. Choose a “primary” research article that addresses some aspect of polygamy, polyandry and/or polyamory and helps you answer the essay prompt. Visit your Teaching Assistant and/or Dr. Carrington during office hours if you have questions about the article you choose.

1. Essay Prompt:

In order to understand why different sexual cultures, and subcultures, organize their

sexual and intimate lives the way they do, it’s useful to recognize the economic, ecological, historical, legal, political and sociological contexts that often define, regulate and control what kinds of sexual and intimate behavior will be allowed and/or celebrated and what will not. This review essay enables students to reflect upon and analyze how our society organizes and regulates our intimate relationships. Your ‘review essay” should integrate the Emen’s essay, a primary research article, and Ryan and Jetha’s book Sex at Dawn to answer the following essay questions: What factors (e.g., ecological, economic, historical, legal, psychological, and/or sociological) explain the societal attitudes toward polygamy/polyandry and/or polyamory within modern Western societies? Are these attitudes changing over time? If they are changing, what social scientific factors are most salient to explaining why attitudes might be changing or if attitudes are not changing, explain why.

In answering the essay prompt above, your essay might also explore the following questions: How does the debate over same-sex marriage influence, and/or mirror, the debates over polygamy, polyandry and polyamory and vice versa? Explain the various meanings of “monogamy”, “non-monogamy”, “polygamy” and “polyamory.” What does “compulsory monogamy” mean and how is it relevant to explaining attitudes toward polygamy, polyandry and/or polyamory? Are there particular social characteristics (e.g., class, race, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, educational level, age, religion, occupation, etc.) of people that correlate with and possibly explain their attitudes? Please remember, you are not looking for the ‘right’ answer here, but you are making a plausible case for yourself, an informed argument, an argument that reveals that you have read and understand the readings and the arguments within them.

1. Overview

Write the essay as if you were writing to someone who is literate, but who has never heard the essay prompt or read the book or the article, and you want to explain how the concepts/evidence would help them understand the topic and the questions.

a.). Use a thesis statement in the introductory paragraph to frame the essay. Read up on thesis statements:

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/composition/thesis.htm

2. Application of Course Concepts

a). Compare and contrast the perspective of the articles with one another in how they explain societal and legal approaches to regulating intimate relationships.

b). Apply theoretical perspectives covered in course lectures/readings that would help illuminate the issues addressed by the question.

III. Essay Format Guidelines:

1. Length: 5 pages give or take ¼ page (no longer, no shorter) not including the references/bibliography page. Use 12 point Times New Roman font. Use standard 1.25 margins (In Microsoft Word, Go to File, Page Set Up to set margins).

1. Thesis and Introduction: A clear, focused and well-developed Thesis Statement must appear in the first paragraph of the paper. Underline the Thesis Statement.

All work must be typewritten (Size 12 point font: Times New Roman), double-spaced with 1.25-inch margins. Use standard indentation of three or five spaces. Please write in essay form. Begin the essay in an inviting, enticing, perhaps provocative, way: provide an interesting quotation, begin with a startling statistic, ask a provocative question, recount a story, or tell a joke pertinent to your topic. Then move toward a thesis or a controlling statement. The thesis should provide a framework for the entire essay. In addition, the introductory paragraph should briefly state what the essay will cover and suggest a tone for the paper. You can read about thesis statements on-line at The Guide to Grammar and Writing website:

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/index.htm

1. Paragraph and Sentence Style

Each paragraph within the essay should possess a topic sentence. The topic sentence

links the paragraph to your paper thesis and reinforces the thesis of the essay. One should accompany the topic sentence of each paragraph with at least five sentences illustrating and elaborating upon your topic sentence. Effective paragraphs usually consist of at least five solid sentences. Please make smooth transitions between paragraphs. One can locate information about transitional sentences and phrases at the

The Guide to Grammar and Writing website:

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/transitions.htm

D. Please write in gender inclusive language

Please use accurate scientific language to identify sex and gender in the paper. For example, please use ‘human’ instead of ‘man’ if you mean all hominids. Don’t use ‘he’ or ‘she’ as generic terms. Be cautious about assuming you actually know the sex and/or gender of animals, including humans.

IV. Citation Expectations: Five Per Page (on average).

Use accurate and extensive citation. Five citations per page, on average, are required. Graders will count up the citations and make sure they are accurate. We do not mean five quotations, but rather five citations (on average) per page. Please seek assistance if you find the distinction between citation and quotation confusing. Citation enables a write to identify for their readers where they get their facts and from whom they appropriate ideas and evidence. Citation prevents plagiarism.

Please use the Chicago Manual of Style or the American Psychological Association (APA) citation formats. These two citation forms are commonly used in the social sciences including human sexuality studies. You can choose either style, but not others. I recommend the Chicago style given its simplicity, ease of use, and widespread use in sexuality research. One can locate the rules for and examples of each style at the following website: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_ citationguide.html

If one follows the Chicago style, one simply includes the following information at end of the sentence in which the citation appears: (author’s last name, year of publication, colon, two spaces, and the page number).

For example, here is a sentence using the Chicago Manual of Style format:

Laws intended to strip women of autonomy and control over their own bodies proliferated with the rise of the patriarchal states (Carson 1991: 136).

Notice, the sentence above is not a direct quotation, but rather a paraphrase of Carson’s point. This citation prevents plagiarism as well as gives credit to Carson for the ideas and evidence.

Please do not use extensive quotation. Paraphrase quotations. If you must use a quotation, because you cannot accurately rephrase the quote without plagiarizing, follow the quote with the author’s name, a comma, the year of publication, a colon, two spaces, and the page number, all in parenthesis, same as above. However, one also provides quotation marks around the quoted materials. The Harvard Guide to Summarizing, Paraphrasing and Quoting provides a clear and thorough explanation of when to summarize, paraphrase and/or quote materials: http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k70847&pageid=icb.page350378

The essay must provide a references page that includes the assigned article, the assigned book and the primary research article. No other references are needed for this paper. The reference page does not count as part of the minimum number of pages for the essay.

V. Major Check List: Major Compositional And Organizational Concerns. Students will lose at least 10pts for each one of these six criteria if missing or undeveloped:

1. ___Does the introductory paragraph use an easily identifiable and well-developed thesis statement? Please refresh your knowledge about using a thesis statement at: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/composition/thesis.htm

1. ___Does the essay contain the required number of citations (25 total or 5 per page on average)? Providing this citation prevents plagiarism and keeps the essay closely knit to course readings. Do not use footnotes, use in text citations.

1. ___Do most paragraphs use clear topic sentences linking the paragraph to the thesis statement?

1. ___Does the essay make extensive use of empirical evidence (quantitative or qualitative) from multiple research sources?

2. ___Does the essay use a transitional sentence or transitional phrase between every paragraph? Such transitions enable smooth and logical flow across paragraphs. See http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/transitions.htm for assistance with transitional words, phrases and sentences.

1. ___Does the essay contains the required number of pages within ¼ page?

VII. Minor Check List: Students will lose 2pts each for failing to abide by each of these twelve criteria:

1. ___Remember to underline the thesis statement!

1. ___Does the essay open with an enticing and inviting quotation, question, observation, or fact?

2. ___Does the paper use a 1.25 inch margin (standard) on all sides of every page?

1. ___Does a page number appear on every page of the essay?

1. ___Do most paragraphs consist of at least five sentences, and rarely more than eight sentences?

2. ___Does the essay italicize (not underline or quote) book/journal/website titles?

1. ___Does the essay include a well-developed conclusion paragraph?

1. ___Does the essay indent each new paragraph (3 or 5 spaces)?

1. ___Does the essay avoid skipping lines between paragraphs?

1. ___Does the essay use 12 point font type, Times New Roman style, and double spacing?

2. ___Does the essay use block quote (indent all text 5 spaces on both right and left margins and single space the type) for quotations extending three or more lines?

1. ___Do not use report covers or title pages. Simple print your full name and student ID on the top right of page 1 of the essay.