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SOC 3378

SOCIOLOGY OF VISUAL CULTURE

FINAL PAPER or PROJECT 30%

Due via CANVAS upload by due date listed.

Paper format: Upload your document in MS Word, double spaced, 12pt font of approximately 2500-
3000 words. Photos and bibliography do not count toward word count.

Project format: Must be preapproved at least two weeks prior to due date. Send me a 1-2 page
proposal of your project for approval via CANVAS inbox. Include what you want to do and how you plan
to do it as well as what the final project will be. [Note: a proposal is only needed if you choose to do a
project rather than a paper.]

___________________________________________________________________________________

Topic Choice:

Your final paper or project should provide a sociologically informed overview of an aspect of visual
culture of your choice. We’ve covered a number of aspects of visual culture this semester, from social
media, to films, to advertising, to visual activism, and more—any of these topics could provide a rich
opportunity for your analysis.

Please do not be redundant—choose something other than you may have analyzed for a course
assignment. Choose something new to explore.

In your paper (or project) you will need to use a sociological framework to analyze your chosen topic.
This assignment allows you to reflect upon visual culture in your own experience and/or surroundings
and demonstrate your ability to utilize sociological concepts to analyze visual culture.

A successful paper will demonstrate:

1) An understanding of the relevant perspectives on visual culture covered in class
2) An understanding of the development and history of the uses of images in social life relevant to

the aspect you are discussing
3) How power relations, the political economy of images, and other ethical issues play out in the

visual culture you are exploring
4) How the visual culture you are focusing on may contribute to social life and interpersonal

communication

Your paper should be well organized, show thoughtful research, and present your conclusions clearly.
You should structure your arguments logically, citing relevant sources, and critically evaluating the
information you’ve gathered.

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All resources used should be cited in text and included in a Reference section. You must adhere to the
UH Academic Honestly policy )
honesty/index.php). Use the included ASA style guide for citation and paper formatting.

A Few General Notes on Writing Well

Your paper will be graded on organization, logic, and creativity. When observations are called for, they
should be specific and exact, in as much detail as necessary. Don’t be afraid of taking a point of view.
Write in the first person (“f’ not “we” or “the author” or passive tense), and make your voice heard in
your text.

Make sure that each word and sentence count. After writing your first draft, go back and delete every
non-essential word; expect to find some on each line. Go through your paper sentence by sentence,
making sure that each sentence follows logically and easily from the proceeding one. Writing a good
essay requires at least a couple drafts beforehand.

All assignments are to be written with the same attention to style, grammar, and spelling required for an
English composition class. Proofread your paper thoroughly making sure to correct any misspellings or
inappropriate grammar.

Grades will be reduced for obvious sloppiness in typing and spelling.

This style sheet has been provided to assist students
studying sociology in properly citing and referencing their
papers and essays. The information in this document is
taken from the American Sociological Association Style
Guide (4th ed., 2010). We highly encourage students who
plan to major in sociology or pursue their masters degree
in sociology to purchase the complete Style Guide, which
features sections on editorial styles, mechanics of style,
guidelines for organizing and presenting content, and more
detailed information on referencing your scholarly sources.
Information about the ASA Style Guide can be found at
www.asanet.org/journals/guides.cfm.

Plagiarism

The ASA has a firm commitment to full and proper attri-
bution and authorship credit, as set forth in the ASA Code
of Ethics.

(a) In publications, presentations, teaching practice, and
service, sociologists explicitly identify credit, and refer-
ence the author when they take data or material verbatim
from another person’s written work, whether it is pub-
lished, unpublished, or electronically available.

(b) In their publications, presentations, teaching, prac-
tice, and service, sociologists provide acknowledgment of
and reference to the use of others’ work, even if the work
is not quoted verbatim or paraphrased, and they do not
present others’ work as their own whether it is published,
unpublished, or electronically available.

Text Citations

Citations in the text include the last name of the author(s)
and year of publication. Include page numbers when quoting
directly from a work or referring to specific passages. Identify
subsequent citations of the same source in the same way as
the first. Examples follow:

If the author’s name is in the text, follow it with the pub-
lication year in parentheses:

…in another study by Duncan (1959).

If the author’s name is not in the text, enclose the last
name and publication year in parentheses:

…whenever it occurred (Gouldner 1963).

Pagination follows the year of publication after a colon,
with no space between the colon and the page number:

…Kuhn (1970:71).
Note: This is the preferred ASA style. Older forms of text
citations are not acceptable: (Kuhn 1970, p. 71).

Give both last names for joint authors:
… (Martin and Bailey 1988).

If a work has three authors, cite all three last names in the
first citation in the text; thereafter, use et al. in the citation.
If a work has more than three authors, use et al. in the first
citation and in all subsequent citations.

First citation for a work with three authors:
…had been lost (Carr, Smith, and Jones 1962).

Later: …(Carr et al. 1962)

If a work cited was reprinted from a version published
earlier, list the earliest publication date in

brackets, followed by the publication date of the recent
version used.

…Veblen ([1899] 1979) stated that…

Separate a series of references with semicolons. List
the series in alphabetical or date order, but be consistent
throughout the manuscript.

… (Green 1995; Mundi 1987; Smith and Wallop 1989).

Reference Lists

A reference list follows the text and footnotes in a sepa-
rate section headed References. All references cited in the
text must be listed in the reference section, and vice versa.
It is the author’s responsibility to ensure that publication
information for each entry is complete and correct.

◆ References should be double-spaced.
◆ List all references in alphabetical order by first author’s

last name

Quick Tips
for ASA Style

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◆ Include first names and surnames for all authors. Use
first-name initials only if an author used initials in the
original publication. In these cases, add a space between
the initials, as in R. B. Brown and M. L. B. Smith.

(See additional guidelines in the full text of the American
Sociological Association Style Guide.)

Books

Author1 (last name inverted), Author2 (including full
surname, last name is not inverted), and Author3. Year of
publication. Name of Publication (italicized). Publisher’s
city and state, or province postal code (or name of
country if a foreign publisher): Publisher’s Name.

Examples:

Bursik, Robert J., Jr. and Harold G. Grasmick. 1993. Neigh-
borhoods and Crime: The Dimensions of Effective Commu-
nity Control. New York: Lexington Books.

Hagen, John and Ruth D. Peterson, eds. 1995. Crime and
Inequality. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Jaynes, Gerald D. and Robin M. Williams, Jr. 1989. A Com-
mon Destiny: Blacks and American Society. Washington,
DC: National Academy Press.

Journal Articles

Author1 (Last name inverted), Author2 (including full
surname, last name is not inverted), and Author3.Year
of publication. “Title of Article.” Name of Publication
(italicized) Volume Number (Issue Number):Page num-
bers of article.

Examples:

Aseltine, Robert H., Jr. and Ronald C. Kessler. 1993. “Mari-
tal Disruption and Depression in a Community Sample.”
Journal of Health and Social Behavior 34(3):237-51.

Kalleberg, Arne L., Barbara F. Reskin, and Ken Hudson.
2000. “Bad Jobs in America: Standard and Nonstandard
Employment Relations and Job Quality in the United
States.” American Sociological Review 65(2):256-78.

E-Resources

Articles and books obtained from the Internet follow the
same pattern as those cited above, with the exception that
page numbers are omitted and the URL and date of access
are included.

Examples:

Schafer, Daniel W. and Fred L. Ramsey. 2003. “Teaching
the Craft of Data Analysis.” Journal of Statistics Education
11(1). Retrieved December 12, 2006 (
org/publications/jse/v11n1/schafer.html).

Thomas, Jan E., ed. 2005. Incorporating the Woman Found-
ers into Classical Theory Courses. Washington DC: Ameri-
can Sociological Association. Retrieved December 12,
2006 (
vice/ProductDetails.aspx?.productID=ASAOE378T05E).

Web sites

A general rule may be applied to citing of Web sites: If the
Web site contains data or evidence essential to a point being
addressed in the manuscript, it should be formally cited
with the URL and date of access.

In the text of the paper cite as: (ASA 2006)

In the reference list:
American Sociological Association 2006. “Status Commit-

tees.” Washington, DC: American Sociological Associa-
tion. Retrieved December 12, 2006 (
org/cs/root/leftnav/committees/committees).

For information or to purchase a copy of the ASA Style
Guide, please contact:

Publications Department
American Sociological Association
1430 K Street NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 383-9005
([email protected])

Click here to purchase a copy
of the ASA Style Guide!