Subject Guides: Sociology: SOSCI1002 Assessment 2 and 3

Assignment summary

This assessment help page assumes you have read the course outline, assessment description and marking rubric provided in Moodle.

Assessment 2 requires you to write:

An annotated bibliography

Locate five reputable sources

1 academic book chapter
2 peer-reviewed journal articles
1 article from a reputable media source
1 government report

Assessment 3 requires you to write:

A major essay

For assessment task 3, students will be required to build on the research undertaken for Assessment Task 2 to produce an essay on the same topic selected for Assessment Task 2. Essays must be accompanied by a reference list containing all the sources used in the annotated bibliography and additional resources of the same variety.

Please choose ONE of the following questions and write a 1500 word response:

What is class, and to what extent is it important in Australian Society?

What is gender? In what ways can gender be described as ‘socially malleable’?

To what extent, and in what ways, can someone’s race/ethnicity affect his or her life chances in Australia?

Some people in society show environmental concern and others do not. What social factors might affect patterns of concern?

“Successful transitions into adulthood are less predictable and take longer today than they did in the past” (Geldens, 2021). Why?

Assessment 2. Annotated bibliography

The following document and website will help you understand what is expected of you in writing an annotated bibliography.

Annotated bibliography

For more details see https://studyskills.federation.edu.au/assessment/written-tasks/annotated-bibliography/

If you need help with writing your annotated bibliography see a Learning skills advisor. Learning skills advisors are professional educators who can help you achieve your academic goals. They are available at all campuses to work with you. For more details see https://federation.edu.au/current-students/learning-and-study/get-help-on-campus/learning-skills-advisors. Select Making an appointment to book a one on one appointment and to see the other options available for assistance.

Plan your search

Start planning your search by:

Identify the key concepts in your assignment scenario
Consider alternative terms that authors might use for these

Key concepts	Alternative terms
Race	racism, ethnicity, "ethnic minority"
Class	"social status", "social structure", “socioeconomic status”
Mass media	"news media", television, radio, newspapers, press

Now use Boolean operators to connect your search terms.

Use OR to combine all the terms for the same or similar concept: race OR ethnicity OR racism OR ethnic minorities

Use AND to combine terms from different concepts: ethnicity AND opportunities

Use quotation marks to search for a phrase: "ethnic minorities"

Use brackets to group all terms from the same concept together: (race OR ethnicity OR "ethnic minorities" OR racism)

Watch the following video to learn more about Boolean operators

When you put it together, you have a search strategy

(racism OR ethnicity) AND ("life chances" OR opportunities OR equity) AND Australia

You will probably need to conduct multiple searches and alter your search terms as you go.

Consider using the Building a database search strategy which is available from this guide. Go to the Finding journal articles tab and select Database Searching (intermediate). This tool will guide you through developing a search strategy and you will be able to cut and paste the suggested search strategy straight into QuickSearch or a Database.

Search For Resources

Suggested databases for Sociology are:

Academic Search Complete (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
Scholarly, multi-disciplinary full-text database, with more than 8,000 full-text periodicals, plus indexing and abstracts for more than 12,000 publications including books, reports, conference proceedings, etc. Covers many areas of academic study including: animal science, anthropology, area studies, astronomy, biology, chemistry, civil engineering, electrical engineering, ethnic & multicultural studies, food science & technology, general science, geography, geology, law, materials science, mathematics, mechanical engineering, music, pharmaceutical sciences, physics, psychology, religion & theology, veterinary science, women's studies, zoology, and many other fields. Some content goes back as far as 1887.
APA-FT- (Informit) This link opens in a new window
Australian Public Affairs Full Text. Subject coverage includes arts and crafts, cultural studies, current affairs, economics, education, health, law and legal aid, Literature, Medicine, People, politics/government, public affairs and sociology
FAMILY (Informit) This link opens in a new window
Australian Family & Society Abstracts (FAMILY), produced by the Australian Institute of Family Studies, is a bibliographic database that indexes and abstracts articles from published and unpublished material on research, policy and practice issues about, or of relevance to, Australian families.
Humanities and Social Sciences Collection (Informit) This link opens in a new window
Informit e-Library is an e-press for Australian and Asia-Pacific information developed by RMIT Publishing. Informit e-Library provides access to full content from a range of journals, monographs and books, conference proceedings, research papers and reference materials. This database contains the journals that were previously found in the Family and Society Plus collection.
Taylor & Francis Online This link opens in a new window
Hosts journals published by Taylor & Francis, Routledge, Psychology Press and Informa Healthcare. Specific collections include: Behavioural Science, Business, Management and Economics ,Education, Geography, Media, Cultural and Communication Studies ,Politics, International Relations, Social Science, Strategic defence and security studies.

According to The Twelfth International Conference on Grey Literature (2010), grey literature is the name given to literature that is not widely disseminated, but is of sufficient quality to be housed by repositories or libraries. It is usually distributed by individuals or non-commercial publishers.

Common examples of grey literature include:

Dissertations
Unpublished or pre-print studies and manuscripts
Government reports and policies
Business reports
Conference proceedings
Articles published by non-commercial publishers
Maps, newsletters and fact-sheets

To find out more about Grey Literature and how to find it, check out our Grey Literature subject guide

You can access the digitised print versions of these newspapers by searching the Library's Catalogue or clicking the links below:

Age, The This link opens in a new window
The digital edition of The Age newspaper is an interactive and searchable replica of the current and archive issues (6 months) of the printed edition.
Sydney Morning Herald, The This link opens in a new window
The digital edition of The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper is an interactive and searchable replica of the current and archive issues (6 months) of the printed edition.
Australian Financial Review, The This link opens in a new window
The digital edition of The Australian Financial Review newspaper is an interactive and searchable replica of the current and archive issues (3 years) of the printed edition.

The following databases also provide access to newspapers:

Newsbank: Access Australia This link opens in a new window
The largest collection of Australian news featuring full-text newspapers from more than 700 sources. A fully searchable online resource offers thousands of news articles, editorials, obituaries, classifieds, and more. Access Australia includes influential news sources from every state and territory in text and/or image format.
Australia/New Zealand Reference Centre (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
Australian & New Zealand specific magazines, newspapers & newswires, reference books, and company information to create the largest collection of regional full text content available to schools, public libraries, and academic institutions. This database provides local perspectives on current events, business, sports, and many other subjects. Full text.
Westlaw Classic This link opens in a new window
A global legal research library built on worldwide legal, news and business information. A comprehensive collection of case law, legislation, law reviews, journals and directories means you’ll be able to efficiently search and retrieve results tailored to your specific needs.
To access Australian and International newspapers - from the homepage Click on NEWS > NEWSPAPERS > contains major US newspapers and International newspapers, including Australian.

Fake News

You are expected to ensure that the sources you consult are trustworthy.

Our Fake News guide will help you to distinguish between reliable and less-than-reliable news sources:

Fake news (Library guide)

Assessment 3. Essay

For details on how to plan and write your essay see https://studyskills.federation.edu.au/assessment/written-tasks/writing-essays/

If you need help with planning and writing your essay, see a Learning skills advisor. Learning skills advisors are professional educators who can help you to achieve your academic goals. They are available at all campuses to work with you. For more details, see https://federation.edu.au/current-students/learning-and-study/get-help-on-campus/learning-skills-advisors. Select Making an appointment to book a one-on-one appointment and to see the other options available for assistance.

Your online referencing guide: FedCite

FedCite is the one stop shop for all your referencing needs. In this course, you need to use APA 7. Look at the Using APA7 section to find out general information on how to cite and reference, and the source types for specific examples.

Go to FedCite

Don't forget to check out the Referencing tab located in this guide.