How do I write this paper: [Blank's] effect on society?

October 28, 2007 8:43 AM

I'm trying to write a paper on [blank]'s Effects on Society. I'm trying to find a paper to mirror with the similar skeleton, are there any "must read" papers that have similar scope?

The reason I'm asking this question is because I tend to focus on the costs (fiscal) and health care effects to society. But I'm not sure which other areas to discuss. So I'm looking for another paper that is all-inclusive and attempt to address the same issues (whatever those issues may be). This may be something as simple as "The effects of TV on society," "The effects of HIV on society," The effects of violence on society," etc. Just to get a sense of what general concepts that I can incorporate, i.e. time allocated, changes in law, changes in workforce. I suppose I'm just afraid I'm going to miss a key topic.

posted by erd0c to Writing & Language (5 answers total)

Erd0c, it's probably better to study your paper assignment then create an outline based upon what your instructor is expecting. I doubt they want an all inclusive history of every little reverberation throughout society of your chosen topic. Maybe pick three examples (or two, or ten) and focus on that.

Maybe craft an out line like:

I.   Introduction to topic.
      a. Brief history of X

II.  Effects on Society
      a. Effect One (aka Primary)
      b. Effect Two (Secondary)
      c. Effect Three (Teriteray)

III. Conclusion
      a. Restate your thesis
      b. predictions (for fun)

In a pinch, sure you can look at other papers to get ideas, but creating an outline (making your own skeleton) is the better way to go. Plus, you won't waste time reading someone else's paper about some topic you're not even concerned with.
posted by wfrgms at 8:56 AM on October 28, 2007

Also, are you sure that your assignment is meant to include all of [x]'s effects on society? That seem way too broad to write anything resembling a good paper on. Most instructors would rather see you pick a more manageable size of question and write some more detailed interesting things about it, rather than writing only a single very broad paragraph on each of 20 different effects. Maybe you are meant to exercise some judgment, and select one or two more important effects and discuss those in detail.

YOU MUST speak to your instructor about this issue - they will help you to clarify what scope you should be thinking about, and how to make a suitable framework for the paper.
posted by LobsterMitten at 2:42 PM on October 28, 2007

I don't know of any good example papers, but one thing you can do is look beyond immediate positive (or negative) economic effects and try to see what the long term ramifications would be. In addition, some effects that you should explore:

psychological/social

the effect of TV might be that people become more isolated; they might look for father figures in TV heroes rather than within their own family)

cultural

violence might inhibit culture [art, etc] because people will be afraid to express their opinions, or it might increase art because it will inspire new works,

geographical

HIV and AIDS infections might limit the distance that people travel, or it might conversely be the catalyst for a build up of infrastructure to deal with an explosion of cases in a village [an NGO might build a road there, which has secondary effects of linking that village to the rest of the world for non-health related interactions]

political

violence, or a HIV oubreak might affect the outcome of a race. TV definitely does -- without TV, JFK would not have been nearly as successful in his presidential campaign

These are all just examples of effects that are either immediate or more lasting outside of simply economic or health effects. If you think for even just an hour or so you should come up with dozens of effects. Choose the most novel, and of these pick the best that you can find the most written support for. Then, choose a couple of the more basic answers that would also be expected and make sure to address them as well.
posted by Deathalicious at 6:07 PM on October 28, 2007

(B.S. in Sociology here)

Most sociological papers that have been published are going to be much more narrowly focused than what you're attempting. Instead of "The effects of HIV on society," it's going to be something like "The effects of HIV diagnosis on employment outcomes of African-American women in southern Los Angeles." I don't know if you're allowed to restrict your topic to a subset, but "society" is such an incredibly broad term. Do you mean Western society? North American? United States only? Middle class? Urban or rural? The same variable can have very different impacts on different subsets of society. A diagnosis of HIV does not affect a wealthy white American the same way it does a poor rural sub-Saharan African. The American economy is also better equipped to absorb the impacts of HIV than sub-Saharan economies.
posted by desjardins at 7:42 PM on October 28, 2007

Working through my BS in Sociology/Anthropology here.

Read bibliographies. Seriously, find five or ten articles on your topic, skim them, and then check out the works cited pages. Ideally the things you find will have monster bibliographies, from one to four pages. When you see an author's name show up on more than one bibliography, take note. If it shows up on all ten, get that article/book.

This is how you avoid missing the super "obvious" parts of the social impact, by seeing which theorists get the most citations, and which effects are most commonly studied. Of course, it pays to find something that few people are mentioning as well.
posted by bilabial at 11:10 PM on October 31, 2007