SOC 341-01/51 (Kuechler)
Fall 1997

Homework Assignment #1 (due Sep 22 at class time)

In continuation of the discussion in class, find three scholarly articles dealing with either

• the effects of spanking one's children or
• marital happiness and its relation to having children

Try to find articles published within the last three years (1995 or later) and conforming to scholarly norms (including references, citation in text, etc). If your search is not successful, expand it to include earlier publications and/or publications that are less scholarly (like newspaper stories about research).

Summarize the main findings of each article and assess to what extent the three selected articles come to the same or to different conclusions. Depending on what source (data base) you use, it may be sufficient to read the abstract to get this information. However, it is always preferable to take a look at the full articles. If you retrieve the full articles, make sure to make and keep a copy for yourself. [The next homework assignment will make it necessary to access full length articles, so you will be a step ahead.]

For this assignment, submit

• full bibliographic details (author(s), title, journal title, year, page numbers) for each article
• summary of main findings for each article
• assessment of differences and similarities of findings

[The next assignment will deal with certain aspects of how the studies were done.]

Please type or computer-print your submission. Though contents is more important than form, you should make it a habit to present your work in a fashion that signals pride in your accomplishment. So, no ripped out, frazzled pages written while riding the subway.

You can get a maximum of 15 points for this assignment. Points will be deducted for presenting older and/or non-scholarly articles (though more recent and scholarly work can be found) and leaving out bibliographic details or any other required part. There will be a deduction for sloppy appearance of your submission as well.

Hints:

• Use the various databases available within CUNYPLUS or sociofile (a CD-ROM based resource available in the library, 4th floor and in the computer labs in HN 10^th floor). Use of CUNYPLUS and sociofile has been covered in class in the week of Sep 8 with on-line demonstrations ( in the Alumni lab, HN 10^th floor).
• If you are not fully familiar with CUNYPLUS, learn (more) about it by using the self-instruction tutorial available in the library and in the computer labs on the 10^th floor of HN. Even if you think you know all about CUNYPLUS, take the self-test that comes with this tutorial and put your perception to a reality test. I probably should not say this, but - I got a couple of answers wrong myself when I checked a little while ago.
• If you know of and have access to any other data base that may be helpful for this assignment, feel free to use it.

Access to the CUNYPLUS tutorial

• In the library, the tutorial is not on the CD-ROM stations (on the 4^th floor), but on the CUNY+ terminals themselves on both the 3rd and 4^th floor. Look for the headphones attached to the machines. That is a good sign that the tutorial is available there. You may have to exit from CUNY+ to get to the menu: hit the ESC key (usually in the upper left corner of your keyboard) and answer "Y" when asked if you really want to exit. The tutorial will be one of the choices on the menu.
• In the 10^th floor labs, there are several ways to get to this tutorial. First starting (booting up) a station, you have a choice between "WIN95" and "DOS/WIN".
• If you choose "WIN95", wait till the boot-up process is finished (may take several minutes), then following the on-screen instructions, select "ACS menu", then double click on the folder labeled "Tutorials". From the open tutorials window you then select the CUNY+ tutorial.
• If you choose "DOS/WIN", wait for the blue "Novell menu" to appear. There are several ways, I only describe one. Select "Departmental Software", then "Sociology", then "Investigating the Social World". Remember that "selecting" means highlighting the particular menu item by using the arrow keys and, subsequently, pressing the Enter key. At this point, it will take several minutes before the loading process completes. Be patient. The program that starts is the same program you find on the diskette that comes with your textbook. To save you the trouble to install this program every time you want to use it, the publisher has granted permission to make this program available from the lab server for the duration of this semester. If you just want to get to CUNY+ tutorial 'minimize' the textbook program by clicking on the down button in the upper right corner of this window. Then, open the "Program Manager" window, open the "CUNY+ Tutorial" windows, and start the tutorial by clicking on the icon. Remember, "opening" and "starting" means moving the cursor over the object (icon) on the screen and double-clicking the mouse.