GGR 349 CITIES IN TRANSITION
ASSIGNMENT 2: TERM-PAPER
The second assignment for GGR349 involves the production of a term paper essay of at least 10 pages of text double-spaced (not including Figures, Tables, reference list, etc). The term-paper is intended to have a standard essay format. You should choose a topic, identify and target scholarly sources of literature related to that topic, and then formulate a basic question, or small set of questions, related to that topic. Such questions may be relatively simple, as in “what has been the impact of deindustrialization on the articulation of income inequality in cities in Canada” or something like that (of course, this is only an example, and you are free to choose topics very different from this). In the paper, you should discuss the literature that has been written on the topic, and different theoretical/conceptual perspectives that might help in answering your research question/s and explaining trends that have been uncovered, as well as any empirical evidence to support your conclusions. You need to have a minimum of ten (10) references, either from academic journals or books,
cited in your essay and list in a bibliography at the end of the paper. Note that web searches are helpful in
identifying up-to-date factual material and empirical illustrations, and you are welcome to cite material from web sources. However, please note that materials sourced from websites (that are not academic journal articles) do not qualify for an item count in these ten (10) required reference materials. Likewise, chapters from the textbook or other required readings for the course do not qualify as part of these ten reference materials. However, you are still welcome to cite the textbook.
Term Paper Topic
The topic that you choose must be related in some way to the course content. In most cases, if your topic concerns what is changing or has changed in cities in some way, it should be fine as a topic. The important thing is to make your topic sufficiently focused. It is much easier to write a term paper on a focused, narrowly- defined topic, than a broadly-defined topic. There are a couple of options you may wish to consider when selecting a topic. One option would be to focus on changes occurring in a single city over time relating to one or any of its social/cultural, economic, physical and/or political geography. The precise kinds of changes that you decide to examine are up to you, and you are free to focus on specific themes in which you are interested. Another option would be to compare how a particular phenomenon is articulated in different cities. For instance, you could examine how Canadian and US cities differ with respect to the changes wrought by that phenomenon (or how Irish and French cities differ, etc), or you could compare two different cities within the same nation. Regardless of the topic you select, you should examine how different scholars approach the changes you discuss from a theoretical/ conceptual perspective, and thus how the changes you document might be explained.
Term-Paper Format:
The text of your essay should take up at least 10 pages in length, double-spaced on 8.5” by 11” paper, with 1” margins. It should be written in formal academic style. Your essay should include an introduction, text body, conclusion, and bibliography/reference list, and where appropriate, figures/maps, tables, end notes or foot notes, and appendices. All figures, tables, appendices and bibliography should be placed at the end of the essay, after the text. You are welcome to use any established citation format (APA, etc), however this must be applied consistently. You may want to consult academic journals such as The Canadian Geographer, Urban Studies, Cities, and Urban Geography to help you in thinking about how you will format your essay. For more information on format and style, you may wish to consult the work by Margot Northey and David B. Knight, Making Sense in Geography and Environmental Studies(Oxford University Press).
Your essay is
due on
Tuesday
March 24,
2015 in
class. As noted in
the course
syllabus, you should both submit your
essay through
turnitin.com, as well as
print out
a paper
copy and
bringing it to class. Please
ensure that you are
aware of
what constitutes
plagiarism and that your essay
is in
your own
words and
references properly. The term
paper essay
is worth
22 percent
of your
course grade.
GGR349 CITIES IN TRANSITION
Assignment 2 Term Paper
Evaluation Criteria
Writing quality (grammar, sentence structure, phrasing, organization, proper citation)
– NOTE: writing is an iterative process, you should make numerous revisions, and you should thoroughly proof-read your essay before submitting
Soundness (logic) of the research questions, argument, conclusions
Coverage and discussion of relevant literature, and theoretical concepts, perspectives related to the topic
Extent, validity and robustness of the evidence supporting the argument, conclusions
Integration of theoretical/ conceptual and empirical material into a coherent explanation/ set of comparative explanations
Overall essay quality
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