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CRJ/SOC 453/553: Sociology of Law

Research Guide for CRJ/SOC 453/553

Developing Your Problem & Solution

Step 1: Choose a law, court rulingcase, or issue of inequality that interests you

Step 2: Do some exploratory research to:

  • identify the broader sociological patterns/issues 
  • identify how the "haves" benefit from the law, court ruling, case, or issue of inequality

Step 3: Use the information from your exploratory research to:

  • Identify a specific sociological problem that the law, court ruling, case, or issue of inequality creates
  • Identify a legal reform that's a potential solution

Step 4: Do more in-depth research to build your legal reform and build your arguments for why your issue/law/case/ruling represents a broad societal problem and for your own proposed reform agenda

Write about what interests you: Professors want students to write about issues that they care about. If you're interested in the issues you've selected, it will be more fun for you to write your Inequality Paper, and probably more fun for Dr. Patel to read it, too.

Ask Dr. Patel for feedback on your problem and proposed legal reform

Picking Your Topic IS Research

Once you've picked a research topic for your paper, it isn't set in stone. It's just an idea that you will test and develop through exploratory research. This exploratory research may guide you into modifying your original idea for a research topic. Watch this video for more info:

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