Guildelines for the take home exam

In the evaluation of the assignment, importance is placed upon the following points:

• All parts of the assignment have been answered.
• The candidate describes clearly their understanding of the question and its limits.
• The assignment demonstrates the candidate’s ability to present both theory and empirical material.
• The assignment makes use of relevant parts of the syllabus literature (some literature not on the syllabus may be used sparingly).
• The assignment sets out interesting points of discussion and proceeds from these points.

To pass the assignment the candidate must show sociological understanding of the topics the course covers; be able to discuss theories, concepts and empirical knowledge; and be able to connect concepts to each other and to the material being discussed.

Practical information about the examination

The exam is published in Inspera at 2:00 PM on the first day of the exam. You submit your exam in Inspera before 2:00 PM on the last day of the exam. Inspera closes the examination automatically at precisely 9 am, so in practice you must have uploaded your file by 01:59 PM.

• The assignment should be within the range 3000 - 4000 words.
• Use 12 point font size and a line spacing of 1 1/2.
• The assignment must start with a summary of approximately 10 lines.
• The assignment shall have numbered pages.
• The reference list must conclude with the statement "All sources used in this assignment have been declared".
• For guidelines on reference use, see: Sources and references.
• Use this template for your submission.
• The following information should appear on the front page of the assignment:

1. The course code and course name
2. Date of submission
3. Candidate number (your name should not be included anywhere in the assignment)
4. The total number of words in the assignment (front page, summary, bibliography and any attachments are not included)

Submission of the exam

The file you provide must be in PDF format (.pdf). The file must be stored as *course code_candidate number*, for example: SOS2700_1234.pdf. Other formats (such as .docx, .pages or .odt) will not be accepted by Inspera. For help saving as a PDF file, see the university's guidelines.

Writing your assignment in sociology

How to structure your assignment

1. Introduction

2. Background and theory

3. Discussion

4. Conclusion

Useful resources:

• Academic writing centre

How to use references

When writing your assignment, you are required to site the sources that you use. This includes books and articles, but also newspapers, internet sources, TV-shows, lectures, public documents, leaflets etc.

Referencing a source is necessary when you site a source directly, but also when you build upon an argument without a direct citation – if the idea or argument is not your own, you must reference where you got the idea from.

When you use references in your text you include author, year and page if you quote passages of text, e.g. (Birrell 1972:14). If you refere to ideas that are presented, without quotations, you include author and year in the reference, e.g. (Birrell 1972)
 

Book references:

• Parriot, D. P. & C. F. Carter. (1972), The Northern Ireland Problem. A Study in Group Relation . 2. ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Journal Article references:

• Birrell, D. (1972), “Relative Deprivation as a Factor in Northern Ireland.” The Sociological Review, 20: 317–329

Section in a book, edited by another person:

• Dølvik, J. E. and T. A. Stokke (1998), “Norway: The Revival of Centralized Concertation”, in A. Ferner & R. Hyman: Changing Industrial Relations in Europe(118–145). Oxford: Blackwell Publishers

Web references: 

• URL:http://www.adress.no (Readingdate 19.10.2005)