Methodology Course Writing

Methodology is a research process used when conducting research. Throughout my time here at Longwood, I have taken four sociology classes that I had to conduct research in. These classes include Social Research and Program Evaluation, Independent directed study, and the sociology of Education. In my sociology of education course, I had to write memos about my research, an initial memo and an analytical memo. My writing in this course was decent but I was not the strongest because I was just beginning my journey into methodology. My initial memo has important details about my expectations, ideas, questions, assumptions, etc for this research process. Next, I did a directed study in sociology in which I had to submit a research proposal to the Institutional Review Board. My writing in this course was stronger and more sociological as I had to be fully transparent in explaining how I was going to conduct my research and maintain the confidentiality of my research participants. I believe this is my strongest writing as this was research I was passionate about examining the minority college athlete experience at a predominately white institution.  In my social research and program evaluation course I had to write another research paper on the fear of crime. My writing ability in this course was very strong and had grown tremendously since writing memos my sophomore year in my sociology of education course. In this research course I wrote a Literature Review and Methodology section. Overall, these courses have helped my writing grow tremendously in regards to methodology.