***Topic: thuggee cult (about religious terrorism)
The article must be 500-700 words and must be posted within
your respective Blog.
A key component of this assignment is the “so what?”
question. This means that covering some issue or phenomenon is not enough; you
have to provide measurable and articulable policy-oriented solutions to the
issue(s) you examine. It is relatively easy to cover some related concern in
the news (e.g. the Domestic Terrorism Bill), it is much more difficult to
critique said Bill and provide concrete ways to reform or amend it. This means
your entire Journal has to be supported by evidence! As such, this is not merely
your opinion; it has to be rooted in academic and scholarly research. You
Journal Articles
This assignment requires each student to create an ‘Journal’
moniker via the Blog by giving the journal you write for a name (make it
classroom appropriate please). This ‘name’ will be used at the top of the page
almost like a banner within each post. In week’s in which a Journal is due (see
calendar), students will navigate to their blog and post their article by
Sunday at midnight. The article must be 500-700 words and must be posted within
your respective Blog.
Students are expected to come up with their own discussion
(i.e. Journal) of what they found interesting from that segment. The sky is the
limit here in terms of creativity. For example, in Week 4, we are covering
‘Causes of Terrorism’. This is an extremely broad topic; thus giving each
student ample latitude to cover what they want. Students can focus on current
issues in the realm of terrorism by focusing on the causes of terrorism for a
specific group or movement, or they can cover a specific case or story as if
you were a journalist (e.g. a notable criminal trial in the news), or they can
also provide an analysis of what research shows on a topic (e.g. the influence
of politics on extremism), or any combination thereof. The Journal Article in
question must be tied to the topics or themes covered in that segment however.
Nevertheless, the purpose of the article is to research and
explore a given policy-relevant issue. This requires a decent amount of
research all the while taking you deeper into the subjects/themes discussed
that segment. However, you are given significant latitude in what you write
about, as each of you will have different and unique interests even within the
field of criminology. Since this is written like an Article, please format it
as such. This means using hyperlinks in the body of the submission so your
peers can click on what you are citing. You can also provide a brief list of
references used to craft the Article at the end of the article too.
Nonetheless, an Article should contain the following
components:
******An introductory summary statement, in 25 words or less, as
to the major conclusion/statement of your Article (i.e. what are you arguing OR
why is this important to the reader). This is essentially summarizing what will
follow, but in 25 words or less. This is an important skill in synthesizing
research for the purposes of writing.
·
An overview of the issue(s) examined (e.g. the
issues inherent in combatting local militias)
·
A brief overview of what research says as to
these issues. Stronger Articles will rely on academic work here.
·
The more empirical information you provide, the
stronger this portion will be.
·
Your overall conclusions as to what should be
done from a policy and/or programmatic perspective.
·
Ex: I believe that Virginia should modify
existing anti-militia statutes to do X, Y, and Z.
·
This entails specific policy recommendations (be
specific!!)
