Reading Reflection Assignment

Purpose: This assignment provides you with the opportunity to develop your critical reading and writing skills. It will also help you develop questions that can be raised in tutorial for discussion. Self-assessment is an important part of developing and acquiring the reading and writing skill that you will need to succeed in your courses, so it is a good idea to review your reflections over the term.

Value: Attendance will be kept for tutorials but you must also complete 10 reading reflections to earn full marks. For each reflection you DO NOT submit, you will lose 1 mark. If you do not submit any reflections before June 16, for example, you will receive 0 out of 5 for attendance for the first half of the course. Even if you do not write any reflections, you must still attend class as you can receive credit for the participation component (10 marks) of the tutorial grade. Reading reflections are meant to help stimulate class discussion so THEY WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED AFTER THE TUTORIAL IN WHICH THEY ARE DUE.

Length: 1 paragraph, double spaced (excluding quote). It must include your name, date, tutorial time and tutorial number and a bibliographical entry.

Note: You should pick your quote only after you have completed the reading: take reading notes as you are reading and highlight interesting quotes.

Instructions:
The following guidelines will help you focus your reflections. You are to reflect not only on the quote, but on how the quote relates to the overall argument or story in the text. Use the reading questions in the course outline to help you identify passages to reflect on (actively look for an answer to the question in the reading):

1. Pick a quote from ONE of the readings assigned for that week that you think is very interesting or important with respect to the overall argument or story. Introduce the quote. On bibliographical referencing, see Shea and Whitla, ch.9.

2. Elaborate: Explore the key idea or issue contained in the quote.

3. Justify: Explain why you picked the quote-if you strongly agreed/disagreed with it don't just say so, explain why you did.

4. Interpret: Explain how the quote you selected relates to the overall argument or theme of the text.

5. Contextualize: Explain how the quote/overall argument relates to an issue of importance to the study of business and society.

Name and Student :

TAs Name:

Date and Week :

According to Sills, it is very difficult to give a precise definition of the social sciences. He refers to earlier attempts to define the social sciences in previous editions of the encyclopedia he is introducing:

Commented [J1]: All reading reflections should be introduced with at least one sentence called a ‘topic sentence' which introduces the main idea you will be discussing. This is to help show you how to write a well-focused paragraph-the building blocks of an essay!

Commented [J2]: This is called a "block quote". Quotations that run more than three lines are indented or "blocked off" from the rest of the text in order to indicate that it is a quote drawn from the source indicated. Notice that I have reproduced the direct quotations from Seligman's text, cited by Sills. Compare this to the original in the text.

Commented [J3]: I am explaining or ‘justifying' why I picked this quote, but you can also explain why you are not satisfied with your understanding of a text or even raise questions that remain unanswered. Avoid clichés or empty phrases like "I picked this quote because I agree with it". Show us how you are thinking about the ideas in the text.

Commented [J4]: This is what I mean by ‘contextualizing' the reading: why do you think we are reading it? How might this reading be useful to studying the relationship between business and society?

Commented [J5]: Notice the indentation of this bibliographical entry. It is called a ‘hanging' indentation: the first line of every bibliographical entry should be ‘hanging' over the second and any subsequent lines of that entry.
The question ‘What Are the Social Sciences?' is the title of Edwin R. A. Seligman's opening chapter in the Introduction to the earlier Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences. Professor Seligman's first answer was to define the social sciences as "those mental or cultural sciences which deal with the activities of the individual as a member of a group." His second answer was to list the disciplines that were included in the encyclopedia (Sills, p. xxi).

Sills claims that we cannot provide a definitive answer to the question because the disciplines that make up the social sciences have changed from generation to generation. New disciplines arise and the scope of disciplines change (p. xxi). I picked this quote because it addressed a key question for the course. Sills reviews some of the disciplines considered to be a part of the social sciences (for example, anthropology, economics, geography, history, political science and sociology) and some of the thinkers associated with each of these disciplines. I am not very satisfied with how Sills addresses the question, though, since I am still not sure what is ‘social' about ‘social science'. I am also confused by the expression ‘interdisciplinary'. It might mean drawing on a variety of disciplines and looking at things from different perspectives to address questions raised in this course. It might be useful to read more from this encyclopaedia since it contains biographical entries on particular thinkers used in this course, and this can provide some valuable context for some of these readings.
Sills, David L. ‘Introduction' from Sills, ed. International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. New York: Macmillan, 1968. Pp. xix-xxx.