Assignment due Monday, March 20, 2023 by 11:00pm
Goal of Assignment 2
? The primary aim of Assignment 2 is to provide you with an opportunity to conduct
a complex (social) systems analysis in a real-world context. Your aim is to better
understand what gives rise to repeat criminal behavior.
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? The secondary aim of the assignment is to have you think about the factors that
drive people to act in the way they do, and to think about the #Purpose and
#Utility of those actions.
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? Your assignment will focus on ONE of three possible questions (“explanatory
challenges”).
? You will:
? Break the complex social system down (#SystemAnalysis),
? Think about criminal behavior as an emergent phenomenon
(#EmergentProperties),
? What factors give rise to the criminal behavior (#BehaviorExplanation),
? What purpose it serves (#Purpose), and
? What utility it has for the person engaging in that behavior (#Utility) or
other agents in the system.
GROUP Assignment
This is a group assignment! You have been assigned to a group with other students.
You can find your group assignments on your Forum Dashboard. If you have any
questions about your assignment please reach out to your professor.
? Together – as a GROUP – you will have to produce a 800-1000 word research
paper.
? A research paper involves conducting individual background research on
a topic, then coming together as a group to discuss your findings,
summarizing the key ideas, and then communicating those ideas
effectively.
? Below are a recommended set of steps to keep in mind when completing your
group assignment
Assignment Instructions
-** Step 1**: select a research question.
Come together as a GROUP and decide on which of the following three questions you
would like to answer:
1. Why are people with a high chance of committing crimes released early from
prison?
2. Why do people fail to change their criminal behaviors even after they have been
repeatedly convicted?
3. Why have certain criminal justice systems failed to reduce the problem of
criminal reoffending?
? Step 2: conduct background research, come together, and discuss
Each student will first conduct their own background research for their paper.
? At minimum, each student will need to identify FOUR different sources
? At least two of the sources must be scholarly (i.e., a peer reviewed paper,
academic book chapter).
? The other two sources can be non-scholarly (e.g., popular blogs or media,
such as The New York Times).
When the group comes together to meet, each student will bring their four sources to
the meeting. The group will select the SIX best sources that were identified and use
those in the final assignment.
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Set a clear date by which each person needs to complete their background research.
Then set a time to come together as a group and discuss your findings. Write down your
main findings in a shared (Google) document, and summarize the key ideas that you
have collectively identified.
? Step 3: Divide the work and write a GROUP research paper
Each person in the team is responsible for a certain section of the paper. Identify which
person will work on which section of the paper. Set a deadline for an initial draft of each
section to be added to the shared (Google) document.
? Your research paper should include the following:
? Introduction: here you provide the reader with general background on the
issue and justify why it is an important topic to study.
? Research: This is the core of the assignment. It outlines what you found
during your research and group discussions, and how this advances our
understanding of the research question. You are conducting a complex
system analysis that is informed with the concepts that we covered in this
unit: #behaviorexplanation, #purpose, #utility
? Conclusion: here you summarize your analysis and highlight any issues
that might still need to be resolved or addressed.
? Reference section: formatted in APA style. Quotations (if any) or ideas
and examples that are summarized or paraphrased from other authors
must be appropriately cited, using in-text citations. If you have any
questions about this, please contact your instructor. You will be graded on
#sourcequality here.
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? Step 4: set a time to meet, discuss your first draft, and revise the assignment
together.
Set a date and time to come together as a team and evaluate your first draft of the
assignment. Honestly discuss its strengths and weaknesses, as well as areas for
improvement. Revise the assignment based on your discussion, and set a date for the
revisions to be completed by.
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Each person is responsible for revising and improving their section(s). You are free to
work on multiple sections and to help one another out. Aim to produce a strong second
draft before submitting the assignment.
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? Step 5: submit the assignment. Each student should submit the final version of
the assignment on Forum.
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LO Application
In your research paper, make sure that you use the following learning outcomes:
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#systemanalysis
#emergentproperties
#behaviorexplanation
#purpose
#utility)
? Be sure to draw attention to your most prominent applications of learning
outcomes by adding footnotes. In the footnote text (at the bottom of the page),
provide the hashtag of the LO and a 1-2 sentence explanation of your
application.
? Help the professor understand exactly why this constitutes a strong
application. For a given LO, create at most one footnote per page.
? Footnote text does not count toward the target length of the assignment,
and all applications of the LO (not just those that are footnoted) may count
toward your grade.
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? You will also be graded on:
? #Professionalism: Ensure that your communication follows established
guidelines and use a careful editing process.
? #EvidenceBased: Your research paper should answer the research
question you choose, and you should support your answer with evidence
drawn from the sources you discuss. You may choose to defend an
answer found in one or more of your sources, or you may disagree with
your sources and provide an alternative answer based on your own
analysis of the evidence.
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Division of Work
? All team members should contribute to background research, and your overall
paper should be the result of group consensus.
? Each team member is responsible for explaining how the paper applies at
least one of the LOs you have chosen.
? When submitting your paper, identify which students explained the
application of which LOs (include student name in footnote).
? All students should review the entire paper and offer feedback.
? Each student will receive LO scores for the entire proposal, not just the
work that he or she contributed.
? If a student does not contribute to the assignment, they may
receive lower scores.
Assignment Information
Length:
800-1000 words
Weight:
15%
Learning Outcomes Added
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EvidenceBased: Identify and appropriately structure the information needed to
support an argument effectively.
Professionalism: Ensure that your communication follows established guidelines
and use a careful editing process.
SystemAnalysis: Analyze and apply decompositions of systems into constituent
parts at multiple levels of analysis.
EmergentProperties: Identify emergent properties of complex systems and
discern their causes.
BehaviorExplanation: Analyze the relations among interacting motivating factors
that shape behavior.
Purpose: Identify and evaluate underlying goals and the values on which they are
based, as well as the guiding principles that determine how an individual or group
will try to attain these goals.
Utility: Consider different types of costs and benefits for all stakeholders.

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