Handout No. 1 (Rev.)

ER 290-8
Environmental Sociology

David A. Sonnenfeld, Ph.D.

University of California, Berkeley

Spring 2000

Guidelines for Weekly Commentaries

Following are guidelines for your weekly critical commentaries. Your essay should:

• Identify one important theme, issue or question from the week's primary reading;

• Concisely summarize the author's perspective;

What are his/her key points or argument?  (Note: it is often useful to define key terms as part of this.) 

• Critically engage with the author;

What is useful (or not) about the author’s perspective on that theme, issue, or question, with regard to environmental sociology? What insights does the text have (or not have) related to your  research interests? Make an argument or counter-argument ...

• Be well written;

Write a short, formal, argumentative essay.  Use paragraphs.  Edit for clarity.  Remove extraneous material.  Make proper citations (those for the primary text may be abbreviated).  Proofread and spell-check. 

• Be a maximum of 500 words in length; and

• Be circulated by electronic mail to me and other seminar participants no later than 9:00 am Wednesday morning.

Good luck!  I look forward to reading your work.