There is no need for a separate title page. Your paper should be in the standard 5-paragraph expository essay format (note that this does not mean your essay has to have only 5 paragraphs–it’s a guideline for writing essays). Your essay will be based on the required materials from this course; please do not use materials from outside the class.
Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, and Max Weber all convey very serious concerns about the modern, capitalist social world that they theorize. Specifically, Marx describes capitalist life as being characterized by alienation, Durkheim expresses concern over elevated rates of anomie, and Max Weber describes moderns as being trapped in an iron cage. Your task in this assignment is to compare and contrast these theorists in terms of these key concepts (alienation, anomie, & the iron cage). In so doing, be sure to clearly define and explain the concepts and how they fit into the theorists’ overarching theoretical perspective. Then you’ll need to compare/contrast how these concepts are similar to and/or different from each other. Your paper should conform to the following structure:
1. Brief introductory paragraph that sets the stage for the compare/contrast to follow;
2. Paragraph on Marx’s concept of alienation/estrangement;
3. Paragraph on Durkheim’s concept of anomie;
4. Paragraph on Weber’s notion of the iron cage;
5. Paragraph (or 2) that compares/contrasts the concepts and what they explain about the social world
6. Brief concluding paragraph.
Remember that this is a sociology theory course. You therefore need to frame your paper analytically, which means 1) focusing in a clear and well-developed way on the concepts of the theorists and 2) situating those concepts within the theorists’ broader theoretical arguments (i.e., the “big picture” of the theorists’ paradigms). Remember, you demonstrate your understanding of these materials by using specific concepts/ideas presented in the readings–concepts help you explain why or how something happens in the world and thus become the tools we use when developing social theories.
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