{"id":391,"date":"2023-08-14T18:19:17","date_gmt":"2023-08-14T22:19:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/whywriteguide2e\/?post_type=chapter&p=391"},"modified":"2023-08-21T08:05:32","modified_gmt":"2023-08-21T12:05:32","slug":"6-3-writing-in-the-social-sciences-disciplines","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/whywriteguide2e\/chapter\/6-3-writing-in-the-social-sciences-disciplines\/","title":{"raw":"6.3 Writing in the Social Sciences Disciplines","rendered":"6.3 Writing in the Social Sciences Disciplines"},"content":{"raw":"So, what exactly does it mean when we say, \u201cWriting in the Social Sciences Disciplines\u201d? Let\u2019s start with the term \u201csocial sciences.\u201d The social sciences is an overarching term for academic fields where\u00a0 the focus of study is society and\/or human behavior. Anthropology, economics, geography, political science, psychology, and sociology are typically categorized as disciplines in the social sciences. Your major may well be in one of these disciplines, which means you are a member of this field!\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_436\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"1024\"]\"Graphic Figure 6.2: Social Sciences Disciplines[\/caption]\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s important to note, however, that within academia, lines and boundaries between disciplines are often blurry and porous, and the same discipline can be claimed by different fields simultaneously. By \u201cporous,\u201d we mean that different disciplines absorb relevant theories and approaches from other fields and incorporate that knowledge. For example, gender studies can belong to the social sciences and the humanities, while psychology is often categorized as both a social science and a science (like biological psychology, or neuropsychology). There are no hard and fast rules, and like genres, academic fields and disciplines shift and change over time and context.\r\n\r\nSo, if you\u2019re taking a course, or courses, in the social sciences, we\u2019ve written this chapter especially for you! We want you to be able to make this book work for you beyond the writing classroom, and support you as you encounter a (potentially) new set of writing tasks. Life is easier when you understand how communication situations work.\r\n\r\nAlthough some of this material will be new, a lot of what we\u2019ve already covered in this guide is relevant for writing in the social sciences. As part of the research for this chapter, we asked social sciences instructors at the University of Victoria what they looked for when reading undergraduate student writing. (We are certain that your instructors at your school also look for the following in undergraduate writing.) Good news! Everyone we surveyed and interviewed indicated that strong writing in their disciplines does all the things that we\u2019ve been emphasizing in this guide. Instructors were most impressed by student work that:\r\n