Writing in Social Sciences

Writing in the social sciences equips students to write and research in a wide variety of social science fields. Students will conduct qualitative and quantitative studies and learn how types of methods affect writing styles. Additionally, students will gain valuable skills to add to their resumes such as using survey software such as Qualtrics and various research techniques. 

In addition to writing and composition skills, students can expect to:

• Understand genres, conventions, and rhetoric as they relate to the social sciences
• Generate discipline-specific compositions in appropriate genres
• Present research to different kinds of audiences
• Conduct secondary research using academic databases and library sources
• Learn to compose using written, oral, and multimedia modes
• Review and revise your own work and assist others in revising their work 

Related Majors

105i Spotlight: Ivana Devine

Ivana Devine is an English major with a concentration in creative writing. She chose to take ENGL 105i Writing in the Social Sciences because of her interest in the study of people. “I knew that was what I wanted to focus on because, of all the subjects, that is what I had the most interest in,” Ivana said.

Her favorite assignment involved taking a qualitative approach to research. “I chose to focus on how physical space can influence the way that people interact with it.” She wrote about the different learning environments between humanities and science buildings on UNC’s campus. “My favorite day was actually just sitting in the Genome Sciences Building and looking at the architecture and realizing how different it was from the way…I feel coming into Greenlaw,” Ivana said. She considered how students would feel entering those environments.

Ivana said she loved her time in ENGL 105i and explains, “I’ve worked in a writing center, I’ve been in a bunch of English classes, and I still have a lot to learn.” ENGL 105i helped with that. As Ivana explains, “I think writing in an academic setting, especially dealing with social sciences, it’s really important to be clear on how you’re communicating to people…a big lesson for me [was] learning how to write again.”

Ivana now uses her social skills for an internship at an elementary school in Durham. She helps with development of promotional material, “so that other people know about the [school’s] vision and want to support it.”