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(1984). Cases in Point: A Limited Glossary of Stumblebum Usage. The Sociological Quarterly: Vol. 25, No. 3, pp. 417-427.

Hopefully, the quality of sociologists' writing will improve irregardless of the temptation to talk jargon-wise.

When men are inducted into the armed forces, they must make adjustments to the structure of activities and relationships of basic training. These are discussed in terms of the Army (1) as a hierarchy of command, (2) as a rigidly stratified society, (3) as a self-contained social world, and (4) as either socializing or isolating its members.

implications for effective instruction in sociology. Taking a cluefrom sociologists'studies of social organizations, one recognizes that effective recruitment requires clear, advance communication ofa course's goals, its procedures (including adaption ofteaching patterns and devices to differing student backgrounds and career choices; and to concurrent experiences) and appropriate mechanisms for withdrawal and reallocation.

useful suggestions for creating powerful introductory courses for the hundreds of thousands of students who, each year, have their single exposure to sociology. One infers from these statements the needfor operationally specific goals that enable the instructor, as change agent, to assess the extent to which those ends are achieved; and the adequacy of the means used to achieve them. Two further criteria are inferred: the need for detailed public statements about course content, together with a persuasive apologia, both ensuring that students know where they are going and wish to go there. Further, without superficiality, the course should inform students of the core (inquiries into sources and outcomes of differing social structures) and the range of the field; with attention to four generic dimensions of learning: facts, theory (explanation of the facts), methods (skills of inquiry), and application. One also sees in the three articles an emphasis on questions as the framework of the course and on active participation by students in the pursuit of plausible answers. This entails the discovery of sources of reliable social data, useful years beyond the end of the course. Finally, one notes that ends and means of instruction are linked: Some means may work against the achievement of desired ends.