Issue 3 of Sociology Shortcuts Magazine arrives just-in-time for the start of the new school year, which is just as well because the Intro Issue is aimed squarely at those new to Sociology as they take their first faltering steps in their new favourite subject taught by their new favourite teachers.
In terms of content, the magazine’s 40-odd pages (and some, to be fair, are particularly odd, partly as a result of yet more design experimentation and partly because that’s just the way it is) are filled with short, mainly one-page, articles covering, in no particular order:
Each article is designed to be a relatively simple, standalone, introduction to a key topic or idea – although taken-together they build into something a little more substantial than the sum of their parts.
Which, if you’re looking for learning opportunities in this post, is a bit like the relationship between the individual and society. This, co-incidentally, is not something covered in the issue and while I’d like to say it was for specific academic reasons, the reality is that until I just thought about it, it didn’t really occur to me.
On the down side, therefore, there’s probably a lot more that “didn’t occur to me” to include, but there’s probably enough content for students to be doing with at the start of their course. If you want to mix things up a little – and possibly fill in a few gaps while you’re doing it – you might find the Sociology Show Podcast Starter Pack useful for this purpose. This has a 20-minute segment covering “18 key introductory terms” and covers a lot of the same areas covered in the Intro Issue.
On the up side, the Magazine’s available in a few different formats, none of which are inherently better or worse than the others. It probably depends what you’re comfortable with (and since they’re all free you can try each one for size to see which fits best):
Portrait pdf: The classic A4 page look.
Landscape pdf: As above but each A4 page covers two magazine pages.
Flipbook: An Online Magazine style booklet that includes some short video clips and, probably best of all, pages that you can actually turn (or “flip” as we putative media moguls are wont to say). Albeit in a virtual way.
Given this is the third issue you may be thinking there must have been previous issues.
Because that’s just the way you roll.
And you would be right (the question of whether there will be future issues is much less clear-cut), so if you want to read them (the previous issues, not ones I haven’t created yet), you can “Read All About ’em” (see what I did there?) here: