Each paper must be 2-3 pp. A reaction paper contains your intellectual reaction to a topic covered in lecture or to an article from the course reader. In these papers, you are the researcher, the theoretician, the social critic, the policy maker. One of the four papers must be a report of a small-scale empirical investigation you conducted yourself. A typical investigation has a sample of 10.
Clear writing teaches clear thinking.
Unfortunately, many term papers are written in a hurry, packed with redundancy and platitudes, just to meet the page minimum. As a consequence, many creative ideas go unappreciated because they are drowned in muddled language. An excellent way to learn to write well is by reading and critiquing other people's writing. And for each paper you write, you will be the editor of someone else's paper. Further help with style and grammar is available on the class web page.