Basic Requirements for Anthropology Research Papers and Projects

Questions:

Basic requirements/expectations of Anthropology research papers/projects.

Your paper must:
• Have a thesis statement.
• Be clearly relevant to the course & rely primarily on anthropological sources.
• Go beyond pure description and include analysis (so what?).
• Rely on course concepts and course materials in analysis (as relevant).
• Include at minimum 4 academic sources at least 1 of from an anthropology journal.
• Have consistent, academic referencing style, including in-text citations and bibliography formatted according to APA guidelines
• Not be plagiarized!

The topic must be specific to be effectively addressed in the maximum number of pages; focus on 1 main idea. See also "Course Expectations" on course outline.
Thesis Statement/Statement of Research Intent and Introduction
• What are you researching, and why?
• What question do you hope to address? Structure the thesis statement to go beyond pure description and offer critical analysis or insight. Ask how or why, rather than what.
• What is the subject of your analysis and how will you make sense out of it? (E.g., X can be understood in terms of these practices, concepts, or theory)
• So what about it? Why are you writing about this topic? What is the significance?

Data Collection
• How was the research conducted? I know it was the library, all research starts there; be specific about the sources that will be consulted for the essay and their relevant arguments (e.g., author X says blah blah about B culture whereas author Y says yak yak about B culture). Be clear about what you are basing your analysis on and where your information is from.

Body and Data Analysis
• In addition to "how", provide context &/or a description of what you are looking at.
• What anthropological concept/s did you use to make sense of your topic?
• Define or explain what is meant by a particular term, especially course concepts.

Demonstrate what you know and how well you know it! This ensures you and your reader share the same understanding of concepts/terms. For example, if writing about youth culture, define "youth" (e.g., 12-16 years old), “culture”, & "youth culture".

Anthropology 101: Written Assignments Page 2

• Establish clear and direct relevance to the thesis statement throughout the paper.
• Integration of course concepts in analysis/interpretation of data is mandatory!
• Discuss what you expected to find, what you found and explain the differences, if any.
• Address: Why you believe this? How do you know this? How does it relate to the thesis statement? So what? Support your arguments and relate them clearly back to the thesis statement; convince the reader the argument is valid by clearly connecting it to your data.
• Relate specific case to larger context
i.e., how does your specific study relate to broader ideas/processes/culture?
 How the specific case relates to more general processes helps address "so what?"

Thesis Statement/Statement of Research Intent and Introduction

Rely primarily on academic sources. No magazines! Encyclopedias (e.g., Encyclopedia Britannica) are not academic sources, unless at the University level, similar to the Folklore Encyclopedias. Definitions must be based on academic sources, not general Dictionaries (e.g., Webster’s or Wikipedia), again, advanced academic-style Dictionaries are acceptable (e.g., Dictionary of Anthropology, available in the reference section of the Castlegar Selkirk College library).

Conclusion
Answer the questions: Who? What? Where? How? Why? So what? Sum up important arguments, and relate clearly back to the thesis statement. Show how you reached your conclusion by showing the evidence for how you got there. Support your argument and convince the reader that your conclusions are sound by providing a strong supporting argument. Show your work (just like in Math class)!

You MUST submit a proposal for your final paper/project to be accepted for grading. Assignment due dates are on the course outline. See also “Additional Relevant Information" on the course outline. Check the library for reference books on writing for the social sciences.

Anthropology 101: Written Assignments Page 3

2. Proposals (10%)
Provide a brief description of what you intend in your paper, including how you will do it. The proposal should be no more than 2 pages long (12-point font, double-spaced, 1 side of the page only), including potential references with complete bibliographic information. It is not expected you have read the references thoroughly at this stage, but you should know if they are relevant to your topic.

In the proposal, I will be looking for:
• A clear and obvious thesis statement or question to be addressed. For example, "objects in people’s homes are a reflection of their cultural values" (a thesis statement) OR "Why do people place certain objects in specific places in their home and what symbolic meanings do they attach to these objects?" (a question).
• What will you do and how? What methods will you use? (Statements like: going to the library, surfing the Internet, reading books, etc., are insufficient). E.g., are you drawing upon your own experiences (auto-ethnography) or past experience (past participant-observation)?
• How will you get your information (library, museum collections, fieldwork in a public place, etc.)? If fieldwork, explain how you will be conduct it and with whom. Be specific.
• What research will you rely upon? Include potential references with complete bibliographic information.
• Inclusion of relevant course material & journal article/s.
• In-text citations and bibliography formatted according to APA guidelines.
• How is it Anthropology, and thus related to the course? If you can not answer this question re-evaluate your topic and/or the approach.

Data Collection

3. TERM PAPER/PROJECT (30%)
Write a 1500-word paper on any aspect of cultural anthropology. I will be looking for:
• A clear thesis statement at the beginning of the paper (1st page).
• Relevance to thesis statement established throughout and paper stays on topic.
• Well-developed argument with no holes; ideas are clearly integrated into arguments and explicitly related to the thesis.
• Solid understanding of the concepts in the paper/project.
• Critical analysis and insight – not just a description of events.
• Clear connection to Anthropology and Anthropological insights and sources in analysis.
• Demonstration of your mastery of course material/concepts (relevant to the topic).
• Terms/concepts defined, especially those covered in the course.
• Clear, concise and well organized.
• So what? Why was it important to research this? What are the broader implications? For example, “material culture is an expression of people’s individual values, but also reflective of values of the culture or society with which they identify”. When making

Anthropology 101: Written Assignments Page 4

conclusions, show how you got there. How does the evidence support, or not, your argument?
• Conclusion relates clearly back to thesis statement and ties paper together.
• Required number of references, including journal article.
• Formal grammar and spelling.
• Consistent academic referencing and bibliographic style following APA Guidelines.

Failure to provide complete and accurate references within the body of the paper and a bibliography will result in a failing grade.
4. Paper/Project Ideas

Some ideas on what to research: (These need to be narrowed to something more specific. This list is just some ideas to get you started.)
• Explore some aspect of culture, e.g., witchcraft, customs, beliefs, art, coffee, sport, politics, consumption
• Analyze a case study in culture contact/conflict
• Write a cultural analysis of ritual or symbolism
• Analyze the influence of culture on scientific interpretations
• Analyze a culture of war, or peace.
• Write a cultural analysis of a significant event in someone's, or your own, life. For
example, a ritual or rite of passage, immigrating, moving...
• Analyze media representations of a particular culture
• Write a mini-ethnography of some aspect of local culture that can be observed in public
(Baker street, a "hang-out", sport, a rave, a concert, environmentalism, logging, a workplace, an activity...).
• Write a cross-cultural comparison of deviance, ability/disability, drug use, garbage, child birth, child-rearing, adolescence, health, death, unemployment, etc.
• Write about a cultural tradition or cultural celebration in your family or household (e.g., Christmas, birthday, Halloween, Easter, graduation, marriage, or funeral).
• Visit a museum or cultural exhibit and analyze what is being portrayed and how. What other possibilities are there or how could the exhibit be different and how would this change the message? How is meaning managed?

Papers can also incorporate your own experiences (auto-ethnography and/or past participant-observation), in addition to academic sources. If you have an idea, propose it! You can write on anything involving humans and culture, but you must adopt an Anthropological perspective. Pick something that really interests you and writing the paper will be much easier!