Writing in anthropology
Tips & tools / this handout is handout briefly situates anthropology as a discipline of study within the social sciences. It provides an introduction to the kinds of writing that you might encounter in your anthropology courses, describes some of the expectations that your instructors may have, and suggests some ways to approach your assignments. It also includes links to information on citation practices in anthropology and resources for writing anthropological research is anthropology, and what do anthropologists study? Anthropology shares this focus on the study of human groups with other social science disciplines like political science, sociology, and economics. What makes anthropology unique is its commitment to examining claims about human ‘nature’ using a four-field approach. The four major subfields within anthropology are linguistic anthropology, socio-cultural anthropology (sometimes called ethnology), archaeology, and physical anthropology. And cultural anthropologists study contemporary human groups or kinds of writing assignments might i encounter in my anthropology courses? Types of writing that you do in your anthropology course will depend on your instructor’s learning and writing goals for the class, as well as which subfield of anthropology you are studying. Most introductory and intermediate level anthropology writing assignments ask for a critical assessment of a group of readings, course lectures, or concepts. Here are three common types of anthropology writing assignments:This is the type of assignment most often given in anthropology courses (and many other college courses). Your anthropology courses will often require you to evaluate how successfully or persuasively a particular anthropological theory addresses, explains, or illuminates a particular ethnographic or archaeological example. For more help with deciphering your assignments, see the writing center handout on how to read an g a “critical” essay does not mean focusing only on the most negative aspects of a particular reading or theory.
Instead, a critical essay should evaluate or assess both the weaknesses and the merits of a given set of readings, theories, methods, or assignment: assess the cultural evolutionary ideas of late 19th century anthropologist lewis henry morgan in terms of recent anthropological writings on globalization (select one recent author to compare with morgan). Your anthropology instructor might expect you to engage in a semester-long ethnographic project or something shorter and less involved (for example, a two-week mini-ethnography). If your instructor asks you to do an ethnographic project, that project will likely require some e they are so important to anthropological writing and because they may be an unfamiliar form for many writers, ethnographies will be described in more detail later in this assignment: spend two hours riding the chapel hill transit bus. Based on your examination of the claims and the supporting data being used, construct an argument for why you think bipedal locomotion emerged where and when it should i approach anthropology papers? An essay in anthropology is very similar to writing an argumentative essay in other disciplines. In an english essay, you might use textual evidence from novels or literary theory to support your claims; in an anthropology essay, you will most often be using textual evidence from ethnographies, artifactual evidence, or other support from anthropological theories to make your are some tips for approaching your anthropology writing assignments:Make sure that you understand what the prompt or question is asking you to do. See our handouts on arguments and college writing for help understanding what many college instructors look for in a typical paper). Our handouts on reading in preparation for writing and brainstorming might be useful for you at this p a working thesis and begin to organize your evidence (class lectures, texts, research materials) to support it. Introductory anthropology courses involve reading and evaluating a particular kind of text called an ethnography. It is your job to help your reader understand the connection you are making: you must clearly explain why statements x, y, and z are evidence for a particular claim and why they are important to your overall claim or on practices in anthropology, as in other fields of study, it is very important that you cite the sources that you use to form and articulate your ideas. Your anthropology or archaeology instructor asks you to follow the style requirements of a particular academic journal, the journal’s website should contain the information you will need to format your citations. For more information on citation, please see please see the unc libraries citation consulted these works while writing the original version of this handout.
May reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout (just click print) and attribute the source: the writing center, university of north carolina at chapel you enjoy using our handouts, we appreciate contributions of student's practical guide:Writing term papers for anthropology. Taking a heavy course load: genetics, try, math, and this anthropology class for are supposed to write a fifteen page term have not even started the paper -- somehow not managed to find the time for it. That is what is all about -- making the writing of are ways to save time and effort. Certainly there is no way to guarantee scholarly ecstasy; writing a term paper may never much fun as mountain climbing, or reading , or whatever your idea of fun is. And it shows you how to make a more polished and expert is an anthropology term paper? It is a ch paper, written from an ctive, on a topic approved by your anthropology paper has a distinctive , also used by several other social sciences, es that you use the anthropological "literature" may already have taken a writing course. You may also find that the writing style research papers is not the same as the style d in your writing classes. Writing a requires a good deal more ement and commitment than writing a what is a term paper? Analysis process of organizing and summarizing the ideas in order to answer a retation refers to a discussion of g and implications of your answers for , ideas, and problems that your paper l and wise rules for writing style and organization of your paper have a e: to help the reader understand what you say. Have thematic unity and an you stick to your problem and your outline, have no trouble writing a unified paper; means sticking to the central idea of your your plan for discussing ure refers to the organization of the parts paper. Be clear it so that they can follow your concise and yet are writing something that will be read ted by someone. It's a balance, which, in writing term papers, as in ride a bicycle (and practically everything else), learned through practice--by doing it until 't fall down.
Topic that might not be example, when you are writing for a class s on some aspect of cultural symbolism, and yourself discussing astrology, king tut, and gliding, then you're stretching the boundaries course. Here again, if a friend (or enemy) e understanding your paper or any part of it, to do something about need to rewrite the foggy and fuzzy even if your paper is more or less comprehensible,Revision and rewriting will nearly always improve lly, a sense of when and what to revise, what out, and what to rewrite is developed through ce of writing and through receiving feedback your research problem, outline and tions of readers firmly in mind, go through e with a certain ruthlessness. But in per hour the magical rules are the best of seven magical rules of term paper writing apply research papers. But anthropology term papers ent from papers you may have written for s, or for a writing class. Citation format used in anthropology is less the footnote format because you only have to the complete bibliographic information for a --in the reference list. I think in-text citations are quicker than reference footnotes, and they do exactly thing in terms of documenting the use of a providing access to that anthropology term papers do not use tes, you never have any reason to use iations such as "ibid" or "op cit. Rather, about their experience of or, and develop their own theories position and roles in the system of ctions that and specialized specialized knowledge--anything that cannot ered "common knowledge" in the field in are writing--must be documented. Then you need to provide a citation referring to the source of your knowledge means common in the field you are writing. This ally true in anthropology, where tures used are both extensive and general need for sophisticated ch strategies becomes apparent when er the volume of information nts us. This is went over in the last section; in-text citation is of documentation used in ntation is more than a good thing to know--it responsibility to know how to document your sources, and to make sure that you do so in that you write, whether you use in-text an anthropology paper, or reference footnotes for is pretty easy to tell when a student rized. And so you won' able to use it, until you go back to the library the information you need to document your use graphic format of anthropology papers:A reference list--sometimes known as a graphy, or even just a bibliography--provides ation needed to find any source used in a must give this bibliographic information for you cite in your paper. Magazines and journals, ations--from all over the world, about the anthropology of art to zymurgy, in a way be used efficiently by everyone from ts to pology uses an extremely wide range y materials.
Will get you started, and will, we hope, ing you can refer to as needed, whenever you ch in the university library, for anthropology library: how to get you walk into the library. S who cite shweder's articles on culture ality, for example, are probably writing about or related issues. There are a lot of pretty writing pretty funny books, and it assing to base part of a term paper on a seems to be scholarly and rigorous, only to professor tell you that the results were ible, or that fraud was involved, or that is famous for being an idiot. They are le if you want to do a cross-cultural y since each piece of writing is d by topic. There is a list available in the reference area to reference works in anthropology, and there r lists for other subjects as sly, if you have any questions or problems,Consult your al anthropology: a guide nce and information sources. Guide to research tools, library services and ics of term paper writing in social sciences: a linary guide to selected sources. Consult the "anthropology" chapter for ted list of recent reference sources in s of information in the es. The ibss graphies in political science, economics, anthropology part covers archeology pology as well as cultural and nary of anthropology. Consists of brief definitions, historical origins pments, and sources of additional information ts in physical opedia of anthropology,1976 this is really a dictionary rather than opedia of evolution: humanity' for its origins. Indexes more than 600 periodicals in phical arrangement, subdivided by general, ology, cultural anthropology, ethnography,No subject index. Includes social and cultural anthropology, archaeology,Physical arts and humanities provides author, subject and citation access literature in folklore, linguistics and archaeology. Survey of tribes of south america, with the european contact l anthropology: a handbook and method.
This gives critical reviews of recent research ed areas of anthropology, such as political and ic studies, culture change, and s. Describes anthropology departments in utions, lists american anthropological association members,Recent phd dissertations in anthropology, and phical directory pologists born before 1920. E, there is a "literature" on medical anthropology, on ons, on the kinship systems of australian aborigines, on witchcraft and so forth. You will find the writing and research skills as taught in anthropology useful in the real world--more useful than an ability to ace multiple choice exams. So when in doubt, consult a dictionary or a writing handbook on word usage and words commonly misused. If you are careful to pick the best words for the ideas you want to express, you will probably be one of the few who do--that doesn't guarantee an a, but it comes closer to guaranteeing it than any other writing habit i can think . When writing papers, remember that the reader is another person, who may or may not know all the things you know, and almost certainly has not organized them in the same way you have. To course handout to moore's home to overview of bioanthro at ucsd & update: 5 jan student's practical guide:Writing term papers for anthropology. In our first-year curriculum in anthropology back in 1982, i liked roger keesing’s textbook for this reason; the feeling was that he had his heart in the right place. There is a linear plot in keesing which i didn’t see at the time – moving from the simple to the complex as the book progresses – which is epistemologically problematic but efficient as a way of organising a narrative: you know how he begins his book with a few chapters on human evolution (which we were not asked to read, by the way; anthropology is not a four-field subject in norway), ending with horror stories of colonialism and capitalist then, in my second year, i discovered gregory bateson, and it was love at first sight. The kind of irreducible complexity presented explicitly and implicitly in bateson’s texts do not stand for typical good writing; it’s untypical good writing. Most of the really memorable texts, in anthropology as in other nonfiction, are those that have a clear message or a potent metaphor somewhere.
Because of its powerful central a writer, you can engage your audience in many ways (and i’ve described some of them in engaging anthropology – i’m not going to repeat myself here), but let us say that the most important ones are metaphor and narrative. Anthropology is usually not technical in such a way as to exclude, by default, readers who lack a training in the subject. Could it be that the ghost of evans-pritchard’s nasty depiction of mead as representing a ‘rustling-of-the-wind-in-the-palm-trees kind of anthropology, for which malinowski set the fashion’, is still hovering in the corridors? For me, anthropological writing is usually not going to be as pleasurable — even when it is done well — because the whole method is a process of making *everything* explicit. With other kinds of writing, enjoying the activity of reading is in itself the me around 12 or 13, i began rummaging through the books found in an old, glassfront bookcase that may have belonged to my maternal grandfather. Anyway i believe the matter with ‘engaged anthropology’ is not one of ‘how do i write’ but mainly one of ‘what do i write about. That’s the main difference between a field blog and a field diary, but writing for a readership surely affects your style as , i guess the more interesting books were those on sherlock holmes. Maybe it is therefore that the first book making me interested in social anthropology was william whyte’s street corner society about a poor italian neighborhood in the late r, really seeing how our society is partially flawed and that there might have been something lost along the way did not come before i read bill gates’ the road ahead at the age of 18; it is truely a terrible vision of the future in which everything is streamlined and has been made , thomas, for some great blogging! Anthropologists of all people realize that our writing should not endeavor to fulfill some aesthetic ideal, but to reach its intended audience? More than half of us are female now, but i don’t see any “aesthetic ideals” irrelevant in anthropological writing? So, although there are many ways of writing well, from say, the dry lucidity of early barth to the flowery exuberance of mid-period geertz, style cannot be said to be irrelevant. Got heavily into stephen king’s early that you mention king, i nearly read all of his s it is a more general relation between phantasy as such and doing anthropology, for again a child’s reading as such is said to be contributive to the evolution of the adult’s imaginative abilities.
Reminds me of how, in the old days, when the first year of social anthropology in norway was concluded with a home exam followed by an oral, we used to guess at the gender of students before the oral exam. A practice heike greschke had presented at alexander knorr’s last cyberanthropology workshop), which are temporary parallel identities some people cultivate in online communities. From then on, i stopped writing “it is spring in stockholm, light wind, the sun is shining” and tried to be more creative (at least for a while…). During the writing process i always had my proofreaders in mind: my non-academic flatmates (musicians). Totally disagree with orange who says “anyway i believe the matter with ‘engaged anthropology’ is not one of ‘how do i write’ but mainly one of ‘what do i write about. And by the way i do not understand why thomas tells his students that they should not worry about their writing in their dissertations, for me (i am writing it up right now) it is surely a goal to do good research but also to make it so interesting that maybe more than the 4 people how has to read it, wants to read ck: entertaining research » blog archive » anthropological reading and writing! Literature, writing, and anthropology” seeks to address this question by creating a space in which fiction and anthropology converge, collide, and collapse into one another. This collection, a collaboration between cultural anthropology and the literary journal american short fiction, features articles, interviews, short stories, and a lecture by eleven authors. Though we’ve separated the fiction from the anthropology, there is no way to easily demarcate where fiction ends and anthropology tionally, we have relied on “truth” as the fundamental distinguishing factor between fiction and other genres; fiction was thought to be invented, while the social sciences, journalism, and memoir presented accounts of “real” people, places, and events. Looking at the intersection of literature, writing and anthropology today, clearly this simple binary is eroding. Anthropology has turned to literary conventions in order to further clarify the position of the author and encourage multivocal authorship; to expose vulnerability; to reveal silences in standard discourses; and to reveal the seams in both anthropological and ethnographic practice. Likewise, fiction writers increasingly borrow from non-fiction writing genres, including the sciences and the social sciences, which in turn results in a destabilization and reworking of the “truths” contained within those genres.
Brief account of the history of the relationship between literature and anthropology can demonstrate the ways that these questions started to gain traction. 1]though works of “ethnographic fiction” were frequently written by prominent anthropologists in the 1920s and 30s, the discipline (as a budding “science”) eventually began to discourage “novelistic” writing (two major works by students of franz boas, margaret mead’s coming of age in samoa and ruth benedict’s patterns of culture, were criticized on these grounds). 2] another of boaz’s students, zora neale hurston, is considered a forerunner of literary anthropology (especially for mules and men) and became a celebrated novelist after the writer alice walker publicized her work[3]; hurston is particularly known for the classic their eyes were watching god). Since that early period, anthropology has experienced several “literary turns,” punctuated by clifford geertz’s 1973[4] exhortation to produce “thick description. 1986 collection of essays writing culture reviewed anthropology’s relationships with writing, especially in the production of ethnographic “truths. 8] this landmark publication was the antecedent of the 1996 feminist response women writing culture edited by deborah gordon and ruth behar (featured in this collection). Most recently, two sessions at the 2011 meetings of the american anthropological associations in montreal stressed the utility of literary modes for accomplishing what forms of conventional ethnography does not: injecting a personal, multi-vocal, creative, and emotional element into anthropological writing [9]. Contributors to this collection likewise stress the continued importance of literary modes of writing and genres of critique. In our interview ruth behar outlines two main trends that have emerged over the past 25 years: the first, is the way “auto-ethnography” is now “more fully woven into the narrative” in ethnographic writing; the second, is a shift toward “insider” or “diasporic” ethnography in which ethnographers work “with a deep sense of connection to the places and people they write about. In a broad sense vincent crapanzano echoes these sentiments, noting that “the influence of the black liberation movements, feminism, gender and gay studies, and the internationalization of anthropology as a discipline on the writing and evaluation of ethnography” profoundly affected the range of ethnographic writing and the self-reflexivity of ethnographers. Elizabeth enslin also remarks on the way her questioning of “what counts” as ethnographic knowledge in her 1994 article “beyond writing” remain an important concern for many anthropologists concerned with “applied anthropology. For her, ethnography has to do with writing “in ways that matter to the people we study.
Stuart mclean writes that although the literary turn in contemporary anthropology has contributed to “innovation with regard to method and subject matter” from his perspective “there is still a profound resistance on the part of most anthropologists to taking writing seriously. Essays and interviews: cultural anthropology authors featured in this collection range from anthropologists integral to the “writing culture” movement of the early 1990s to young anthropologists who are taking literary anthropology in new directions today. Vincent crapanzano, a distinguished professor of both comparative literature and anthropology at the graduate center of the city university of new york, and ruth behar, professor, poet and writer at the university of michigan, were two of the pioneers of these movements. This combination creates a self-reflexive style of both writing and practicing ethnography that behar would later elaborate in the vulnerable observer: anthropology that breaks your heart. Lachlann jain’s 2007 article “cancer butch” employed a mix of writing styles (journalism, memoir, anthropology, queer theory) to convey the “pink washing” of breast cancer campaigns and the silences and/or strict narratives of femininity that these impose on women with breast cancer. Despite her strong embrace of creative writing in her own life, her article “beyond writing: feminist practice and the limitations of ethnography” is a warning that good writing is not enough to bridge the gulfs of unequal privilege that are common between anthropologists and the communities in which they ed essays and interviews: collection also features stories and interviews by five fiction authors. These stories serve to demonstrate the similarities between the worlds of literary anthropology and fiction: both genres are able to reveal more of the desire, emotionality, and vulnerability of their authors and subjects. Absurdity, exaggeration, deliberate patterned structure, the manipulation of time, the examination of impossible possibilities) can make us see ourselves more of the stories collected here include canny plays on anthropological concepts: lucy corin’s short story “madmen,” for example, describes a fictional coming-of-age ritual in which adolescents are paired with “madmen,” a conceit which echoes both classical anthropology in the turner/van gennep vein as well as foucauldian ideas of madness and civilization. Corin is widely published and teaches fiction writing and literature at the university of california, davis. Martone is the author of many novels and short story collections, including the short story collection four for a quarter, and teaches creative writing at the university of alabama. Finally, nathan fink’s short story “the big light,” originally published in the university of new hampshire magazine, is an example of the visual power of writing as well as the ways that fiction can successfully manipulate time, making its audience witness trauma in slow motion. Are pleased to make the audio version of paul stoller’s lecture “writing for the future” available as a downloadable audio file (simply right-click/control+click and select 'save as' to download).
This lecture took place in february 2012 as part of the sensorium seminar series through the anthropology department of the university of texas. Are very grateful to anne allison, charles piot and alison kenner (cultural anthropology editors), as well as jill meyers and callie collins (editors of american short fiction) for helping us to create and publish this collaborative are grateful to all of our contributors (paul stoller, vincent crapanzano, ruth behar, s. And memory: from santa maría del monte to miami writing: feminist practice and the limitations of ethnography.
