Anthropology Writing Guide 2010

8/6/2019 Anthropology Writing Guide 2010

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A St d nts G id tR ading and Writing in S cial Anthr p l g


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C v r imag r mAnthropology 1662: Anthropology of Middle Eastern Communities

ta ght b Zahra N. Jamal in Fall 2008.

C p right 2010, Pr sid nt and F ll ws Harvard C ll g

This g id was pr par d in 2007 b Smita Lahiri, Lilith Mahm d, and Jam s H rr n,and r vis d in 2010 b Smita Lahiri and Jam s H rr n. A G rd n Gra Fac lt Grant

nd d th writing and d sign th riginal v rsi n th g id . Th Anthr p l gD partm nt and th Harvard Writing Pr j ct nd d th printing this r vis dv rsi n, which was d sign d b Kar n H ndricks n-Sant spag .


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A St d nts G id tR ading and Writing in S cial Anthr p l g

Table o ConTenTs

I tr ducti

R di g a thr p gic lit r tur

EssaysEthnographies

M v a thr p gi t M k

Entering a ConversationBorrowing and ExtendingEstablishing AuthorityCounteringStepping Back

Writi g a ig m t : Typ d str t gi

Response Papers: An In ormal FormalityThe Nebulous and Open-Ended: Pit alls o the Short-Long EssayTaming the Term Paper MonsterLocating the Right Sources

W rki g with s urc

a a t t d P p r

oth r Writi g supp rt R urc

5

779

13

1314161718

21

21242631

33

39

51


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Imag r m Anthropology 1972:

Reconceptualizing the U.S.-MexicoBorder: Comparative and GlobalPerspectives ta ght b R b rtAlvar z in Fall 2009.


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A GuIDe To ReADING AND WRITING IN SoCIAL ANTHRoPoL

Intr d cti nW c m t s ci a thr p gy. This world o social anthropology isendlessly varied. Its practitioners may be ound in Japanese sh markets,Argentine labs, Lebanese bars, Indonesian photography studios, East St.Louis neighborhoods, Thai temples, and Brazilian avelas to name justa small sampling o the ethnographic locales studied by Harvard acultyand students, past as well as present. Despite the conceptual and physicaldistance amongst its sites o study, the coherence o social anthropologystems rom its distinctive intellectual rameworks, methods, and livelyinternal debates conducted around shared passions and inquiries. Yourcourses serve as point o entry into some o these disciplinary conversa-tions, and the mission o this guide is to o ers tips and guidelines thatwill make it easier or you to join them.

While it is o ten and rightly stressed that ethnographic eld research liesat the heart o the discipline o social anthropology, scholarly publicationis its li e-blood: it is chiefy through writing that most anthropologists

disseminate the results o their time in the eld. Writing trans orms dataand personal observations into texts that in orm, provoke, and inspiredebate and conversations amongst anthropologists and members o allieddisciplines, and at times even reach public arenas beyond the university.This guide starts rom the position that the writing practices and conven-tions o anthropologists are not always transparent, and that engagingwith the questions, data, and conclusions ound in anthropological textsis not a sel -evident task. Keeping in mind your position as a newcomernavigating an un amiliar disciplinary culture, we have tried to demysti ysome o the challenges you may encounter. As you read the texts assigned

or your courses and engage them in your own essays, immersing yoursel vicariously in the eldwork o other scholars, we hope you will nd yourown appetite or conducting and writing up ethnographic researchbeing whetted.

Th writing practic s

and c nv nti ns

anthr p l gists ar n t

alwa s transpar nt.


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6 | S cti n Titl

Imag r mAnthropology 1720:

Anthropology, Cultural Studies, and Film ta ght b St v Cat n andRam ar R ss kh.


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I. R ading Anthr p l gical Lit rat rI you are taking several anthropology courses at the same time, the read-ing load may appear daunting or even overwhelming. The truth is thatit does not need to be so, even though it is not uncommon or upper-division undergraduate anthropology classes to assign over 200 pages toread in any given week. In this section o the guide we will examine themajor orms o publication in social anthropology that you are likely toencounter in your courses and suggest some strategies or reading themmore e ectively.

essa sEssays on a single subject are one o the primary vehicles through whichscholars present their research and ideas to the academic community, add-ing to existing knowledge through innovation and debate. They are gener-ally published in journals or in edited volumes that are ocused on a singletopic. Most o the essays/journal articles you will read in your classes will

probably all into a hand ul o categories discussed below.

Pr gr mm tic e y . These essays examine one or more theoretical issuesin anthropology and suggest new directions or uture research. For instance,Sherry Ortners (1974) essay Is emale to male as nature is to culture?argued that the universality o emale subordination across all known hu-man societies should be viewed as a refection o ideological preoccupations

ound in all cultures, and not as an outcome o biological determination.Programmatic essays o er an overview o key positions and arguments, re-quently capturing ongoing shi ts in how a major topic is being conceptual-

ized and researched. The act that the authors o programmatic essays tendto draw upon a wide range o literature (in addition to their own research)makes them particularly in ormative in this regard.

Since programmatic essays by their very nature address topical issues anddilemmas, they tend to become superceded by later work. Sometimes,however, the very datedness o an essay becomes part o its overallsigni cance. For instance, Ortners essay is still widely read and assigned,


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8 | R ading Anthr p l gical Lit rat r

even though her concepts o culture and even gender have been thor-oughly challenged and revised since the time o its writing. For all itsdatedness, however, it still stands as a landmark essay (which is quitedi erent rom a period piece.)

R rch artic .Anthropology research articles pose and address a ques-tion or problem arising rom the authors original data (generally gath-ered through eldwork, but sometimes in the course o archival research).Such research reports are sel -contained works o scholarship whose con-clusions are intended to be applicable or illuminating in the context o other ethnographic settings.

The distinction between programmatic and research articles is not carvedin stone. By drawing it, we hope to draw your attention the act that

scholarly essays range widely in their ambitions or producing generaliz-able knowledge: some are primarily oriented towards reporting speci cresearch ndings, while others seek to chalk out a program o wide-rang-ing scope and signi cance. You may nd it illuminating to discern andanalyze the authors ambitions in this regard. Is she primarily attemptingto account or a particular set o circumstances and/or events? Or is sheseeking to develop concepts or approaches that can be applied to compa-rable situations elsewhere?

The two objectives are not incompatible. An example o a research article

that is simultaneously programmatic in scope is J. Lorand Matorys (1999)article entitled The English Pro essors o Brazil. Here, Matory re-examinesthe widely accepted notion that Brazilian Candombl (an A ro-Latin Ameri-can religion) is based upon preserved cultural memories brought to the NewWorld rom Yoruba and other regions by enslaved A ricans. Matory uses hisown research on the circulation o ree black travelers across the AtlanticOcean to argue that much o what is o ten seen as purely A rican aboutCandombl was actually ormulated through inter-regional exchanges be-tween Nigeria and Brazil in the nineteenth century. The article thus speaksto scholars o other regions who are studying the circulation and agency o diasporic persons, or the ways in which local cultures can develop underinfuences that do not obey political and geographic boundaries.

Th r tic Ch pt r d artic .In some social sciences like economics orgovernment, theory re ers to explanatory or predictive models into whichdata o varying types may be ed. In contrast, anthropologists tend to thinko theory in ways more similar to their colleagues in the humanities: as aninterpretive lens to be borrowed rom one context and adapted to another

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or the purpose o illuminating it. At the same time, boundaries betweenanthropology and other elds o such as history, geography, gender studies,and science studies, etc. have become increasingly porous since the 1970s.As result, a great diversity o directions and topical sub elds have emerged

within the discipline, complementing established areas o study (like eco-logical anthropology and historical anthropology) with a whole host o an-thropologies o ______ ( ll in science, humanitarianism , and globalization ,Christianity , or any other contemporary keyword.) Not surprisingly, thiseclecticism is likely to represented in the reading list o any given anthro-pology course. Since the sources o theory vary widely, instructors will beyour best guides on what to read or and how to think with the theoreticalreadings assigned or their courses. (See also this guides section on Work-ing With Sources).

b k R vi w d R vi w artic .While book reviews are unlikely toorm part o your required course readings, you should consult them

whenever you need help understanding or contextualizing an ethnogra-phy or monograph. Book reviews in anthropology journals succinctly ad-dress the scope and contribution o a speci c work, allowing you to get aquick x on its contents and how it was received by other scholars uponits publication. Single book reviews should not be con used with reviewarticles, which provide an in-depth overview o scholarship on a giventopic. The latter are particularly use ul to consult in the early stages o the essay-writing process, when you are trying to develop a eel or the

key ideas and debates surrounding a particular topic.

ethn graphi sWe now turn to the signature publication o anthropological scholar-ship. As you are probably by now aware, ethnography re ers not onlyto a speci c way o doing research immersing onesel in a naturally-occurring social setting but also to the book-length genre o scholarlywriting in which such research o ten culminates.

Ethnography is a rather unusual genre o academic writing because it com-bines analytical argumentation with detailed, evocative descriptions o thepeople and communities that are the subjects o the research. I you arenew to anthropology, you may nd the mixture o objective and subjectivestances displayed in ethnographies rustrating and di cult to parse. Forinstance, your prior notions o what qualitative research or social scienceought to look like may be shaken when you read an authors discussion o how his own gender, ethnicity, upbringing or sexuality shaped the direc-

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10 | R ading Anthr p l gical Lit rat r

tion o his research and its conclusions. Isnt social science supposed tobe impersonal and detached? Not necessarily. In act, such concerns arenot at all out o place in the human sciences, whose key di erence romnatural sciences lies in dealing with value-laden data (like behaviors and

symbols), which, by their very de nition require interpretation. To invokea term popularized by Cli ord Geertz, every description is already thickwith interpretation. And an interpretation is not a view rom nowhere butone that is necessarily grounded in a speci c position.

As a reader, the thickness o ethnographic writing can seem like a liabilityat rst. You may become so caught up in the personalities and eventsevoked in the text that you are at a loss to discern which details are pri-marily evocative and which serve as building blocks or an argument. But

just as it takes a trained ear to apprehend the role o various musical parts

within the per ormance o a symphonic work, so too with practice you willbe able to discern the elements o description, narration, and argumentin a given ethnography as well as to assess the authors success in ttingthem together. Here are some o the hallmarks o ethnographic genre tokeep in mind:

Ethnographies are assemblages o heterogeneous data types. Pagethrough almost any book-length ethnography, and you will real-ize that the author has worked hard to seamlessly interweave aheterogeneous range o materials. You may nd many or all o the

ollowing: maps, tables, photographs, personal narrative, transcriptso interviews, re erences to secondary literature, and excerpts romarchival documents, media reports, vernacular texts, and otherprimary sources. Most o these materials may represent qualitativedata but quantitative acts and gures may also be included. Someo the in ormation presented may be objective in the sense o being independently veri able, while a large portion o the evidencemay appear to rest entirely upon the authors idiosyncratic experi-ences and observations. A good reader will pay attention to the wayin which these various types o data rein orce (or contradict) other,while assessing each orm o evidence on its own terms.

Argumentation in ethnographies tends to be embedded and cumula-

tive. Ethnographies are not like legal brie s or philosophical papersthat meticulously spell out their premises, warrants, and conclu-sions; neither are they like those kinds o novels or travelogues thatcommand your attention only or the time that you are readingthem. Because the argument o an ethnography is worked out

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A GuIDe To ReADING AND WRITING IN SoCIAL ANTHRoPoLo

throughout its narrative arc, you will need to preview, read, anddistill the point o each chapter in order to discern whether thebook succeeds in executing the authors intentions. These intentionsare o ten made explicit in the introduction, moving back and orth

between oreground and background during subsequent chapters be-ore becoming highlighted once again in the conclusion. Your read-

ing will be more e ective and e cient i you tailor your ocusto di erent sections o the book: skimming some sections, closelyreading (and re-reading) others, and underlining or highlighting keyterms, phrases and claims that recur throughout.

Ethnographies reward readings that are both generous and criti-

cally engaged. An ethnography typically seeks to evoke a localsocial world. To enter that world, you need to accept the authors

bona des and the portrait he has painstakingly sketched, at leastuntil your instincts as a reader provide you with ample evidenceto doubt them. Paying attention to your own responses Whereis your attention gripped? Where does it fag? Where do you ndyoursel skeptical or wanting more in ormation? will provideyou with a sound basis or assessing both the strengths and weak-nesses o the book.

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12 | S cti n Titl


Anthropology and the Uses of His-tory ta ght b Micha l H rz ldand William Fash in Spring 2009.


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II. M v s Anthr p l gists MakWhen it comes to writing papers or social anthropology courses, the gen-eral principles o good expository writing using and attributing sourcesappropriately, motivating and developing an argument, and cra ting an e -

ective organizational structure still apply. Too o ten, however, studentwriters expend their writing energies on the conventional elements an es-say is supposed to contain introduction, thesis statement, body, andconclusion and lose sight o what they intend these elements to do. Inhis help ul book entitled Rewriting, composition scholar Joseph Harris sug-gests paying attention to writing moves textual strategies that authorsemploy to engage with ideas and to move them in new directions as away or students to improve their own reading and writing practices.

Each academic discipline has its characteristic writing move, and an-thropology is no exception. In this section o the guide, we list andunpack ve o them with examples rom the work o our colleagues, ourstudents, and ourselves. As you will see, some moves are particularly

suited or the opening paragraphs o an essay; others or the body orconclusion. Nevertheless, these moves do not map neatly onto the linearessay structure mentioned above, or the conceptual work they accom-plish may be required at any point in the argument.

To be sure, variations on these moves can be readily ound in writings bynon-anthropologists; equally, i one were to closely scrutinize a givenpiece o anthropological prose, many more moves than these ve wouldprobably come to light. With these provisos, you should nd this listuse ul or identi ying strategies that make or e ective anthropological

writing. Keep in mind that the moves needed or writing a compellingstudent essay are no di erent than the ones characteristic o publishedscholarly work.

1. ent ring a C nv rsati nThis is our term or the work o establishing a context and motivation oryour ideas. More than simply a statement o your topic, entering a con-

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14 | M v s Anthr p l gists Mak

versation entails letting the reader know which intellectual conversationsyou propose to join and what contribution you hope to make.

Consider the ollowing example rom Curtis Chans nal paper or the

sophomore tutorial:

More than just a dance, b-boying is per ormance, to use a rather speci c sense o a word that commonly evokes images o a stage or theater with choreographed lighting and sound. Richard Schechner,however, calls upon a broader notion o per ormance. Largely recog-nized as the ounder o the academic, cross-disciplinary area o per-

ormance studies, Schechner writes that there is no historically or culturally xable limit to what is or is not per ormance (2002:2).

According to another per ormance theorist, Deborah Klens-Bigman,

per ormance exists wherever an action is done or an audience,even i the audience is not be ore the per ormer but within the

per ormer himsel , By this notion, then, the way that b-boys walk,talk, and watch their ellow dancers is a per ormance.

In this passage, Chan rst readies his conceptual tools by distinguishingcommonsense and specialist notions o per ormance and by assimilat-ing the practice o b-boying to latter sense o the term. Now he is ready touse his ethnographic data on b-boying as a point o entry into a conversa-tion with key gures in per ormance studies.

2. B rr wing and ext ndingAnthropologists o ten borrow and adapt key terms and concepts rom avariety o disciplines and intellectual rameworks. Here we o er three il-lustrations o this common move. The rst is taken rom a published articleby Smita Lahiri, one o the authors o this guide:

To mobilize discourse in the sense developed by Michel Foucault is to claim or ones enunciations an authority that one does not

personally own. Rather, its ultimate source lies in a structure

o statements embedded in and institutionally validated by a eld o power relations. This, I argue, describes the authority o at least one popular-religious leader at Mt. Banahaw who is

requently gured as an embodiment o national culture within Philippine academic scholarship and journalism.

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In this straight orward example o borrowing and extending , Lahiri rsto ers a brie explanation o Michel Foucaults approach to discourse andthen o ers a preview o how she will use it to illuminate her own topic. Asomewhat more complicated version o the same move is executed in the

ollowing passage, which comes rom Je Leopandos nal essay or thesophomore tutorial:

Charles W. Eliot, the President o Harvard during the early years o the Arnold Arboretum, wrote about it in one o his yearly reports:

[t]he natural woods and the systematic collections at-tract the attention o the greater part o these visitorschiefy or their beauty, which varies with the successiono the seasons; but there is a considerable number o

visitors on oot who visit the Arboretum or study com-bined with enjoyment (Eliot 1895:30).

His comment underscores a duality that has de ned the Arboretum rom its inception; it is a place that is at once natural and system-atic a site or both the enjoyment and the study o nature.

Here, Leopando quotes Eliot not so much to borrow his ideas as to gleanrom his words an implicit theme that will play a prominent role in Leopan-

dos own analysis o the Arboretum, which is undertaken rom an anthro-

pological perspective.

In a still more complex instance o borrowing and extending , Michael Her-z eld draws upon the work o Paul Willis to explain a counterintuitive

nding o his own: the act that in training apprentices to become skilledand highly valued artisans, instructors in Greek cra t institutes inadver-tently rein orce their own as well as their students sense o being work-ing class and undervalued. In the ollowing passage taken rom The Body

Impolitic , Herz eld describes similarities and di erences between Willisapproach and his own:

These are also questions that Willis has asked, but asking themin the Greek context reorients the investigation to larger pat-terns o [global] domination... In asking questions to similar tothose Willis posed about the sel -reproduction o working classculture in Britain, I have instead chosen to explore these mattersamong artisan-instructors who are reproducing their own senseo inhabited class identity, and who are also reproducing a senseo regional and national humiliation.


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Note that Herz eld is not just borrowing Willis theory in order to apply itin a di erent context; he is also extending its implications rom the na-tional level to the European transnational and and global levels.

3. establishing A th ritAnthropologists employ a diverse range o textual strategies to estab-lish themselves as credible authorities on their respective subjects. Thesestrategies include displaying a command o the relevant scholarship, ex-plaining ones own positioning vis--vis the subjects o ones research, orpiggybacking upon another scholars previously established authority. Butperhaps the most distinctively anthropological technique or establishingauthority consists o describing and elaborating upon unique observa-tions made in the eld. We provide one example o this move rom YemenChronicle, by Steven Caton:

I assumed at the time that there was such a thing as an au-thentic tribal poetry, whose heart beat in a rural and seemingly remote setting such as Khawlan al-Tiyal and not in a complex urban setting such as Sanaa (where later I act I would study the works o many tr ibal poets, who had migrated rom Yemensdrought-stricken countryside to enlist in the army or become taxidrivers or private security guards). But a ter only six months,

I realized how simplistic that assumption was. The urban-ruraldichotomy and the cultural dichotomy o tribal-nontribal, not tospeak o the political one o state-nonstate were, i not exactly wrong, then misleading. .For example, the hottest tribal poet in Yemen in 1979, Muhamman al-Gharsi, whose cassette tapessold out be ore everyone elses in the stereo stores, had his mainresidence in Sanaa, where he was in the army.

At rst glance, acknowledging the shortcomings o ones initial notionsmight seem like an unlikely way to establish authority. Yet it is preciselyby showing how and why he was orced to set aside speci c preconcep-tions that Caton demonstrates the robust and authentic nature o his eldresearch. Such moments o narrative disclosure o ten work subtly in alonger ethnographic work to lend credibility to analytical claims advanced

urther down the line. Incidentally, this passage also illustrates a com-mon device in anthropological writing: the use o a lightbulb momentto succinctly evoke an incremental process o discovery. Here, Caton usesthe example o the urban tribal poet o Sanaa to show the reader why hewas orced to rethink the relationship between rurality and tribal poetry,thereby condensing a six-month-long process into a ew short phrases.

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4. C nt ringTo counter is not only (or even necessarily) to criticize, although a well-in ormed critique o anothers work may certainly orm part o it. The truepurpose o countering , however, is to enhance your readers understandingo a topic by identi ying and addressing weaknesses in how it has been pre-viously understood. Lets return to Curtis Chans paper on b-boying to seehow he counters views expressed by some gender theorists:

Senelick puts orth Marianne Wexs contention that gender is not natural or biological but rather historical. He writes, Centuries o social pressure have rozen men and women into these physicalclassi ers o gender (1992:22). But even this statement seemsto indicate that notions o gender and by extension o manhoodand masculinity are rozen, static, and uni orm across theworld, whereas in act they are none o these things. In speakingo masculinity, one must not assume that it is a singular thing,but rather that there are multiple masculinities and even multiple

per ormative mani estations o these masculinities.

A characteristically anthropological version o countering takes the ormo denaturalizing commonplace assumptions. Kimberly Theidon employsthis common and e ective strategy o anthropological writing in the ol-lowing excerpt rom a published article:

I argue that although survival may be less dramatic than armedstruggle, an analysis o the domestic economy o war revealsthe extent to which survival in itsel becomes a daily struggle...

As the members o the mothers club in Purus related, We wereso sad because we could not eed our children well. Our childrencried or ood, and it is the mother who must do something. What the interviews with these women underscore is the implicit acknowledgment o womens central role not only in productionbut also in social reproduction both threatened during thewar, putting mere survival in doubt.

By denaturalizing and countering commonsense notions o struggle, Thei-don advances her argument that Peruvian peasants caught up in civil-mil-itary conficts understood war not just as armed combat but as a com-prehensive struggle or survival. Incidentally, this countering move itsel rests upon another, implicit move o establishing authority : the reader willaccept Theidons conclusions only i she nds Theidons original interviewdata and interpretations credible.

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5. St pping BackThis move entails just what its name suggests: stepping back rom theparticularities o a case study or research topic in order to establish its

overall signi cance. This move is o ten (but by no means always) faggedby phrases such as In sum, I argue that or in this paper, I have ex-amined Here we take up another passage rom Je Leopandos paperon the Arnold Arboretum, where stepping back is conjoined with anothermove, namely countering :

Arnold Arboretum o ers an interesting case or analysis because,in contrast to many other natural spaces that anthropologists havestudied, it is a site where the myths o wilderness and ahistori-cal nature are dispelled rather than reproduced. At the Arboretum,nature is presented as domesticated rather than wild, and deeply intertwined with human history rather than divorced rom it.

Here, Leopando steps back rom his subject to situate it in a body o litera-ture on the anthropology o the environment (natural spaces that anthro-pologists have studied) that deals speci cally with how cultural arti actselaborate ideas o nature. He also reiterates the signi cance o his case study,which challenges (i.e. counters ) some o this literatures central ideas.

Stepping back may also take the orm o quali ying, in which an authoracknowledges the limits o his or her claims (e.g., I do not mean to implythat... or I am not suggesting). These quali cations are not copoutsbut positive statements that help de ne the overall scope and signi canceo what the writer has accomplished. Consider the nal example in ourdiscussion, a passage taken rom an article by Larry Hirsch eld:

Systems o racial thinking vary considerably across cultures andhistoric time. My proposal neither denies this variability nor impliesthat it is trivial. Nor am I suggesting that racial thinking is impervi-ous to the cultural and political environments. Indeed, racial think-ing is literally unthinkable in the absence o such environments.

Something, and typically it is a system o cultural belie , channelsan abstract set o expectations about human di erence onto a spe-ci c range o di erences and a speci c way to viewing them.

Here Hirsch eld quali es the scope o his argument by anticipating twolikely misinterpretations o his ideas and denying that these are in actimplications o his argument. In this way, he clari es the relationship o his argument to widely held anthropological views on race.

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Tips r r c gnizing anthr p l gical m v sin a b k-l ngth thn graph

Read the introduction or rst chapter or an explicit discussion1.o the social phenomena, events, ideas, questions, and analytical

rameworks that motivate the work entering a conversation .

In Chapter One (or early on), look or an arrival scene that2.sketches out the social world o the ethnography and establishesthe works validity and reliability by showing the authors actualpresence and positioning within that worlds speci c milieusentering a conversation , establishing authority .

Is there a speci c discussion o how the author established rapport,3.negotiated a crisis, or was granted insider status? How does thisepisode (or episodes) illustrate the process o coming to eel andthink as a member o a speci c community? establishing authority .

Look or key terminology. From where has the author taken her4.central concepts and how has she developed them urther? How doesshe utilize these ideas to illuminate her ethnographic materials?borrowing and extending .

Examine the authors discussion o existing ethnographic and other5.literatures relating to the same area or topic. How does he relate hisapproach, methods, and ndings to previous work? borrowing andextending , countering , qualifying .

Look or moments o refexivity, wherein the author explores his6.or her own positioning relative to the research questions and eldsetting and consider how such moments a ect the credibility o the data and/or claims being advanced establishing authority ,qualifying , stepping back .

Read closely some o the ethnographic scenes. How are in ormants7.voices represented, through direct quotes or paraphrases? Whatcontextual in ormation about in ormants does the author provide?establishing authority .


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20 | S cti n Titl

Imag r mForeign Cultures 84:

Tokyo ta ght b Pr ss rTh d r C. B st r in Fall 2009.


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III. Writing Assignm ntsThe written assignments or a social anthropology course o ten includeseveral or all o the ollowing: short weekly response papers o a page ortwo, one or more lengthier essays whose topics may be assigned or le tto your choosing, and an individually-designed research paper due at theend o the term. In this section o the guide, we will cover some key issuesto keep in mind as you approach these assignments. These include arriv-ing at a motivation or writing, de ning and delimiting the subject andthe argument o your essay, reading between the lines o assigned topics,conducting research, and consulting with advisors.

R sp ns Pap rs: An In rmal F rmalitMany pro essors require regular response papers rom their students as away o insuring that students arrive in class having read and seriously en-gaged with the assigned reading. Response papers may even be circulatedamongst your peers, giving you the chance to receive in ormal eedback.

Because most teachers genuinely want students to speculate and takerisks with new ideas even when they may not be 100% certain o being onsolid ground, response papers are o ten graded relatively in ormally (e.g.using the check system). But make no mistake: these assignments arenot throwaways. Writing response papers give you a chance to practiceand improve important skills o summary, analysis, and critique that willbe crucial to the success o your longer, higher-stakes essays. And nomatter how in ormal your writing style, you should always avoid sentence

ragments, check your grammar, and back up claims with quotations orpage re erences.

b c summ ry d a y i

One o the challenges posed by response papers is striking an e ectivebalance between summary and analysis. These two aspects should beclosely integrated (i.e. you should avoid having a section called sum-mary and a section called analysis). It is important that you providea well-cra ted summary that re ers both to the overall arc o the readingas well as to some o its most crucial details. However, your summary

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writing st l , sh ld

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22 | Writing Assignm nts

should not occupy more than one third to one hal o a response paper.The major part should be analytical.

The type o analysis you o er in a response paper will depend on how

many readings you are required to address. I you are dealing with a singlebook-length work (usually an ethnography), you will need to provide,

rst o all, an overall assessment o its contributions and shortcomings.Secondly, you should devote part o your response paper to some speci caspect o the book that you ound interesting, troubling, or especiallyrevelatory. This could be a corollary argument the author proposes, anethnographic vignette, or a theme that relates this book to the history o anthropology or to other themes discussed in the course.

In many anthropology courses, however, you will o ten be assigned vari-

ous articles or book excerpts to read in the same week, rather than asingle book. In this case, your response paper will need to address simul-taneously the texts o di erent authors. Once again, your instructor mightset some guidelines or your course, but in general there are some optionswhen responding to multiple texts at once:

Focus on one main text, and re er to the others to enrich your1.analysis o the main text.

Compare and contrast all texts. Thinking about why your instruc-2.tor put these readings together in the syllabus, examine how each

speaks to a central theme and/or to each other.Choose a narrow question that is relevant to the course or to that week,3.and use the readings to develop possible answers to it.

The Prcis: p cifc typ r p p p r

Instead o a generic response paper, some courses might ask you to writea prcis. A prcis is an interpretive summary, which requires you tointegrate closely the summary and the analysis parts o your responsepaper. As you will discover, prcis-writing is an invaluable preparatorystep or writing an argumentative essay, or or discussing a text orally in

class. More than just o ering a set o notes on the contents o a text, aprcis connects those contents to the texts argumentative structure andpresentational strategy. In the context o an ethnography, the task o aprcis is to concisely recap the authors motives, main argument(s) andkey supporting points, as well as the overall arc and most important turnso his/her narrative.

S mmar sh ld n t

cc p m r than n third

t n hal a r sp ns

pap r.


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The rst component o your prcis should be a statement o the main is-sues or problems addressed by the text. Is the book primarily concernedwith a speci c group o people and their interlocked set o belie s? Withtheir institutions and codes o behavior? With speci c events and their

repercussions? While all these elements may be present in the text, theyare not equally important. It is your job to discern which concerns arepre-eminent and which are hierarchically subordinated to others inpart by paying attention the authors explicit cues, and in part by compar-ing them to the claims and evidence s/he presents.

Next, your prcis should discuss the texts logic or pattern o develop-ment. It may be help ul to study care ully the table o contents, as youtry to understand the narrative structure o the text. Here, or illustra-tive purposes, are two templates or sentences that discuss logical pat-

terns: By examining the sources o _________, the author shows theconsequences o ____________; In order to ____________, the textshows the interrelationship between ________ and ____________ . Typi-cal verbs indicating such logic include compare, contrast, link causally,cause, and ollow rom. In this part o the prcis, you should illustratethe authors logical moves by summarizing key in ormation rom the text,supplying page re erences wherever possible. Here, as you look over theethnography or evidence, you will nd it use ul to ask yoursel whatcategories o in ormation are being supplied by the narrative and exposi-tory sections o the text. Possible categories o in ormation might include

the ollowing: characteristics o events, groups, or subgroups; stages in anevent or process; limitations, restrictions, or other constraints upon theresearch process.

By ollowing these steps, you will undoubtedly sharpen your skills atculling important details and summarizing the most crucial aspects o the text. You will also have ound a direction or the third component o your prcis: critical analysis and interpretation. Here, you will draw outthe implications o the text (backed up by page re erences, as usual) andadvance your own assertions or questions about it. In setting up the nar-rative (or argument) in a speci c way, what has the author overlooked,asserted, or brushed aside? What seems novel or conventional about thein erences or arguments o the text?


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Th N b l s and th op n-end d: Pit alls thSh rt L ng essaAnother type o assignment might be called the nebulous paper. As an

example o this, imagine that you are asked to write a paper o 5-10 pageson some theme (say, the relationship between gender and globalization)without being provided with a speci c question to answer or otherwisegiven much guidance about how to approach the assignment. Alterna-tively, imagine an assignment that provides a question, but one that isoverly broad or a short long essay and in e ect does little more thansuggest a topic or theme.

Faced with such an assignment, the rst thing you should do is veri ythat the assignment is indeed as open-ended as it appears to be. Some-times instructors provide a nebulous paper prompt but in act have aspeci c question or set o questions in mind that they would like stu-dents to address in the essay. Its best to ask about this.

I the assignment is truly open-ended, the crucial thing to keep in mindis that a topic is not a yet a question or problem that you can use ullyaddress in an essay. You cannot write a paper about gender and global-ization, which is a huge and ill-de ned area o inquiry; rather you needto identi y some speci c question or problem under the broad headingo gender and globalization that can be tackled in your paper. In otherwords, just because a paper assignment does not provide you with a spe-ci c question to answer does not absolve you o the need to come up withone. How then do you arrive at a problematic or question to address inthe paper?

A good place to start is o ten your instructors presentation o the ma-terial you are writing about, or issues that have come up during classdiscussion. O ten class discussions will gravitate toward live or contestedissues, research problems, or scholarly debates that might orm the basiso a speci c paper problematic. The readings assigned or the relevant parto the course might also suggest debates, contradictions, puzzles or ten-sions that could orm the basis o a question. I you know the source textswell but are still perplexed or annoyed by some aspect o them, o ten suchperplexity and annoyance points to some di culty in the texts that mightbe worth sorting out in a paper.

Even when the paper assignment is quite vague, your paper still needsto take a speci c argumentative orm. There are several broad argument

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types in anthropology that you might consider as you try to gure outan approach to a thematic or nebulous paper assignment. Common essaytypes in anthropology include:

Intervening in a scholarly debate. Here you stake out an originalposition in a scholarly debate by weighing the plausibility o variousother positions and making the case or one point o view or, evenbetter, ormulating your own hybrid or novel position.

Testing a theory with evidence. You can take a theoretical rameworkand test it by putting it to work on ethnographic or some othersort o cultural evidence. The basic question or this sort o essay is:Does the theory produce the insights that it is supposed to produce?I not, how would the theory need to be revised in order to work

better?

A lens essay. The lens paper is a variation o the test-a-theory paperin which you take a theoretical or interpretive ramework (Go mansnotion o a rame, say) and apply it to new material. The lens paperdi ers rom a test-a-theory paper in that the emphasis is less onevaluating the theory (whether rame is a use ul analytical con-cept) than on interpreting the evidence in a new way.

Comparing theories, methodologies, texts, or approaches. In this sort

o essay you attempt to reveal non-obvious relationships betweentheories, texts, etc. by comparing them along some relevant dimen-sion. You might nd or instance that although two texts advancecontradictory claims, they actually make similar underlying assump-tions and are not so at odds as they might rst appear.

Questioning the assumptions o an argument or text. Any argument as-sumes some things to be true and not in need o de ense or analysis.You can identi y the assumptions embraced by a particular argumentand scrutinize them. In doing so you can uncover non-obvious impli-cations o an argument or text.

Recontextualizing a theory or claim. Anthropological writing o tendraws on arguments made in one particular social context (say,an argument about gi t giving in Japan) and extends them to newcultural material.


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There are, o course, many other types o arguments in anthropologicalwriting, although most will all loosely into the categories adduced above.The crucial thing to keep in mind is that the nebulous paper assignmentshould not be treated as license to write a nebulous paper. Your paper still

needs to articulate a speci c question or problematic and a speci c, argu-able thesis that addresses the question.

Taming th T rm Pap r M nst rTerm papers in anthropology requiring original or independent researchmay be (at the discretion o the pro essor) anywhere rom 10 to a daunting25 pages in length. In preparing to write such a paper, you will con rontseveral challenges: choosing a topic that satis es the aims o the coursewhile refecting your own interests; delimiting the subject matter in orderto arrive at a manageable ocus and motivation, building your knowledgeo the topic through research and analysis, and getting approval or yourtopic and preliminary eedback on your ideas rom advisors.

Ch a T pic

One way to go about choosing a topic is to start with something covered inclass. Was there an assigned reading that you ound particularly intrigu-ing? Did one o the sections o the syllabus touch on an issue you havealways wanted to learn more about? You can start with a text or texts

rom the class and ask yoursel what made them stand out or you. Wasit the writing style? The subject matter? An intellectual debate they were

T pic D v pm t:

Use Course Materials as your Point of Departure

Perhaps the course introduced you to the study o kinship, covering notonly the mysterious terminology that anthropologists have developed todistinguish patrilateral cross-cousin marriage rom virilocal endogamybut also the dilemmas and challenges o constructing kinship in non-traditional ways, such as within gay amilies. Perhaps, over the summer

you volunteered with an organization that coordinated transnationaladoptions. Could you write a paper that combines your personal interestswith some o the course teachings?

Another way to begin your quest or a topic is to look or somethingthat was not covered in class, starting rom, say, materials that you haveencountered in your own reading or in other classes, or issues connectedwith personal experience.

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mind is that th n b l s

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contributing to? Once you have pinpointed your interests, you can startto explore and de ne them urther through additional research. Althoughyou should eventually investigate many resources beyond the Internet,you can start researching rom your PC using online search engines such

as Google Scholar. Harvard library databases like Lexis Nexis and Proquestare also help ul resources. Dont neglect either scholarly literature in an-thropology or in ormation-rich mass media reports.

Another way to begin your quest or a topic is to look or somethingthat was not covered in class, starting rom, say materials that you haveencountered in your won reading or in other classes, or issues connectedwith personal experience.

D v p, M tiv t , d cu Y ur Id

Once you have arrived at a promising topic, you are ready to start elaborat-ing your ideas. At this early stage, it is important to make sure that theproject you set yoursel is easible as well as relevant.

Feasibility: To make a topic easible you will need to have a motivatingquestion (e.g., a thesis to prove or a question to answer) that can be

T pic D v pm t:

Cast a Wide Net Lets say you come across several media articles on the growing demand

or nancial services in various Asian countries, and your interest ispiqued. You do a scholarly search and you get too many hits; besidesnone o them look very anthropological. So you decide to speci y yourinterest a bit more: are you going to look at the rise o mortgage broker-ages? Investment advisors? No, its hard to see what the cultural anglewould be...You decide that li e insurance might be a better prospect,

guring that people new to the practice might have mixed eelingsabout essentially making a bet with a company about how soon theymight die. Back to Google and Google Scholar. Promising results: you

nd media stories about a li e insurance ad campaign in India and aboutthe increasing tendency o Indonesian pilgrims going on Haj to take outinsurance policies. Google Scholar provides a number o re erences toarticles in business journals (which may or may not be help ul), as wellas a couple in o articles in anthropology journals. Bingo! You may have

ound a viable topic.


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addressed within the space provided. For instance, what is easible ina 90-page senior thesis would be too much in a 7-page paper, and viceversa. Usually, shorter the page limit, the more speci c your motivatingquestion will need to be. For instance, i you are interested in indigenous

land rights and human rights but you are only expected to write a 15-pagepaper, you may want to choose a speci c court case through which youcan examine how a particular group asserted their rights to the land. I you were to opt, instead, or a broad overview o indigenous land rightsmovements worldwide, your 15-page paper might end up rather shallow.

Relevance: In addition to any requirements or guidelines your course mighthave, your topic will also need to all squarely within the scope o an-thropology. Because anthropology is such a broad eld, you will not ndyoursel too constrained. Bear in mind, however, that not every question

that motivates you will be appropriate. I you are interested, or instance,in writing about the Kennedy dynasty and their presence in the politicalli e o the United States or your 20-page seminar paper, you will need toensure that your motivating question alls within the purview o anthro-pology rather than, say, political science. I you were to ask somethingalong the lines o how the Kennedy name a ects a candidates likelihoodto be elected, your question, though important, is unlikely to culminatein an illuminating anthropological analysis. Instead, your question mightbe something like this: how are cultural and social capital transmittedwithin the Kennedys dynastic kinship structure?

Be prepared or the possibility that your ocus and motivation may shi tduring this phase o discovery as you learn more about your (still provi-sional) topic. Few scholars can execute a lengthy writing project withouthitting a dead end or going o on a wild goose chase but do consider tak-ing one or more o the ollowing steps to avoid veering too ar o track:

C duct Pr imi ry bi i gr phic s rch. Be ore you settle ona topic, spend some time at the library. What i you ound a veryinteresting topic, but nobody else has ever written about it? Un-less you are tackling a large, independent project, such as a seniorthesis, and you can count on a lot o expert help, it would probablybe best to stay clear o subjects about which there is no literatureavailable. A trip to the library or an online library search are impor-tant rst steps when assessing the easibility o a topic.

s k advic . Your instructor and/or teaching ellow should be yourrst stop when seeking help regarding your paper.I you are trying

us all , th sh rt r th pag

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to learn more about a topic, though, it may also be worth it to youto talk to someone who specializes in the topic you are researching.We are ortunate to have prominent scholars walk the halls o ourdepartment every day, and it is very likely that the authors o some

o the texts you are studying are aculty members. Why not go andto talk to them directly about their research? Check the departmentwebsite (www.anthropology. as.harvard.edu) or a list o all our

aculty members and graduate students, brie descriptions o theirresearch interests and publications. I you see someone whose li eswork has been about the topic you picked or your paper, sign up oro ce hours or send a politely worded email to ask or an appoint-ment or to pose a brie question.

R rchi g th P p r

Once you have ound a topic, speci ed a relevant motivating question,and checked to make sure that it is easible in the allotted number o pages, you are ready to start your paper.

In most cases, unless the instructor has included a practicum componentin the course, you will not be conducting eldwork or your written as-signments. However, many o the texts you will be assigned to read arebased on eld research, and should be able to evaluate the research meth-ods, data, evidence, and arguments o each (see sections II and III o thisguide). Here are some additional strategies to consider:

C mpi a t t d bi i gr phy. In an annotated bibliography,every entry is ollowed by a brie (2-3 sentence) description o thework and its relationship to your research topic. Organize the entriesby sub-topics (e.g., works about Brazil; works about Bolivia),and then alphabetically by author within each section. This willhelp you to organize your material and to outline your paper.

Dr t P p r Pr p . In some courses with a long nal paper, youmight be asked to submit a paper proposal by an earlier deadline;even i it is not required, the exercise is well worth the time ande ort involved. The purpose o the proposal is to get you started onyour research and writing with plenty o time to spare or possiblechanges, and to give you early eedback. Generally, a paper pro-posal should not be more than 2-3 double-spaced pages, and shouldinclude the ollowing: a paper title; a discussion o your topic,motivating questions, and possible conclusions; and a list o worksyou have consulted or are planning to consult. A paper abstract canserve a similar purpose to a proposal in a shorter orm (typically a

B pr par d r th

p ssibilit that r

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disc v r .


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paragraph or 200-300 words).

s k e r y d ck. Take advantage o any opportunity to receiveearly eedback. I or some reason your topic does not work out as

you hoped, you want to make sure you have plenty o time to reviseit be ore the deadline. In some courses instructors will o er to readearly dra ts or paper proposals (i you are unsure, just ask!). Someseminars devote time to in-class paper workshops. Depending onspeci c course policies, you may be allowed to exchange help andideas with your classmates. Putting in the extra work ahead o timeto troubleshoot an outline or an early dra t will help to ward o andavoid any unpleasant surprises a ter the deadline.

Dr ti g d R vi i g

A ter you have nalized your topic and conducted the necessary research,you are ready to begin writing. Obviously, many o the characteristics o a good paper are not speci c to anthropology. Having a coherent argu-ment, supporting your claims with adequate evidence, and writing cor-rectly and e ectively are considered strengths in most disciplines. I youneed general help with your writing, The Harvard Writing Program o ersguidance and materials to help overcome common obstacles with organi-zation, argumentation, or grammar.

Tak advantag an

pp rt nit t r c iv

arl dback.


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L cating th Right S rc s

Make sure to amiliarize yoursel with the resources available at Harvard

Libraries. Librarians are happy to schedule tours and training sessions tohelp you learn about the library system and electronic resources. TozzerLibrary on Divinity Avenue is the o cial anthropology library at Harvard,where you will nd most o the ethnographies and anthropological journalsthat you will need or your anthropology courses and a knowledgeablesta to assist you.

One o the major challenges o bibliographic research is not only to ndsources but to discern appropriate sources. What i you decide to writeabout the spread o HIV/Aids in South A rica among urban youth, and apreliminary keyword search or your topic on a library database returnsover 1000 hits? Your challenge will be to discriminate among those results,and nd the most help ul and authorative ones. Here are some things toconsider when evaluating a source:

I it P r-R vi w d? Anything published in a peer-reviewedanthropological journal is probably a good bet. I a source you oundis not peer-reviewed, you might want to check with your instructorto determine i it is appropriate. Major peer-reviewed anthropology

journals include: American Anthropologist; American Ethnologist;Public Culture; Anthropological Quarterly; Current Anthropology;Cultural Anthropology.

Wh Pu i h d It? I your source is a book, make sure that it ispublished by an academic press (i.e., anything with a Universityname, as well as independent academic presses, such as Routledge).When in doubt, ask your instructor!

G Cit ti Wi y. Once you have ound a good source, you canlook at its bibliography to nd additional texts. Similarly, a ter youhave ound a ew good sources, you can compare their bibliographies

to look or overlaps. I you notice that a particular text seems to becited by everyone else writing on the same topic, then you shouldprobably get hold o that text too.

U o i R urc . JSTOR, Anthrosource, and Project Musecan be accessed rom the Harvard Libraries website. The web-based Google Scholar is also worth a try.


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32 | S cti n Titl

Imag r mA1600 Introduction to

Social Anthropology ta ght b J.L rand Mat r , Fall 2008.


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IV. W rking With S rc sand a Note on Theory

Unlike many writing handbooks, this brie guide has little to say on themechanics o using sources in your papers matters like the ormattingo in-text citations and o bibliographies, the di erence between sum-marizing and paraphrasing, and the importance o avoiding the kinds o

sloppy composition practices that can lead to unintentional plagiarism.Those are important issues to be sure, but since they arise in scholarlywriting across the board, there are already many resources that addressthem well. For this reason, here well con ne ourselves to discussing thesubstantive use o sources: how to do things with them in your own writ-ing. Well also describe some possibly distinctive ways in which anthro-pologists tend (and you too might try) to engage their sources.

Like Gordon Harvey (whose essay entitled Sources o What? we haveliberally redacted here), we think that when it comes to using sources,

attending to unction what are they sources o ? should take prece-dence over tinkering with orm (or mechanics). Harveys message to us aswriters is that sources do not have an autonomous existence as such;rather, in choosing to use a text or person to some argumentative end, itis we who make it a source o something, namely grist or our own rhetori-cal moves (see previous section). This has a liberating ring, but it may alsosound overwhelming. Fortunately, Harvey also o ers writers several prac-tical pointers, not least o which is his observation that there are reallyonly our possible kinds o answers to the question, Sources o what?

A source can unction as a claim , opinion , or interpretation that

someone else has made o your topic;

A source can provide act , in ormation , or data whether reportedrst-hand or gleaned and summarized rom elsewhere;

A source can supply you with a general concept whether some-thing as small as a use ul term or de nition or distinction, or some-thing as large as a explanatory theory or predictive model; and

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34 | W rking With S rc s

A source can serve as a comparable instance o the thing you arediscussing.

Because the interplay o these source- unctions in academic writing can

vary across disciplines which, as we noted in the previous section, tendto develop characteristic persuasive moves o their own lets consider anexample based on a paper that was submitted by Reihan Nadarajah (classo 11) or a course in linguistic anthropology. Choosing Malaysias languagein education policy as his subject, Reihan set out to explore discrepanciesbetween the policys intended and actual impacts. First, he drew on a num-ber o studies and reports or acts and data about the policy. Framed in1956 with the goal o uni ying the multi-ethnic population o Malaysia, theEducation Act sought to promote a national identity based on the Malaylanguage while allowing non-Malay Chinese-and Tamil-speaking minorities

to preserve their language and culture. It did so by establishing Malay asthe sole medium o instruction in secondary schools, while permitting someprimary schools to adopt English, Chinese, or Tamil.

Having lled in this necessary background, Reihan then turned to a claimadvanced by other scholars, namely that Tamil primary schools today per ormpoorly and are under unded, trapping Tamil-minority children some 60%o whom attend these schools in a cycle o educational and economic mar-ginalization. He then introduced the concept o a language market onedeveloped by anthropologist Pierre Bourdieu or analyzing the French states

use o language as a tool o social engineering in order to rame additional acts derived rom another set o scholars. The preponderance o upwardlymobile Tamils in Malaysia send their children to English-medium schools toinsure they can compete at the secondary level even at the cost o losingsome degree o cultural and linguistic competence. By deploying the concept o the linguistic market, Reihan was able to uncover an additional layer o sig-ni cance in these acts. Speci cally, he characterized the Education Act as anunintended orm o social engineering, one that generated class di erencesand cultural separation within the Tamil community by motivating those withmeans to invest, compete, and trade on linguistic competence. Citing workon community- unded Chinese-language primary schools (which tend to behighly competitive) as a comparable instance , Reihan was also able to arriveat the insight that Malaysian Chinese and Tamils have come to occupy highlydistinct positions within the language market created by the Education Act.

Harveys notion that the very existence o a source is contingent (uponhow we use it) rather than autonomous has other important consequences such as the act that the same source can serve a di erent unction


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in another paper. We would only add that the same source can also playmultiple unctions within the same paper. In his paper on language policy,

or instance, Reihan drew upon Pierre Bourdieus work in not one buttwo ways. In the rst, he mined the concept o the language market

(as we saw above) or his own use in the Malaysian case. In the second,he drew on Bourdieus account o standardization in France as a compa-rable instance o language-based social engineering. Given the diversityo source- unctions assigned to Bourdieus text, it is worth noting that thestance o Reihans paper towards this source was correspondingly complex.In e ect, Reihan accepted the concept but not the comparable instance,observing that that the dynamics o the French case in which diversedialects were subordinated to standard French were quite di erentthan those which emerged in Malaysia, where one language was elevatedabove several others into a national standard. Introducing new data rom

scholars, Reihan noted that in contrast to the stigmatization o regionaland local dialects in France, poorer minority Tamils in Malaysia remaindeeply attached to their language; indeed, their sense o sel -worth asTamils o ten enables them to withstand and resist Malay hegemony.

Stepping back now a bit, the third lesson we can draw rom Harvey is thatis that the kind o thing a source provides is only part o how it unctions.The other part is the writers disposition towards it. Does he a rm, accept,or assimilate it? Does he reject, challenge, or di erentiate it? Or does hequali y it accepting it with a re nement, adjustment, or tweak? One

characteristic ound in Reihans essay and other success ul ones is thateach time a source is marshaled as act , claim , concept , or instance , it isinscribed with a clear stance o a frmation , re usal , or qualifcation .

Finally, this is perhaps as good a place as any to touch upon the mattero theory and its use in anthropological writing. In anthropology, themystique o theory resting as it does on perceived di culty, or-eignness, and pro undity is striking. It also lends itsel to caricature:theorists, one can predict airly success ully, belong to distant disciplines(like philosophy), national traditions (France), and decades (the 1980s).We o ten hear students chit-chat about taking a theory class, apply-ing theory, dreading theory or even having a roommate who is sucha theory head. What is genuine and what is spurious in these construc-tions? More importantly since theory seems to be part and parcel o the discipline o anthropology how is one to deal with it?

For those who are turned o rather than on by the aura o a theory text,it may be use ul to remember that your job is to treat it like any other

Th kind thing a s rc

pr vid s is nl part h w

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t wards it.


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36 | W rking With S rc s

source (that is, to ask how can it be exploit it or the moves that youwant to make). You may also need to set aside your notions o how theoryworks in the natural sciences where it is o ten used to generate ex-planatory or predictive models since anthropologists tend to use theory

more like their colleagues in the humanities: as an interpretive lens to beborrowed rom one context and adapted to another or the purpose o illu-minating it. The devil is always in the details, and these maneuvers call orsensitivity to similarity and di erence, to what ts and what doesnt, toopportunities or carving out a complex stance. Notice, or instance, thatin the paper discussed above, Reihan set aside Bourdieus account o lan-guage re orm in French as being inapplicable to the Malaysian situation.At the same time, he accepted Bourdieus notion concept o the languagemarket and extended it to his topic with illuminating results.

In the end, it helps to remember that in anthropology, theory rarely helpsto prove or disprove anything. (In act, a theory itsel may be provedwrong and remain enormously use ul an example o this being MaxWebers e ort to explain the emergence o capitalism in the West as ane ect o Protestant asceticism). Rather, theory is most valuable when ito ers a way o seeing acts in a new light but one can usually choosesome aspects o the view while declining others.

In anthr p l g , th

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N ta B n

Cit ti . Although most instructors insist only thatyou use a single citation style consistently (MLA, APA,etc.), anthropology publications generally use AmericanAnthropologist style and we recommend using AA style.(You can download a copy o the American AnthropologicalAssociation Style Guide at this URL: aaanet.org/pubs/style_guide.htm) For speci c advice on using and citing sourcesin a paper, see Gordon Harveys Writing with Sources, whichis available on the Expository Writing Programs website. Foradvice on using internet sources e ectively and responsibly,see the Expository Writing Programs booklet Writing withInternet Sources, also available on the programs website.

bi i gr phic tw r . You should consider usingbibliographic so tware such as Endnote or Re works tocompile a database o sources you use in your papers. Theseprograms allow you to accumulate a catalog o the sourcesyou have used in your anthropology courses, and to citesuch sources accurately and with ease.

P gi ri m. Plagiarism re ers to the ailure to properlyacknowledge the sources o your ideas in writing. It is a

serious breach o academic integrity, the penalties or whichcan include ailing the course or suspension.


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38 | S cti n Titl

Imag r mAnthropology

1630 Other Peoples Beliefs The Anthropology Of Religion ta ghtb Smita Lahiri, Fall 2008.


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V. An Ann tat d Pap rTo illustrate writing strategies that you can practice in your own essays,we provide here a copiously marked up example o a success ul essaythat was submitted or a course taught by Smita Lahiri. The assignmentwas a airly nebulous one: to address on or more key respects in whichclassic practices o ethnogrpahy have been critically scrutinized andreoriented since the 1980s. James Herron did the annotations.


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Politics of Leisure and Recreation ta ght b Katrina M r in Spring2009.


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Anthropology Writing Guide 2010