anthropology research paper outline

Department of Anthropology

Writing Guide

The steps to writing a research paper.

1. Select a general topic

2. Research the selected topic

• How to Do Research at the UNT Library (from the UNT Libraries' Web site)
• Anthropology Subject Guide (finding anthropology-related books and articles from the UNT Libraries' Web site)
• Research Tools from the UNT Library

3. Evaluate your resources

• How to Search the Internet and Evaluate Internet Sources

5. Define/Refine Your Topic and Develop Your Thesis

Thesis - An arguable statement put forth for discussion and proof.

• A thesis should be a strong, original idea, claim, or argument.
• A thesis is normally found in the introduction of a paper.
• A thesis informs the reader of the purpose of your paper.
• A thesis should be specific, not broad or vague. Avoid vague terms like "good" or "bad."
• A thesis should analyze, not summarize.
• A thesis will tie together all the ideas of your paper.

6. Re-read with an eye on the thesis

7. Develop Supporting Ideas and Arguments

Make sure the content of your papers is relevant tyour argument. Read carefully and cut or revise parts of your paper that don't support your argument.

8. Types of Supporting Ideas and Arguments

• Data from a Research Project If you conducted a project, present summaries of the data you collected, and relevant examples.
• Facts & Figures Information about your topic that has been collected by other agencies or researchers
• Statistics These are not as central tanthropology as some other fields, but they can still greatly strengthen your arguments.
• Authorities (Quotes from Experts) You must establish the credentials of the authorities before their quotes are persuasive and credibility tthe argument.
• Textual Evidence Supporting information from texts.
• Historical Background

9. Take notes

10. Organize notes

11. Develop an Outline

An outline is key the organization of your paper. See the Purdue University guide for developing outlines at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/general/gl_outlin.html

12. Write a Draft

When writing a draft, make sure to reference the Chicago Manual of Style . Please note that this requires the Adobe Acrobat Reader .

The Writing Lab at Purdue University provides thorough information on writing a research paper see below for assistance with particular parts of a draft:

• Writing a first draft ( http://owl.english.purdue.edu/workshops/hypertext/ResearchW/1draft.html )
• Introduction ( http://owl.english.purdue.edu/workshops/hypertext/ResearchW/writeintro.html )
• Paragraphs ( http://owl.english.purdue.edu/workshops/hypertext/ResearchW/paragrf.html )
• Conclusion ( http://owl.english.purdue.edu/workshops/hypertext/ResearchW/conclude.html )

13. Avoid Plagiarism

Plagiarism may be defined as the following:

• Using the exact words or phrases of a source without proper quotation marks both before and after the words or phrases.
• Using the exact words or phrases or the ideas of a source without proper documentation in APA style.
• Using slightly changed words or phrases of a source tavoid quotation.
• Submitting a paper that in any way represents the words, phrases, or ideas of someone else as your own.
• Submitting a paper that you did not write.

This definition of plagiarism was written by the English Faculty at Weatherford College.

14. Citing Works Within a Paper

When citing works within a paper, make sure to reference the Chicago Manual of Style Please note that this requires the Adobe Acrobat Reader .

15. Write a Works Cited or Bibliography

When writing a Works Cited or Bibliography, make sure to reference the Chicago Manual of Style Please note that this requires the Adobe Acrobat Reader .

When using APA style, you may reference APA Formatting and Style Guide at Purdue http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/

16. Leave it alone for a couple of days

17. Submit for peer review if possible

18. Revise, revise, and revise!

19. Proofread, Proofread, Proofread!

For an excellent, proofreading checklist, visit the Writing Center at George Mason University Online Handouts, including:

• 23 Ways to Improve Your Draft
• Editing Checklist

All available at https://writingcenter.gmu.edu/writing-resources/wc-quick-guides .

If you need assistance writing your research paper, try these UNT Resources

• The University Writing Center
• The Learning Center

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Anthropology

What this handout is about.

This 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 papers.

What is anthropology, and what do anthropologists study?

Anthropology is the study of human groups and cultures, both past and present. 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. Each of these subfields takes a different approach to the study of humans; together, they provide a holistic view. So, for example, physical anthropologists are interested in humans as an evolving biological species. Linguistic anthropologists are concerned with the physical and historical development of human language, as well as contemporary issues related to culture and language. Archaeologists examine human cultures of the past through systematic examinations of artifactual evidence. And cultural anthropologists study contemporary human groups or cultures.

What kinds of writing assignments might I encounter in my anthropology courses?

The 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. Each writing exercise is intended to help you to develop particular skills. 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:

Critical essays

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. When your instructor tells you to “argue,” “evaluate,” or “assess,” they are probably asking for some sort of critical essay. (For more help with deciphering your assignments, see our handout on understanding assignments .)

Writing 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 arguments.

Sample 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). What kinds of anthropological concerns or questions did Morgan have? What kinds of anthropological concerns underlie the current anthropological work on globalization that you have selected? And what assumptions, theoretical frameworks, and methodologies inform these questions or projects?

Ethnographic projects

Another common type of research and writing activity in anthropology is the ethnographic assignment. 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).

So what is an ethnography? “Ethnography” means, literally, a portrait (graph) of a group of people (ethnos). An ethnography is a social, political, and/or historical portrait of a particular group of people or a particular situation or practice, at a particular period in time, and within a particular context or space. Ethnographies have traditionally been based on an anthropologist’s long-term, firsthand research (called fieldwork) in the place and among the people or activities they are studying. If your instructor asks you to do an ethnographic project, that project will likely require some fieldwork.

Because 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 handout.

Spend two hours riding the Chapel Hill Transit bus. Take detailed notes on your observations, documenting the setting of your fieldwork, the time of day or night during which you observed and anything that you feel will help paint a picture of your experience. For example, how many people were on the bus? Which route was it? What time? How did the bus smell? What kinds of things did you see while you were riding? What did people do while riding? Where were people going? Did people talk? What did they say? What were people doing? Did anything happen that seemed unusual, ordinary, or interesting to you? Why? Write down any thoughts, self-reflections, and reactions you have during your two hours of fieldwork. At the end of your observation period, type up your fieldnotes, including your personal thoughts (labeling them as such to separate them from your more descriptive notes). Then write a reflective response about your experience that answers this question: how is riding a bus about more than transportation?

Analyses using fossil and material evidence

In some assignments, you might be asked to evaluate the claims different researchers have made about the emergence and effects of particular human phenomena, such as the advantages of bipedalism, the origins of agriculture, or the appearance of human language. To complete these assignments, you must understand and evaluate the claims being made by the authors of the sources you are reading, as well as the fossil or material evidence used to support those claims. Fossil evidence might include things like carbon dated bone remains; material evidence might include things like stone tools or pottery shards. You will usually learn about these kinds of evidence by reviewing scholarly studies, course readings, and photographs, rather than by studying fossils and artifacts directly.

The emergence of bipedalism (the ability to walk on two feet) is considered one of the most important adaptive shifts in the evolution of the human species, but its origins in space and time are debated. Using course materials and outside readings, examine three authors’ hypotheses for the origins of bipedalism. Compare the supporting points (such as fossil evidence and experimental data) that each author uses to support their claims. 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 did.

How should I approach anthropology papers?

Writing an essay in anthropology is very similar to writing an argumentative essay in other disciplines. In most cases, the only difference is in the kind of evidence you use to support your argument. 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 arguments.

Here are some tips for approaching your anthropology writing assignments:

• Make sure that you understand what the prompt or question is asking you to do. It is a good idea to consult with your instructor or teaching assistant if the prompt is unclear to you. See our handout on arguments and handout on college writing for help understanding what many college instructors look for in a typical paper.
• Review the materials that you will be writing with and about. One way to start is to set aside the readings or lecture notes that are not relevant to the argument you will make in your paper. This will help you focus on the most important arguments, issues, and behavioral and/or material data that you will be critically assessing. Once you have reviewed your evidence and course materials, you might decide to have a brainstorming session. Our handouts on reading in preparation for writing and brainstorming might be useful for you at this point.
• Develop a working thesis and begin to organize your evidence (class lectures, texts, research materials) to support it. Our handouts on constructing thesis statements and paragraph development will help you generate a thesis and develop your ideas and arguments into clearly defined paragraphs.

What is an ethnography? What is ethnographic evidence?

Many introductory anthropology courses involve reading and evaluating a particular kind of text called an ethnography. To understand and assess ethnographies, you will need to know what counts as ethnographic data or evidence.

You’ll recall from earlier in this handout that an ethnography is a portrait—a description of a particular human situation, practice, or group as it exists (or existed) in a particular time, at a particular place, etc. So what kinds of things might be used as evidence or data in an ethnography (or in your discussion of an ethnography someone else has written)? Here are a few of the most common:

• Things said by informants (people who are being studied or interviewed). When you are trying to illustrate someone’s point of view, it is very helpful to appeal to their own words. In addition to using verbatim excerpts taken from interviews, you can also paraphrase an informant’s response to a particular question.
• Observations and descriptions of events, human activities, behaviors, or situations.
• Relevant historical background information.
• Statistical data.

Remember that “evidence” is not something that exists on its own. A fact or observation becomes evidence when it is clearly connected to an argument in order to support that argument. 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 position.

Citation practices in anthropology

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. (Please refer to our handout on plagiarism for information on how to avoid plagiarizing). Anthropologists follow the Chicago Manual of Style when they document their sources. The basic rules for anthropological citation practices can be found in the AAA (American Anthropological Association) Style Guide. Note that anthropologists generally use in-text citations, rather than footnotes. This means that when you are using someone else’s ideas (whether it’s a word-for-word quote or something you have restated in your own words), you should include the author’s last name and the date the source text was published in parentheses at the end of the sentence, like this: (Author 1983).

If 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. Examples of such journals include The American Journal of Physical Anthropology and American Antiquity . If the style requirements for a particular journal are not explicitly stated, many instructors will be satisfied if you consistently use the citation style of your choice.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Scupin, Raymond, and Christopher DeCorse. 2016. Anthropology: A Global Perspective , 8th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.

Solis, Jacqueline. 2020. “A to Z Databases: Anthropology.” Subject Research Guides, University of North Carolina. Last updated November 2, 2020. https://guides.lib.unc.edu/az.php?s=1107 .

University of Chicago Press. 2017. The Chicago Manual of Style , 17th ed. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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ANTH 495: Anthropology Capstone

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Developing a Brief Sketch/Outline Of Your Research Paper

Strong outlines focus on addressing the thesis statement, organize sources and evidence into themes and arguments, and then organize themes and arguments to logically build towards conclusions.

Step 1:  Identify the information you want to use from your sources

• What key information, issues, theories, approaches, evidence, and/or arguments will you use in your paper?

Step 2:  Identify relationships, links, and common themes

• What relationships and links do you see between the information you want to use from each of your sources?
• What common themes and arguments can you build from the information and evidence in your sources?

Step 3:  Arrange themes and arguments

• How can you arrange your themes and arguments hierarchically and sequentially so that they logically build towards evidence-based conclusions about your thesis statement?
• These will represent the paragraphs of your research essay
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Department of Anthropology

Writing a successful master's research paper in anthropology.

By Janet McIntosh, Department of Anthropology, Brandeis University

As a reminder, here is what the Graduate Handbook says about the Master's Research Paper: The Master's research paper must involve substantial research by the student and should be 25 to 40 pages long, not including references. The paper may have been written previously for a Brandeis course; normally students will undertake substantial revisions on the paper as part of the rewriting process.

The paper must be approved by two faculty members, at least one of whom is a member of the anthropology department. Master's paper deadlines are generally as follows: a first full draft of the master's paper is due approximately one month before the semester ends; one or both readers will provide feedback within two weeks; the final revised paper is due to both readers two weeks later.

View the specific deadlines .

Working Independently

The master's paper is an opportunity to undertake a "capstone" project that takes your independent research in anthropology to a new level. Completing this paper requires a great deal of self-motivated work. You should expect to put into the project at least the level of work you would put into a one-semester seminar course. It is up to you to determine your project and collect your own data and to present your reader (or readers), in a timely fashion, the updates and drafts that will help them to help you. Please don't wait to be contacted by your advisor about meeting deadlines; you should be proactive about this schedule.

How to Begin

Get started as early as you can in formulating your project and seeking a potential advisor (or "first reader")..

Students make their way through the master's degree in anthropology at different paces; most finish the degree in two to four semesters. Some students complete their master's paper during a semester when they are taking courses; others do so in the summer after their first or second year of coursework.

Many master's papers emerge as further developments of a course term paper; some do not. Regardless, it is in your interest to conceive of a master's paper topic/question well in advance of the period when you will be writing it. This will give you time to seek out a potential "first reader" (see below) for the paper, and precious time to plan fieldwork toward the paper (often conducted in the summer after your first year), should you decide to write a paper based on such data.

If you wish to use human subjects-based data in your master's research paper for a future dissertation, publication or public presentation, apply for IRB permission before conducting fieldwork.

A master's paper does not count as a "public document," so technically the research described in it need not be approved by the IRB (Institutional Review Board). However, if you anticipate revising your master's paper for publication, or using your data in a future public document or presentation such as a doctoral dissertation or conference paper, AND if your data collection involves research with human subjects (such as interviewing or participant observation), then you need to apply for and receive IRB permission in advance of conducting the research.

It is not possible to get IRB approval retrospectively.

You should submit your application as soon as possible since it can take one to two months to complete the process and the board not infrequently asks students for revisions. You can find detailed IRB information and instructions Human Subjects Research Information page . One of our faculty members, Jonathan Anjaria , has served on the Brandeis' IRB board, and he welcomes questions from our graduate students about the process and their proposals. Feel free also to contact the IRB administrator with queries.

If you opt to conduct original fieldwork toward your paper, you can apply for fieldwork/travel funding.

Possible funding sources include anthropology department grants, GSAS master's research grants, GSA travel grants, Jane's Travel Grants, and funds from Women and Gender Studies. Within the Anthropology department, there are two rounds of application deadlines for department-internal "GTR" funds; one in fall semester (typically, to support research over winter break) and one in spring (typically, to support research over the summer).

Master's students sometimes apply for these funds to support their fieldwork, and we try to support as many well-conceived projects as we can, to the best of our abilities (contingent upon our budget in any given semester).

Finding Readers

Your first reader for the master's paper assumes the role of primary advisor for this project. The best first reader is usually the professor best intellectually matched to the project, all other things being equal (e.g., equitable distribution of master's paper advisees across professors). This may or may not be your primary academic advisor in the department; often it is a professor who has taught you in the class that most closely inspires your master's paper.

Ultimately, the master's paper needs to be approved by a first and a second reader. Second readers can be drawn from faculty outside of the anthropology department. Sometimes a student may have a second reader in mind; if not, they can work with their first reader to generate ideas for a second reader. The student should certainly approach the second reader about the possibility of their reading a draft or drafts according to the standard timelines listed above, but the second reader is under no obligation to accept that responsibility (some will be very keen to give early feedback; others may simply not have the time).

Finding Your Data, Motivating Your Thesis, Crafting a Well-Written Paper

Your master's research paper can be based upon your original research in the field, upon data gathered from other sources (say, videotaped footage; political speeches; Internet chatrooms; archival or museum material), and/or upon existing theoretical and ethnographic literature. A fieldwork-based master's paper has certain advantages. Fieldwork is of course the foundation of anthropology, so conducting original fieldwork gives you a chance to flex these muscles, and (if need be) to test the waters to determine whether you think a future in anthropology is for you.

It is also wonderful to have a fieldwork-based writing sample when applying for doctoral programs, or, minimally, to be able to summarize one's fieldwork-based project in one's applications. However, fieldwork is not a must for an MA paper, and plenty of strong papers have been grounded in other material instead.

No matter where your data comes from, your master's paper must emerge from questions that are motivated; questions that feel like they need to be asked. Ideally, your introduction will set up your thesis statement (that is, your statement of your central argument) with a context that shows how your thesis stems from a tension, question, or puzzle in your data or the anthropological literature or both.

Rather than simply stating "I'm interested in X and Y," you must set up the problematic from which your (clearly stated) argument emerges. It is sometimes helpful to formulate a "why" question that your thesis will attempt to answer, or at least illuminate. For example, "Why does a critical mass of finance executives abandon their comfortable lives for a week every year to participate in the Burning Man Festival?", "Why, in the society under consideration, are young women much more likely than older ones to be accused of practicing witchcraft?", "Why did empire X collapse under this particular set of conditions, while empire Y, seemingly under the same conditions, flourished?"

"How" questions can also be fruitful. For instance: "How do Hawaiians sustain the notion that certain culinary and ritual practices are 'traditional' even when they are actively engaged in the process of altering them?", "How do members of society X — who have historically tended to espouse context-dependent models of the person — react to, assimilate, and question the essentialist models of the person in Facebook personality quizzes?" or "How do the power dynamics between coaches and players manifest themselves even in seemingly casual and friendly conversations?" Your motivating queries may, of course, be more detailed and nuanced than these. Regardless, having an interesting question or puzzle — a "motive" — built into your introduction helps you and your reader feel the urgency or importance of your argument.

If you wonder what kinds of argumentative gambits are available to you more generally, A Student's Guide to Reading and Writing in Social Anthropology (PDF) from the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University and Harvard College has a useful summary of common types of arguments in anthropological papers (see page 25).

The same guide is also richly laden with suggestions about how to engage with anthropological literature/sources. We recommend as well reading the annotated student essay at the end.

Engaging With Anthropological Literature and Ideas

Since this is a master's program in anthropology (or in anthropology and women's and gender studies), your master's paper must engage meaningfully with the anthropological literature on the subject matter and demonstrate proficiency in that literature. Drawing on the insights of other disciplines can enrich the work, but the paper must be anthropological at its core.

Thoroughly review the salient anthropological and scholarly literature on your topic, in consultation with faculty members and library staff. Be sure to search through the various databases, including AnthroSource, Anthropological Abstracts, Anthropology Plus, JSTOR, Academic Search Premier, and so forth. It doesn't hurt to run relevant terms through Google Scholar (the "cited by" function, which displays other works that have cited a given article or book, can be particularly useful). We encourage you as well to attend library workshops on research and on citation software.

Your master's paper should show signs that certain core lessons of anthropology have been internalized. A sociocultural anthropology master's paper should, for instance, reflect your understanding that the normally taken-for-granted conceptual categories of modern western societies are themselves subject to critical examination, and that anthropologists tend to try to understand the internal logic of cultural practices. An archaeology paper should also reflect such approaches, and should be about the people behind the potsherds, buildings, and other objects. It should question the how and why of patterns of material culture, striving to understand the cultural contexts and natural processes that produced the archaeological data.

Whether or not your paper directly addresses a non-western case, it may be strengthened by the comparative, cross-cultural perspective associated with anthropology. For example, a master's paper concerned with modern American conceptions of pets might benefit from thoughtful engagement with anthropological work on totemism and animal symbolism in a range of non-western societies. A paper on archaic states might benefit from a comparative review of the role of kinship in segmentary and unitary forms of socio-political organization. That said, while the comparative literature should inform the paper, it might not need to be written about at length. This depends on your project, and should be discussed with your reader(s).

Writing About Methodology

A successful paper should have a (brief) methodology section that not only explains the methods used, but also justifies them. If, for example, your data comes from written surveys rather than ethnography, this choice requires some explanation. If your fieldwork was constrained by logistical or social considerations, these should be explained. If you chose to focus on a particular subgroup, this choice requires some background.

You should also indicate your awareness of the potential pitfalls and limitations of your chosen methods. Your methodology section often appears in your introductory section, but in some instances, methodological issues may be addressed in an appendix.

If you used surveys or an interview guide, for instance, those usually are placed in an appendix. Depending on how well this serves your argumentative purposes, you may also wish to include a reflexive section, clarifying your own relationship to the topic in question. Are you studying a tradition or community that you count yourself a part of? Did you begin this project with a strong draw towards, or anxiety about, the social group in question? Why?

Titling the Paper

Even your paper draft(s) should have a working title, to organize the sense of argument for yourself and your readers. Your title should be precise; rather than merely gesturing at a topic ("Gender among Boston Construction Workers," or "Globalization and Childbirth in Tibet"), it should give the reader a more precise hint of your argument or your theoretical focus (e.g., "Rebuilding Gender: Practices of Self-Fashioning among Boston Construction Workers," "Cutting Cords: Global Anxieties and Contested Midwifery in Cosmopolitan Tibet"). In the case of a sociocultural paper, it is at times helpful for the first part of the title to incorporate an especially evocative quote by one of your informants — a quote that foreshadows the central concerns of the thesis.

Final Tips on Writing Well

• Consider opening your paper with a detail — a vignette or a quotation, for example — that encapsulates some of the key issues or puzzles that you will dig into in the paper. This helps to hook your reader's attention more than broad generalizations do.
• Remember that the introductory paragraphs must motivate your argument, provide a sufficiently detailed thesis statement (this can be two sentences or longer, if need be), and offer the necessary context to situate your argument.
• Your paper must have enough summary of the relevant literature, and explicit definition of key concepts, that a well-educated generalist would be able to follow it. Do not assume that your reader is highly familiar with anthropological literature.
• When you do summarize, be sure the summary is clearly articulated and signposted in service of your argument. In other words, you should control the summary for your purposes rather than being controlled by and getting lost in your sources.
• Use the beginnings of paragraphs to transition from one point to another, placing a stitch between the preceding paragraph and the point to come. Often the start of a paragraph is also a good place to signpost back to the thesis, so as to re-orient the reader, and to make explicit how the logic of your argument is unfolding. (This gambit can help to avoid the "laundry list" paper structure, where points seem to arrive in no particular order.)
• Use the ends of paragraphs to hammer home the central point of the paragraph if it is not already obvious. As you re-read your draft, make sure every paragraph has a clear center of gravity.
• Assume a fairly inattentive reader, who requires frequent signposting to the key terms/key concepts in the thesis so as to be reminded of where the writer is taking the reader, and why.
• Assume a fairly impatient reader, who will be irritated and distracted by grammatical solecisms and spelling errors. Have someone — or even two people — proofread your paper.
• Please cite sources and format references competently and professionally — see below for helpful websites.
• Read your paper out loud to yourself to catch run-on sentences and awkward constructions.
• Paginate your drafts and final version before submitting to your reader(s).

Helpful Links

• Brandeis Writing Center Services for Graduate Students — Graduate-level consultants can work with you on a variety of needs.
• American Anthropological Association's (AAA) Style Guide
• Chicago Manual of Style (used by the AAA)

Nuts and Bolts of Submission and Approval

One month before the registrar's deadline to file an application for your graduate degree for the semester in which you seek to graduate, please fill out the "Master's Paper Plans" form available from Laurel Carpenter's office. This form requires that you list a provisional title, four or five lines describing your likely topic/argument, and the names of your first and second readers. Your first reader will need to sign this form before it is submitted to Laurel Carpenter.

• Check in with your second reader about whether they will have time to offer feedback on a draft of your paper. As noted above, such feedback can be helpful, but it is not strictly required from second readers.
• Check in with your readers about the medium they prefer for draft and final paper submission. Some may be happy with email submissions; others may require printed copies in their mailbox. Be sure you know what they want in advance so that you are able to get printed versions to readers who require them in a timely fashion.
• If you are hoping to finish your master's paper over the summer, it is especially important to check in with your readers well in advance about availability.
• When both readers have approved the paper, they will let you and Laurel Carpenter know, most typically by email. The readers then fill out and sign a form that goes into your record to indicate your master's paper has been approved. You do not need to procure or sign this form, unless you are a joint WGS and Anthropology student (WGS has its own administrative process). Email signatures can be accepted in lieu of paper signatures. A copy of the approved version of your master's paper must be submitted to the department.
• If your readers find that your final version of the master's paper does not yet meet the requirements, you will be asked to make further revisions, and may need to delay your graduation date.
• Undergraduate Program
• Master of Arts in Anthropology
• Doctorate in Anthropology (PhD)
• Opportunities for Students

The Student's Practical Guide: Writing Term Papers for Anthropology (and Related Subjects)

Steven m. parish, introduction, the style and organization of term papers: a quick review of the essentials, eight magical and wise rules for writing term papers, the citation format of anthropology papers, what needs to be cited, how do you use citations, plagiarism: the big ''p", the bibliographic format of anthropology papers: the reference list, a sample bibliography, library research, additional reference works, melvyl, roger, and the web.

Libraries & Cultural Resources

Research guides, anthropology.

• Background sources
• Anthropology - General
• Primatology
• Government Agencies
• Think Tanks
• Ethnographies
• Theses & Dissertations
• Videos and Images
• Research Paper
• Article Review
• Book Review
• Citation Tools
• Open Access Resources
• ANTH 321 - Ethnographic Survey of Latin America
• ANTH 393 - Ethnography of Global-Local Dynamics

Assignment Type

Have you been given a topic.

> Yes.   Skip to 3. Library research .

> No.  Start with 1. Developing a topic .

Read your assignment!

Before you start, make sure you understand what the assignment is asking for .

Highlight key parts (e.g. due date, requirements). 

Use Assignment Tracker   to manage your time.

Paper structure

Adapted by Sabrina Wong  Source: Wikimedia Commons author 120 Lucy, skeleton (AL 288-1)  Australopithecus afarensis , cast from  Museum national d'histoire naturelle,  Paris  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lucy_blackbg.jpg

1. Developing a topic

Start with what you've covered in class - Is there a reading or a weekly theme that you are interested in?

You can also think about what you've learned in other classes  - are there connections to the themes of this course?

2. Develop and focus your topic

You'll need to hone in on a guiding question or thesis. What is your main argument?

Ask yourself:

Is this topic too big? Look at the length requirement for the paper.  The shorter the paper, the more focused your guiding question needs to be.    You might want to consider focusing on a particular culture (e.g. Tsuu T'ina) or    situation/event (e.g. signing of Treaty 7) in the context of a larger topic    (e.g. indigenous land rights).

Is this actually focused on anthropology? Have you phrased your question so that it draws on or is framed by  anthropological theories or ideas ?

Are scholarly materials available for this topic? Do a quick search on the library website . Type in the keywords (main ideas) into the search box and see if many results come up. You probably want to stick with a topic that has some sources available.

If you're still unsure, check with your professor or T.A.

3. Library research

Start with your course materials (lecture notes, readings)

If you find a relevant course reading, look at the bibliography at the end. You'll find other relevant materials that way.

Use this guide to find specific types of materials . Start with B ackground sources  and then move on to Books or Articles , depending on what the assignment requires. 

4. Write the paper

Take a look at the diagram and model your paper on the Department of Anthropology style sheet .

Title:  Separate title page required (abstract needs to be on this page)

Introduction/Abstract : Provides a road map of your paper - outlines your topic, thesis/guiding question. Take a look at this guide .

Body : Main part of your paper - presents your research in a clear and logical structure and builds support for your thesis

Conclusion : Bring together your main points and tell reader why it matters/supports your thesis. Take a look at this  guide .

References Cited : List of the resources that you used in your paper. Format it in the citation style your professor has chosen.

Once you finish writing a first draft, edit, edit, edit ! 

If you're unsure about the writing process, visit the Student Success Centre's  Online Writing Resources   or  book an appointment   with them .

What citation style do you need?

American Anthropological Association style guide (AAA) has been discontinued as  of September 2015.  AAA now follows the Chicago Manual of Style (Author-Date format) .   See also:   Chicago Manual of Style - quick guide

Primatology uses APA Author-Date. 

If your professor has chosen neither of these styles, check out the Student Success Centre's guides to citing.

​Note for online sources you need to add the DOI or stable URL to end of the citation in the Reference Cited list.  

What is a paper proposal?

You might be asked to hand in a paper proposal or paper abstract before the paper is due.

It should have these parts:

• brief discussion of your topic
• guiding question/thesis
• possible conclusions
• list of some books/articles/resources that you'll use

Helpful Guides

This guide was created with information from these sources: 

A Student's Guide to Writing and Reading in Social Anthropology , Harvard University (PDF,  pages 26-30 )

Writing in the Disciplines: Anthropology , University of Richmond

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• Next: Article Review >>
• Last Updated: May 17, 2023 12:00 PM
• URL: https://libguides.ucalgary.ca/guides/anthropology

Libraries & Cultural Resources

• 403.220.8895

• UConn Library
• Topic: How to do Anthropological Research

Topic: How to do Anthropological Research — Overview

• Finding Background Information
• Ethnographies
• How to Pick a Topic
• Where to Find Anthro Articles
• Where to Find Anthro Books & Videos
• Citing Using AAA/Chicago Style

The purpose of this guide is to help you:

• Find background information on broad topics in anthropology
• Develop an anthropological research topic (and if possible related to your major)
• Teach you strategies to develop keywords to find articles on your chosen topic in anthropological journals.

If you have questions, feel free to contact me for help!

Useful Research Guides:

• Anthropology & Archaeology Subject Guide by Fyiane Nsilo-Swai Last Updated May 13, 2024 414 views this year

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Writing a Research Report

• Last Updated: Aug 2, 2023

Research is an integral part of anthropology , serving as a means of accumulating and enriching knowledge about human societies [1] . It is essential for anthropologists to be proficient in research report writing, as the quality of a report can significantly impact the value of the research conducted [2] .

Defining the Research Problem

The first step in writing a research report is defining the research problem. This step is crucial as it sets the direction for the rest of the research process [3] . The research problem should be clearly stated, specific, and manageable within the available resources and time frame.

Table 1: Defining the Research Problem

Conducting a Literature Review

Once the research problem is defined, a comprehensive review of existing literature on the topic is carried out. The literature review provides an overview of current knowledge, helps identify gaps, and presents opportunities for the research to contribute to the anthropological discourse [4] .

Methodology

The methodology is the backbone of the research report as it dictates how data will be collected, analyzed, and interpreted. Methodological choices in anthropology commonly include participant observation, interviews, focus groups, and the use of archival resources.

• Participant Observation : Participant observation is a traditional and widely-used method in anthropological research. It involves the researcher immersing themselves in the daily life of the group being studied, providing a nuanced and intimate understanding of the culture.
• Interviews and Focus Groups : Interviews and focus groups allow for the collection of rich, qualitative data. They provide insights into participants’ thoughts, feelings, and motivations, which may not be readily apparent from observation alone.
• Use of Archival Resources : Archival resources, such as historical documents and artifacts, can offer insights into the historical context of the group being studied.

Data Analysis

Data analysis in anthropology is largely qualitative, focused on interpreting the meanings, patterns, and themes in the data collected. Common techniques include thematic analysis, discourse analysis, and grounded theory.

Writing the Research Report

The final step in the research process is writing the research report. The report should be structured clearly and logically, presenting a coherent argument supported by evidence.

Table 2: Structure of a Research Report

In conclusion, writing an anthropological research report involves a meticulous process of defining the research problem, conducting a literature review, selecting and implementing appropriate methodologies, analyzing data, and crafting a comprehensive report. The quality of the report can greatly enhance the value and impact of the research, making it a critical skill for anthropologists.

Writing an anthropology report involves conducting research on cultural, social, or biological aspects of human life. This requires an examination of scholarly articles, fieldwork observations, or interviews. The report should include an introduction, literature review, methodology, findings, and conclusion, adhering to anthropological theories and concepts. Proper citations are essential to support the findings.

It seems like “anthropology eport” might be a typo. If referring to an anthropology report, it is a document summarizing research conducted within the field of anthropology, detailing observations, methodologies, and conclusions about human cultures and behaviors.

Anthropology generally uses the American Anthropological Association (AAA) style or the Chicago Manual of Style for writing and citations. This format includes specific guidelines for citing sources, organizing content, and presenting ideas, following a clear and consistent structure that allows readers to understand the research, arguments, and conclusions in the report.

[1] Bernard, H.R. (2011). Research Methods in Anthropology: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches .

[2] Ember, C.R., & Ember, M. (2009). Anthropology . https://doi.org/10.1177/1069397110383661

[3] Punch, K.F. (2006). Developing Effective Research Proposals .

[4] Hart, C. (1998). Doing a Literature Review .

Vasundhra, an anthropologist, embarks on a captivating journey to decode the enigmatic tapestry of human society. Fueled by an insatiable curiosity, she unravels the intricacies of social phenomena, immersing herself in the lived experiences of diverse cultures. Armed with an unwavering passion for understanding the very essence of our existence, Vasundhra fearlessly navigates the labyrinth of genetic and social complexities that shape our collective identity. Her recent publication unveils the story of the Ancient DNA field, illuminating the pervasive global North-South divide. With an irresistible blend of eloquence and scientific rigor, Vasundhra effortlessly captivates audiences, transporting them to the frontiers of anthropological exploration.

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Anthropology Research Paper

This sample applied anthropology research paper features: 6200 words (approx. 20 pages), an outline, and a bibliography with 33 sources. Browse other research paper examples for more inspiration. If you need a thorough research paper written according to all the academic standards, you can always turn to our experienced writers for help. This is how your paper can get an A! Feel free to contact our writing service for professional assistance. We offer high-quality assignments for reasonable rates.

Applied Anthropology Research Paper

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The paper commences with a brief definition of applied anthropology in both its broader and more restrictive senses. What follows then is an examination of the origins of applied anthropology within the matrix of anthropology, generally, in the 19th century. The early history of the discipline through the post–World War II, or mid-20th century, era is explored in the next section. The mid-20th-century era was dominated by three subjects: the Fox Project, the Peru Vicos Project, and Project Camelot, which is treated separately. The section on the later 20th century leads into applied anthropology today, which is followed by a section on areas for future research.

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What Is Applied Anthropology?

Origins of applied anthropology, early history, the fox project, project camelot, late 20th century, programs in applied anthropology, anthropologists and the military, forensic anthropology, ethnic cleansing, and political dissidents, future directions.

• Bibliography

Applied anthropology, in its broader sense, is distinguished primarily from academic anthropology as anthropological methods and data put to use outside of the classroom. This is not to say that all anthropological methods and data put to use outside of the classroom is applied anthropology; field research also is anthropological methods and data put to use outside of the classroom, but it can be used for academic purposes, as well as for practical application. Applied anthropology is used to solve practical problems outside of the academic world, and it has appeared under such names as action anthropology, development anthropology, practicing anthropology, and advocacy anthropology among others.

In its narrower sense, applied anthropology is distinguished from practicing anthropology. Practicing anthropology is the application of anthropology strictly outside of academia by nonacademics; applied anthropology can be practiced outside of academia or within academia by academics. To some, the differences are considered to be minimal, but to others they are of great importance.

Early in the 19th century, anthropology was a religious philosophy that examined how to view the place of humans in the cosmos. This began to change by the mid-19th century, and people who were to become the founders of what is called anthropology today began to look at the more earthly nature of humanity. One of these individuals was Lewis Henry Morgan. Morgan, who was an attorney, began to work with the Iroquois in the 1840s on legal issues involving railroad right of ways. This may have been one of the first, if not the first, application of the nascent but as yet still inchoate discipline.

Across the Atlantic, Sir Edward Burnett Tylor, the “father of anthropology” who defined “culture,” considered anthropology to be a “policy science” that should be implemented to ameliorate the problems of humanity. James Hunt, who founded the Anthropological Society of London, began to use the term practical anthropology by the 1860s, and in 1869, the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (this was later to be titled the Royal Anthropological Institute) was formed.

In North America, the federal government formed the Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE) under John Wesley Powell in order to perform research that was intended to guide government policy toward Native Americans, and in 1879, Powell dispatched Frank Hamilton Cushing to the Zuñi pueblo to perform some of the first anthropological field research. By 1895, the BAE had hired anthropologist James Mooney to research a revitalization movement, the ghost dance. It also was in the 1890s that Franz Boas, the “father of American anthropology,” worked outside of academia with the Chicago Field Museum.

Boas developed a lifelong hatred of racism arising from anti-Semitic experiences he had had in school in Germany. This led him to attempt to dispel the prevailing racist notions of the day in anthropology. From 1910 to 1913, Boas applied anthropometry to disprove a basic racist assumption: Cranial shape was a factor of race. To accomplish this, he measured the heads of Jewish immigrants in New York City ghettos. Presumably, they were members of the dolichocephalic (longheaded) Mediterranean race, and indeed, the immigrants tended to fit that pattern. However, their children, born in America, were members of the brachicephalic (roundheaded) Alpine race. Apparently, they had changed race within one generation of having moved to America. Boas explained this anomaly as being the product of different diets between the parents and their children during their growth years and not the result of race at all.

Boas’s first PhD student, Alfred Louis Kroeber, and Kroeber’s students spent the first two decades of the 20th century conducting “salvage ethnology” to preserve cultures that were, or already had, become extinct. The most famous of these cases, both within and outside of anthropology, is the story of Ishi, the last member of the California Yahi tribe, whom Kroeber brought to Berkeley to serve as the key respondent from a vanished people. In 1919, Kroeber applied anthropological techniques to discover the rapprochement between fashion and economic cycles in his hem-length study. He demonstrated that one could determine (and perhaps predict) economic cycles by the rise or fall of women’s dress and skirt lengths. The 1920s also found Margaret Mead (1928/1973) making recommendations on sex education to the American educational establishment in the last two chapters of her doctoral dissertation, published as Coming of Age in Samoa.

In Europe, it was common during this time for anthropologists to seek employment in colonial governments: Anthropologists from the Netherlands were employed by their government to provide ethnographic data on its Indonesian colony; Northcote Thomas used anthropology to aid in administrating the British colony in Nigeria; and Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown served as director of education on Tonga. Somewhat later, in the 1930s, Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard (1969), in the employment of the government of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, spent several research periods among the Nuer to determine why they did not consider it necessary to uphold their treaty with the British government, among other projects. Also in the 1930s, Radcliffe-Brown first used the term applied anthropology in the article “Anthropology as Public Service and Malinowski’s Contribution to It” (although the term already had appeared in 1906 in a degree program at Oxford). Bronislaw Malinowski himself, had coined the term practicing anthropology for nonacademic anthropology.

In 1932, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt appointed the anthropologist John Collier to Commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Collier then employed fellow anthropologists Julian Steward, Clyde Kluckhohn, and others in the applied anthropology office to investigate Native American cultures and to counsel the BIA in regard to the Indian Reorganization Act. The anthropologists served as intermediaries between the BIA and Native Americans during the drawing of tribal constitutions and charters. Also in the 1930s, Edward Sapir’s student, Benjamin Lee Whorf, applied anthropological linguists to the analysis of fire insurance investigations, and anthropologist W. Lloyd Warner was hired by the Western Electric Company to study worker productivity in its bank-wiring facility. Warner employed qualitative ethnographic techniques, such as participant observation and informal interviewing, that previously had been used in nonindustrial, non-Western societies in one of the first applications of “industrial anthropology.”

The 1940s brought about the efflorescence of the field with the founding of the Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA) by Margaret Mead, Conrad Arensberg, and Eliot Chapple. They published the journal Applied Anthropology to counter what they saw as academic bias against practical, nontheoretical work. In 1949, the name of the journal was changed to Human Organization, and the SfAA code of ethics was created. Despite this, Melville Herskovits taught in the late 1940s that applied anthropology was racist and should not be practiced, according to one of his former students.

Today, a variety of organizations specialize in applied anthropology. The Consortium of Practicing and Applied Anthropology Programs (COPAA), chaired by Linda A. Bennett of the University of Memphis, lists and gives a brief description of some of these organizations on its Web site, including the COPAA, the SfAA, and the National Association for the Practice of Anthropology within the American Anthropological Association.

The COPAA also lists regional organizations, which include the Washington Association of Professional Anthropologists; the High Plains Society for Applied Anthropology; the Chicago Association for Practicing Anthropologists; the Sun Coast Organization of Practicing Anthropologists; the California Alliance of Local Practitioner Organizations that embraces the Southern California Applied Anthropology Network, the Bay Area Association of Practicing Anthropologists, and the Central Valley Applied Anthropology Network; and the Mid-South Association of Professional Anthropologists. It was during World War II that Margaret Mead headed a group of anthropologists who served in the Office of Strategic Services. In addition to Mead, Ruth Benedict, Ralph Linton, Julian Steward, and Clyde Kluckhohn, among others (including such interdisciplinary notables as Erik Erikson), worked on the Committee on Food Habits, the Culture at a Distance national character project, the War Relocation Authority, and others, in order to aid in the U.S. war effort. A description of their work and methods was published (Mead & Rhoda, 1949) after the war as The Study of Culture at a Distance. Following the war, anthropologists also worked for the U.S. Pacific protectorates’ administrations.

Mid-20th Century

In the late 1940s, Sol Tax of the University of Chicago wanted to develop a program that would give field experience to anthropology students. To do this, he began the Fox Project in 1948 to look into social organization and leadership in the Fox/Tama settlement, which was facing acculturative pressures from the neighboring Euro-American community. Although they tried to become involved in the amelioration of the acculturative process, they had no authority to do so. Thus, they developed a theoretical agenda that became known as “action anthropology.” In 1953, the group consulted with the Fox project and developed a framework for action that was funded by a private foundation. University of Iowa students joined the University of Chicago group, and together they created the Fox Indian Educational Program and began the Tama Indian Crafts industry.

About the time that the Fox project was nearing its completion in 1952, Edward Spicer’s book, Human Problems in Technological Change, was published. That same year Allen Holmberg began Cornell University’s 14-year experiment: the “Peru Vicos Project.” Cornell University had rented Vicos, a feudal estate in Peru, as a living laboratory to study social engineering on the Quechua-speaking peasantry, to test theories of modernization, and to develop models for community advocacy and culture brokering.

Project Camelot had the potential to be a low point in the application of anthropology in the late 20th century. In December 1964, the Office of the Director of the Special Operations Research Office of the American University in Washington, D.C., announced a new program to be funded by the army and the Department of Defense. The program extensively would employ anthropological fieldworkers in government research for 3 to 4 years. In theory, it was a project that was intended to develop a systems model that would enable the prediction of social changes that in turn could develop into political movements in third world nations that might threaten the United States—specifically in Latin American countries (where a field office was planned) but with plans to expand globally. Its objectives were to formulate means to predict civil wars and revolutions; to identify means to prevent civil wars, insurgency, and counterinsurgency movements in particular societies; and to develop a system of field methods to collect the information to accomplish the two previous objectives. The budget was expected to be in the $1.5 million range annually.

Some anthropologists feared that applying anthropology to aid Latin American government’s repression of political movements was unethical and would hinder development of societies in those countries. A more horrific potential outcome to the field ethnographers was the possible executions of their field respondents. In response to the outcry from the social science community, Project Camelot was cancelled in July 1965.

Nonetheless, not all social scientists found Project Camelot to be totally objectionable. Beyond the satisfaction of the obvious and never-ending quest for research funding, which it would have provided, albeit from sources that are suspect to many in the academic community, there is the less obvious appeal of ethnography finally having some input into government international policy, something that had been called for over decades. Likewise, many anthropologists in that era had gotten their starts in the military by having had their first international experiences during the second World War and their educations financed by the government issue, or GI, Bill. Rather, it was the possible outcomes of their research that convinced the community to object to Project Camelot.

Also in the 1960s, medical anthropologists working with the Foré tribe of New Guinea traced the origins of a deadly neurological disease, kuru, to cannibalism by using traditional qualitative techniques, such as collecting life histories; Margaret Mead testified before Congress on birth control and marijuana, and she coined the term generation gap to describe a global phenomenon that had never occurred previously in human history; Jules Henry’s Culture Against Man described the Orwellian nature of popular advertising in American society; Jomo Kenyatta applied his PhD in anthropology from the London School of Economics under Malinowski to running the government of Kenya, with its diverse ethnic makeup, as its first president under the slogan Harambe, or “let us pull together” in Kiswahili. Oscar Lewis conducted his “family life histories” in Mexico City ( The Children of Sanchez ) and New York ( La Vida ) and described the poor as living in a selfperpetuating “culture of poverty.” Although this was criticized widely as an attempt to blame the poor for their condition, it also could be said that Lewis was acknowledging the wisdom of people who lived on the edge and their ability to survive and fully exploit their economic niches.

James P. Spradley conducted a Herculean application of ethnoscience to “tramp” culture in Seattle in the 1960s to determine the emic structure of the society in order to make recommendations for improved treatments to social workers, police, psychiatrists, and alcohol treatment centers. It was published as You Owe Yourself a Drunk: An Ethnography of Urban Nomads in 1970. In 1969, George Foster wrote the first textbook on development and change agency, Applied Anthropology, in which he cited changes in human behavior as a primary goal in order to solve social, economic, and technological problems. He followed this up in 1973 with Traditional Societies and Technological Change.

In 1974, the University of South Florida began the first master of arts degree program to focus specifically on training students for careers in applied anthropology. The options available to those students form a wide range of topics that define applied anthropology. Among them are archaeology, Cultural Resource Management, economic development, educational anthropology, immigration, medical anthropology, race, gender, ethnicity, and urban policy and community development. Among the reasons for such theoretical breadth is the realization that many master of arts students do not choose to pursue a doctor of philosophy degree, and this curriculum, then, qualifies them to work in specialized professions outside of academia. The reader will note that work outside of academia is known as practicing anthropology, and in 1978 the University of South Florida first published the journal Practicing Anthropology. Graduate programs in applied anthropology are becoming more widespread in the United States since that time; for example, the master’s program in applied anthropology at California State University, Long Beach, has three program options: communities/ organizations, health, and education. Northern Kentucky University’s anthropology program is long known for its award-winning Web site with information on where undergraduate anthropology majors, who cannot or do not choose to attend graduate programs, can find jobs outside of academia; currently, it is in the process of developing a master’s program in applied anthropology.

COPAA lists member programs on its Web site for those interested in pursuing a career in applied anthropology. The Web site notes that there are other programs that are not currently COPAA members. Among the universities in consortium are the University of Alaska, Anchorage; American University; University of Arizona; California State University, East Bay; California State University, Long Beach; University of Florida, Gainesville; The George Washington University; University of Georgia; Georgia State University; Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis; University of Kentucky; University of Maryland; University of Memphis; Mississippi State University; Montclair State University; University of North Carolina at Greensboro; University of North Texas; Northern Arizona University; Oregon State University; Santa Clara University; San Jose State University; the University of South Florida; the University of Texas at San Antonio; and Wayne State University.

The first doctoral program in applied anthropology was begun at the University of South Florida (USF) in 1984. Although the master of arts curriculum had been intended for nonacademic professions, the PhD curriculum trained students for university careers, as well as for practicing anthropology. USF’s Center for Applied Anthropology combines these two objectives in ventures such as the Human Services Information System database and the Alliance for Applied Research in Education and Anthropology.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Napoleon Chagnon and James Neel conducted genetics research for the American Atomic Energy Commission in an ethnographic setting. Chagnon was the ethnographer, and Neel was the geneticist. Their work was designed to determine the effects of the forces of evolution (such as the founder effect) on small populations in order to determine how genes might affect survival following a nuclear destruction of modern civilization. Their research took them to the Orinoco River basin in southeastern Venezuela where they established contact and conducted research among the Yanomamo, an isolated, horticultural, tribal society. Out of this research came Chagnon’s ethnography, The Yanomamo: The Fierce People. From its very early days, the project was heavily documented on film, and their classic documentary, The Yanomamo: A Multidisciplinary Study, became a standard in both cultural and physical anthropology classrooms. In the film, Chagnon and Neal become aware of a measles epidemic sweeping up the Orinoco Basin toward the Yanomamo. They acquire a vaccine that contains a weakened strain of the live virus and conduct mass inoculations of the Yanomamo against measles.

Although their work was met with criticism from the outset, none was quite as virulent as the later criticism contained in Patrick Tierney’s 2000 book, Darkness in El Dorado, and its aftermath. Tierney claimed that Chagnon and Neel had been conducting Josef Mengele-like genetics experiments on the Yanomamo by injecting them with the live measles virus to see who would live and who would die—not, as shown in the documentary, to protect them from an epidemic. The author of this chapter recalls sweeping condemnations of Chagnon and Neel from the anthropological community on several Internet electronic mailing lists originating throughout the United States at that time based on Darkness in El Dorado— although the book had not yet been released. By that time, Neel was dead, and although Chagnon was retired, he filed a lawsuit against Tierney in which he and Neel eventually were vindicated. Currently, calls are being made in anthropology to disband the “El Dorado Task Force” set up to investigate this case.

In the 1980s, Philippe Bourgois conducted field research among Hispanic crack (“rock” cocaine, which is smoked) dealers in the Harlem area of New York. This was not an update of Elliott Liebow’s Tally’s Corner nor of Oscar Lewis’s La Vida. Rather, it is what Bourgois refers to as a “culture of terror” that exploits an underground economy. Bourgois argues that this renders the crack dealers unexploitable by the larger, legal society as they pursue their interpretations of the “American dream.”

Across the Atlantic, anthropologists and other social scientists began to influence government policies in the Republic of Ireland in the late 1980s, according to Thomas Wilson and Hastings Donnan, via what are called the economic and social partnerships with government. This should not be confused with hegemony as may have been the case with the 1960s American “military-industrial complex.” Rather, in a country in which anthropology traditionally had been practiced by foreign scholars investigating semi-isolated rural communities, it was a remarkable innovation for anthropologists and other academics to have creative input, with their governmental partner, in the policies that led to the Celtic Tiger economy in what had been one of the poorest countries in Europe and the social structural transformations that allowed the “boom” to filter down to the public at large. Anthropologists also have been called on more recently in Ireland to assist the government with ethnic minority issues, especially those of the indigenous minority, the travelling community.

Since the beginning of the 1990s, nonacademic jobs for anthropologists have increased, and more anthropologists have found themselves involved in the business world, especially in marketing, although the irony of this may not be lost on those who were students when Jules Henry’s anti-Madison Avenue research, published as Culture Against Man, was a popular textbook in the 1960s and 1970s. Much of the new material centers around cultural miscues that corporations and individuals make in advertising— physical gestures, slang, and so on—when acting crossculturally (e.g., Chevrolet’s attempt to market the Nova automobile in Latin America where the homonym of the name means “does not go” or Gerber’s attempt to market baby food with an infant’s picture on the label in parts of Africa where labels routinely showed the containers’ contents for consumers who could not read). Other businessoriented approaches fall more along the lines of the Western Electric bank-wiring study (noted above) conducted by W. Lloyd Warner in the 1930s.

Nonetheless, some members of the anthropological community still consider business anthropology to be “colluding with the enemy,” according to Jason S. Parker of Youngstown State University in a recent article in the Society for Applied Anthropology Newsletter. Parker points out that these same critics, who stigmatize those applied anthropologists that work in business, are not offering any jobs to their recently minted bachelor’s degree graduates, who must then look elsewhere. Parker argues that the anthropological perspective can benefit the employees, as well as the corporations, through the inclusion of their input in the manufacturing processes.

Ann T. Jordan has written a persuasive argument for the use of anthropology in the business world in her book Business Anthropology. Jordan cites a number of cases in which anthropologists have ameliorated conditions that had the potential to lead to labor disharmony through managerial insensitivity to working conditions. Likewise, she explains that cross-cultural conflicts and misunderstandings on the job could easily be avoided with anthropological input.

Applied Anthropology Today

Louise Lamphere suggested a convergence of applied, practicing, and public anthropology in 2004. Lamphere argues that anthropologists in the 21st century should collaborate with each other, as well as with the groups that they are investigating, on archaeological research, health, urban, and environmental topics to unify their work on critical social, educational, and political issues. The traditional research populations increasingly want greater degrees of jurisdiction over what is written about them, and applied anthropologists, especially those influenced by the feminist critique, have advocated more collaboration with their respondents on ethnographic publications and museum exhibits in order to express more emic perspectives. This joint participation in the research and presentation process (whether by publication or museum display) fosters skills and generates capacities for indigenous change within communities.

Charles Menzies erects a paradigm to foster these joint ventures based on his work with the Gitkxaala Nation in British Columbia, which consists of four stages. First, the anthropologist opens a dialogue with the community that may suggest modifications to the research protocol. Then, research continues to grow and change in consultation with the respondents—who now are becoming “coethnographers.” Next, the research is conducted jointly between academics and members of the society. Finally, the data and results are analyzed by the joint team and the reports are coauthored. Lamphire advocates training students to conduct collaborative research of this nature as anthropologists increasingly find themselves employed by nonacademic public and private organizations.

21st-century anthropologists increasingly find themselves involved in policy-making jobs in areas as diverse as libraries and the army. The University of Rochester library hired anthropologist Nancy Fried Foster, under a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, to study undergraduates’ term paper research, to steer library renovations, and to make suggestions on the redesign of its Web site. Foster used traditional anthropological research methods to discover that not only are many students extremely uncomfortable with the increasing technological changes that universities are forcing on them but also that they use the libraries to escape from them.

A recent Society for Applied Anthropology Newsletter reports that anthropologists increasingly may become involved in work with the military via a program called the Human Terrain System under the Department of Defense (DoD). According to Susan L. Andreatta, president of the SfAA, the DoD wants to employ graduate-level anthropologists in Iraq and Afghanistan. Opinions on this are divided, but one may note that the Society was founded by anthropologists who worked for the war effort in the 1940s.

The anthropologist and senior consultant to the Human Terrain Systems project is Montgomery McFate. William Roberts of St. Mary’s College, Maryland, describes her argument as one in which a military that has greater understanding of indigenous civilians in war zones will reduce loss of life and cultural destruction.

Also, archaeologists may be involved with the military on sensitive issues. As of this writing, archaeologist Laurie Rush serves as a cultural resources manager at the United States Army’s Fort Drum, where she works with the Integrated Training Area Management unit of the DoD’s Legacy Program to develop a consciousness for archaeological treasures. This project arose out of a British Museum report that detailed the construction of a helicopter pad by U.S. Marines on the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon, the destruction of a 2.5-millenniaold brick road, and the filling of sandbags with artifacts. Part of Rush’s program involves building models of archaeological sites, mosques, and cemeteries for soldiers to train to avoid.

Television programs such as Crime Scene Investigation (CSI), CSI: Miami, CSI: New York, and Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) have sparked an international interest in forensics. This, in turn, has led to a student population interested in forensic anthropology. Cable television’s Discovery Health channel has created a true-life version of the CSI phenomenon with its Forensic Files program, which features cases solved by forensic anthropologists, such as Elizabeth Murray of the College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati who works regularly with law enforcement agencies across the country.

The ABC News and Christian Science Monitor Web sites occasionally report on the applications of forensic science. They describe forensic anthropologists and archaeologists who have been involved in the identification of the remains of the nearly 3,000 victims of the September 11, 2001, attack; Jon Stereberg, a forensic archaeologist, has tried to trace the evidence of 1992 gas attacks in the clothing of victims in the Balkans; and Clyde Collins Snow, a retired forensic archaeologist, has investigated grave sites in Guatemala, Bosnia, and Iraq. Currently, forensic specialists, such as Ariana Fernandez, are examining the bodies of Kurdish people who were found in mass graves and who are believed to have been massacred in a genocide attack during the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq.

The travel and tourism industry is in dire need of the services of anthropologists, and this is becoming an attractive employment option to anthropology graduates, according to Susan Banks, an anthropologist involved in the travel industry. Too often, tourists will go to exotic locales where they believe that they are seeing the actual types of lives lived in those places, unaware that they are being fed a fabricated culture designed, not to expose them to life in other places, but to screen them from the true ways of life found in those locations. Commonly, tourists are discouraged from visiting local towns and actually learning something about the countries that they have visited. Anthropology can offer a remedy to this problem and provide some much-needed income to the local economies. Exploitation and insensitivity to indigenous people by culturally uninformed tourists does little to change the image of the “ugly American.” Likewise, the international sex trade both exploits and victimizes indigenous peoples and furthers the spread of dangerous diseases, such as HIV/AIDS.

Environmental degradation of local ecologies is another problem of culturally ignorant tourism. For this reason, Susan Charnley, in an article in Human Organization in 2005, suggests a change from nature tourism to ecotourism. She cites the case of Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) in Tanzania. Nature tourism involves traveling to pristine locations where tourists can experience and enjoy nature; ecotourism involves traveling to natural areas that conserve the local ecology while respecting the rights of the local cultures and encouraging sustainable development. Charnley makes the case for the increasingly difficult position of the Massai people since the creation of the NCA and the negative effect it has had on their economy. Charnley argues for culturally appropriate involvement of local people in tourist destinations in ways that will provide actual benefits to their communities. These benefits would include social and political justice and involvement in decision-making processes that directly influence their lives.

A selection of articles from Human Organization from the first decade of the 21st century includes such topics as the administration of federally managed fisheries, including a discussion of the role of James A. Acheson who was the first applied anthropologist hired by the National Marine Fisheries Service in 1974 to conduct policy research and implementation through conservation and stewardship of marine ecosystems.

Another article described the importance of beer parties among Xhosa labor cooperatives on homesteads in South Africa. An article that has to do with changes in gender relations and commercial activities, as the global market expands to countries such as Mali, explores how the outside world can force local peoples to change the structure of their society by giving advantages to one gender over the other when that may not have been the case previously. Another article illustrates what the author of this chapter sees as a parallel between the popular use of family trusts in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s and a move from individual land tenure to collective, kinbased ownership on Mokil Atoll in Micronesia, as the region’s political, economic, and demographic transformation has imperiled the rights of absentee owners. By placing the land ownership in the kin group, it is protected from individual alienation.

A 2007 article by Kathryn Forbes is especially topical in the current social, economic, and political climate of the United States today. Forbes’s article examines how the regional land use of ideologies and popular images of farm workers has contributed to a housing crisis for Mexican agricultural laborers in Fresno County, California. Stereotypic descriptions of Mexican farm workers have resulted in the formulation of zoning codes that exacerbate demographic segregation in Fresno County. Most farm workers live in rural areas, which are more economical and more convenient to their sources of income but where there are fewer retail outlets—including groceries. The arrival of seasonal laborers, combined with a lack of affordable housing thanks to local policymakers, has engendered a regional overcrowding crisis for Mexican farm workers. Forbes’s role in this discussion is similar to the review of the roles that anthropology can play in public policy cited by Wilson and Donnan (2006) in Ireland.

Forbes’s article is especially relevant to the United States today as the influx of immigrant labor, thanks in part to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), has made the appearance of Hispanic laborers a topic of vituperative discussion on national radio talk shows and political campaigns. This is a point that falls clearly within the purview of social science rather than politics as anthropological demographers and gerontologists clearly can demonstrate that not only does the country require immigrant labor because of statistical “full employment,” but also it needs to save social security from the influx of baby boom retirees.

The bankruptcy of social security was predicted in university classes as long ago as the 1970s. The increase in life spans, coupled with the potentially disastrous demographic effect of a baby boom generation that will retire to be supported by a much smaller (thanks to the introduction of the birth control pill in the 1960s) birth dearth/baby bust cohort, has the potential to lead to economic disaster for the latter group as their increasing social security taxes erode their quality of life. The baby boom retirees’ social security taxes must be replaced from somewhere—if not by eroding the birth dearth/baby bust cohort’s quality of life, then by an influx of tax contributors, for example, immigrant laborers.

Anthropologists are in a unique position to act as the social partners of policymakers on this issue not only by means of their demographic and gerontological expertise but also by their ethnographic contributions to allay the concerns of the extant non-Hispanic population of the United States over its possible perception of cultural drowning by immersion in a neo-Hispanic society del Norte (“land of the north”).

Likewise, anthropological expertise in indigenous Latin American medical beliefs, such as hot and cold, wet and dry bodily conditions derived from the ancient Mediterranean medical concept of humors where illnesses were believed to be caused by an imbalance of humors; folk illnesses, such as susto (“fright”), a culture bound syndrome found in southern Mexico in which an individual who does not recover from an illness is believed to have had a terrible fright in the past that prevents recovery from the unrelated illness (Rubel, O’Nell, & Collado-Ardon, 1991); and cultural sensitivities to variations in conceptions of sexual modesty and familial responsibilities will form a necessary component in the rapprochement of the two larger cultures although this may be difficult in cases of smaller subcultures.

Other areas for future research in applied anthropology include human trafficking (briefly cited in the discussion of tourism); indigenous rights (e.g., salmon fishing among the native Northwest coast peoples in North America, cattle grazing in the Burren in County Clare, Ireland, or the effects of water control on the Marsh Arabs of southern Iraq); anthropometry and gender (in the cultural sense, not the linguistic sense) stereotypes and gender rearing roles; cultural relativism versus cultural interference, including whether or not Muslim women need to be “saved” or if Western hegemonists even have the right to do so; genital mutilation (male as well as female); the role of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in distributing information and treatment of HIV/AIDS; food waste, diet and health, and body image; intelligent design, globalization and hightech industry; and the role of biology and culture in psychiatric illnesses, to name but a few of the possibilities open to applied research in anthropology.

In an article titled “Making Our Voices Heard—Ethical Dilemmas and Opportunities,” in the November 2007 Society for Applied Anthropology Newsletter, Mark Schuller of Vassar College gives a good review of the future of applied research in anthropology. Schuller writes that many anthropologists believe that their contributions are considered marginal and irrelevant and are passed over in policy making based on a review of the leading anthropological journals and newsletters. He argues that applied anthropologists with a holistic viewpoint can inform policymakers regarding the integrated structural correlation among debt and poverty, education, health care, and local welfare via their engagement with local communities. Schuller calls for local, global, and ethical analysis of current concerns to make anthropology applicable in the “real” world. He suggests that a good way to apply anthropology is through teaching; his students investigate public policies and then send letters to the editors of newspapers in order to introduce anthropological viewpoints into current policy discussions.

Schuller has been keyword-searching “anthropology” on Google and reports that he has found at least two stories a day in which anthropologists are interviewed or have authored stories in media outlets. Among the included issues that his students or other anthropologists have written about in daily news publications is the part played by anthropologists in clandestine activities, inequalities of globalization, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) health care bill, the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, No Child Left Behind, prison reform, disclosure of hormone content in milk, Hurricane Katrina “fatigue,” and the cancellation of international debt in impoverished nations of South America.

In the same issue, Amanda Stronza of Texas A&M University describes a new program in applied biodiversity science, which also will tackle poverty and cultural inequality. The interdisciplinary research program integrates cooperation between social and biological sciences and conservation organizations at the applied level. Research topics are to incorporate biodiversity with local legislative policy in partnership among academia, governments, NGOs, and local societies in four regions of the Americas.

This research paper has explored the subject of applied anthropology. It was done from a historical perspective in order to gain a processual understanding of how it arrived at the state in which it is found in early 21st-century anthropology.

A brief definition of applied anthropology was followed by a review of the origins of applied anthropology in the 19th century and a history of the field through World War II, the Fox Project, the Peru Vicos Project, and Project Camelot. The section on the later 20th century led into applied anthropology today and topics for future research.

Bibliography:

• Boas, (1903). Heredity in      head          form.      American Anthropologist, 5 (3), 530–538.
• Bourgois, P. (1995). In search of respect: Selling crack in El Barrio. NewYork: Cambridge University Press.
• Carlson, S. (2007). An anthropologist in the library. Chronicle of Higher Education, 53 (50), A26.
• Chagnon, N. (1997). Yanomamo (5th ed.). Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace College.
• Colburn, L. L., Abbott-Jamieson, S., & Clay, P. M. (2006). Anthropological applications in the management of federally managed fisheries: Context, institutional history, and prospectus. Human Organization, 65 (3), 231–239.
• Dobyns, H. F., Doughty, P. L., & Lasswell, H. D. (Eds.). (1971). Peasants, power, and applied social change: Vicos as a model. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
• Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (1969). The Nuer: A description of the modes of livelihood and political institutions of a Nilotic people. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
• Forbes, K. (2007). Bureaucratic strategies of exclusion: Land use ideology and images of Mexican farm workers in housing policy. Human Organization, 66 (2), 196–209.
• Foster, G. M. (1973). Traditional societies and technological change. New York: Harper & Row.
• Harris, M. (1968). The rise of anthropological theory. NewYork: Harper & Row.
• Henry, J. (1963). Culture against man. New York: Vintage Books.
• Horowitz, I. L. (Ed.). (1967). The rise and fall of project Camelot: Studies in the relationship between social science and practical politics. Cambridge: MIT Press.
• Jordan, A. T. (2003). Business anthropology. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press.
• Kroeber, A. L. (1919). On the principle of order in civilization as exemplified by changes of fashion. American Anthropologist, 21 (3), 253–263.
• Lamphere, L. (2004). The convergence of applied, practicing and public anthropology in the 21st century. Human Organization, 63 (4), 431–443.
• Lewis, O. (1963). The children of Sanchez: Autobiography of a Mexican family. New York: Vintage Books.
• Lewis, O. (1966). La vida: A Puerto Rican family in the culture of poverty—San Juan and New York. New York: Random House.
• Liebow, E. (1967). Tally’s corner. Boston: Little, Brown.
• Madian, L., & Oppenheim, A. N. (1969). Knowledge for what? The Camelot legacy: The dangers of sponsored research in the social sciences. British Journal of Sociology, 20 (3), 326–336.
• McAlister, P. (2004). Labor and beer in the Transeki, South Africa: Xhosa work parties in historical and contemporary perspective. Human Organization, 63 (1), 100–111.
• Mead, M. (1973). Coming of age in Samoa: A psychological study of primitive youth for Western civilization. New York: American Museum of Natural History. (Original work published 1928)
• Mead, M., & Rhoda M. (Eds.). (1949). The study of culture at a distance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Oles, B. (2007). Access and alienation: The promise and threat of stewardship on Mokil Atoll. Human Organization, 66 (1), 78–89.
• Rubel, A. J., O’Nell, C. W., & Collado-Ardón, R. (1991). Susto: A folk illness. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Schuller, M. (2007). Making our voices heard: Ethical dilemmas and opportunities. Society for Applied Anthropology Newsletter, 18 (4), 15–17.
• Spradley, J. P. (1970). You owe yourself a drunk: An ethnography of urban nomads. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.
• Stronza,A. (2007). New graduate research opportunity in applied biodiversity science. Society for Applied Anthropology Newsletter, 18 (4), 43–44.
• Tax, S. (1975). Action anthropology. Current Anthropology, 16 (4), 514–517.
• Tierney, P. (2000). Darkness in El Dorado: How scientists and journalists devastated the Amazon. NewYork: W. W. Norton.
• van Willigen, J. (1993). Applied anthropology (Rev. ed). Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey.
• Whorf, B. L. (1964). Language, thought, and reality: Selected writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf (J. B. Carroll, Ed.). Cambridge: MIT Press.
• Wilson, T. M., & Donnan, H. (2006). The anthropology of Ireland. Oxford, UK: Berg.
• Wooten, S. (2003). Women, men and market gardens: Gender relations and income generation in rural Mali. Human Organization, 62 (2), 166–177.

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How to Write an Anthropology Paper

Last Updated: October 1, 2020

wikiHow is a “wiki,” similar to Wikipedia, which means that many of our articles are co-written by multiple authors. To create this article, volunteer authors worked to edit and improve it over time. This article has been viewed 14,848 times.

Writing a paper for an Anthropology course can be a new experience for those of you that are new to this field of study. Anthropology is generally understood as the study of all people across all points in time and space, and is broken down into four distinct sub-fields in the American tradition: Cultural anthropology, Biological/Physical anthropology, Linguistic anthropology, and Archaeology. Most introductory-level courses, or “Anthropology 101”, will briefly cover what each of these sub-fields mean and how anthropologists work within them. If you’re taking one of these beginner courses, you will most likely have to write an academic paper at some point. This instructional set will provide step-by-step instructions on how to help you successfully write your first anthropological essay using the American Anthropological Association (AAA) guidelines for formatting and citations and how to find credible anthropological sources/information

• Get all of your supplies organized and have everything on hand.
• Make a quick schedule to help you stay on track. If you have plenty of time before the due date, set up daily goals to help you stay on track with all of the research and writing you might have to do. Spreading out your workload will definitely help take away some of the stress.
• If you have plenty of time before the due date, set up daily goals to help you stay on track with all of the research and writing you might have to do. Spreading out your workload will definitely help take away some of the stress.

• Obviously this step isn't anthropology-specific, but it really is one of the most important steps when it comes to writing any paper.
• Try to start and finish your outline in one sitting.  You can always edit it as you move along, but having a complete outline before you start the actual writing process will help you work a lot quicker and more efficiently.

• American anthropology has four distinct sub-fields: archaeological, cultural, linguistic, and biological/physical.  Knowing how you can apply one or more of these sub-fields to help support your argument is crucial to anthropological writing.
• How do you know which field applies to your paper's topic?  The answer is usually all of the above.  In very basic terms, everything that has anything to do with people can be observed and analyzed anthropologically.

• The Internet is a magical and wonderful place for conducting research.  Just make sure that you know where to look when it comes to credible resources.
• Know the difference between scholarly and public sources.
• Get familiar with your school's library system.  Many universities and colleges have free and easy-to-access websites that can access great material.

• This is the official formatting guideline for the American Anthropological Association.
• You can access a free PDF of it here: http://www.aaanet.org/publications/guidelines.cfm
• Although you may not use this format in an introductory-level course, anyone who wishes to pursue their degree in anthropology will most certainly have to write a few papers using this.

• Make sure you understand all of the vocabulary and key concepts from your notes and textbook.
• Does your thesis statement makes sense and do your topic sentences support your claims?
• Do you have enough sources for your assignment?  Are they credible, accurate, and relevant?

• Remember to follow your outline and stick to your writing schedule (if you made one).
• Take short breaks every hour or so to review your work, or to simply just give yourself a rest.

• Ask them to look for things like logical flow of ideas, clarity, and get their overall opinion first.  Spelling and grammatical errors should be noted, but not the main focus of this part in the editing process.
• Once you have their feedback, start working on your final masterpiece.

• Have you completed all of the prompts or answered all of the questions that may have been listed in the rubric?
• Did you meet the length requirements?
• Does the format and citation style comply with the rubric as well?
• Can you identify your thesis statement and topic sentences?
• Did you successfully support your claim?
• Did you cite your sources properly?
• Are there any spelling or grammatical mistakes?
• How did you apply your knowledge of anthropology in this paper?

Expert Q&A

• Here are a few links to some really great anthropological websites. Check them out if you get stuck on your research step. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• American Anthropological Association website: http://www.aaanet.org Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• Anthropology Resources on the Internet: http://www.anthropology-resources.net/index.html Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

Things You'll Need

• a computer with a word processor program
• your class notes and textbook
• access to the Internet

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Writing a Paper for Your Anthropology Class: Creating Citations for your Anthropology Paper

• Getting Started
• Understanding Types of Sources
• Evaluating the Quality of Information
• Understanding Citations, Plagiarism, and Academic Integrity This link opens in a new window
• Creating Citations for your Anthropology Paper

Citation Styles

Three citation styles that are commonly used in humanities and social sciences classes are the Chicago Manual of Style , the MLA Style , and the APA Style . As you write for different classes, you can use the official style guides or an excellent resource for students that was developed at Purdue University's Online Writing Lab (OWL ). Be sure to check with your professor which citation they require. 

The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition,  is now the style preferred by the American Anthropological Association. From the link in this paragraph, you will access a searchable Chicago Manual of Style, 17th ed, with an index. Use the gray search box in the upper right corner of the resource in order to find how to cite books, journals, maps, museum exhibitions, paintings, and sculptures, for example. To see examples provided by the American Anthropological Association, see the AAA Style Guide .

The APA Style Manual ( PennKey protected version ; free version ) was developed by the American Psychological Association and is a style preferred by many social scientists. APA style recommendations often leave out common citations in anthropology, including artifacts, museum installations, and wall text. However, APA is flexible enough that you can build a " frankenreference ": a reference to a citation not explicitly spelled out in the style manual. The examples below are some suggested frankenreferences for anthropologists using APA style.

Core APA Citation Principles

Four core elements of an apa citation.

The four core elements of an APA citation are: the author , the date , the title , and the source . 

Kirk, S. (2019).   Excavation attempts for 1990s South Jersey time capsules placed by adolescents with poor judgment [Map]. Burlington County Historical Society.

Sometimes, elements of a citation are missing. What to do in these circumstances is described in detail in the 7th edition of the APA Style guide, section 9.4, pg. 283-284. Examples of various circumstances are below.

What to do if there is no source

A source depicts where the citation can be retrieved. One circumstance in which there may be no retrievable source would be a personal communication: an interview with a subject not recorded for public use. In APA style, personal communications do not appear in the reference list, but they do appear in in-text citations.

(S. Kirk, personal communication, November 1, 2019)

Examples of common reference types

A much more extensive list of examples can be found in the 7th edition of the APA Style Manual, chp. 10.

Journal article

Runnels, C. N. (1982). Flaked-stone artifacts in Greece during the historical period.  Journal of Field Archaeology, 9(3), 363-373. https://doi.org/10.2307/529670 

Magazine article

Gorelick, L., & Gwinnett, A. J. (1981). The origin and development of the ancient near eastern cylinder seal: A hypothetical reconstruction.  Expedition ,  23 (4), 17-30. https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/the-origin-and-development-of-the-ancient-near-eastern-cylinder-seal/

Newspaper article

Wilford, J. N. (2002, January 8). Seeking Polynesia's beginnings in an archipelago of shards. The New York Times . https://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/08/science/seeking-polynesia-s-beginnings-in-an-archipelago-of-shards.html

Renfrew, C., & Bahn, P. (2012). Archaeology: Theories, methods, and practice  (6th ed.). Thames & Hudson.

Edited book

Inhorn, M. C., & Wentzell, E. A. (Eds.). (2012).  Medical anthropology at the intersections: Histories, activisms, and futures . Duke University Press.

Chapter in an edited book

Rapp, R., & Ginsburg, F. (2012). Anthropology and the study of disability worlds. In M. C. Inhorn & E. A. Wentzell (Eds.),  Medical anthropology at the intersections: Histories, activisms, and futures  (pp. 163-182). Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822395478-011

Foxhall, L. (2007). Olive cultivation in ancient Greece: Seeking the ancient economy . Oxford University Press. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/upenn-ebooks/detail.action?docID=415603 

Dissertation or thesis from a database

Schweitzer, T. (2010). Philadelphia foodways ca. 1750-1850: An historical archaeology of cuisine (Publication No. 3431172) [Doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses. 

Report by a government agency or other organization

American Anthropological Association. (2015). Familiar/strange: 2015 annual report . https://s3.amazonaws.com/rdcms-aaa/files/production/public/FileDownloads/pdfs/about/Annual_Reports/upload/2015AAA_AnnualReport.pdf

Unpublished manuscript

Fuertes, E. A. (1872-1873).  Mexican Indian languages: vocabularies of the Zapoteco from Suchitan, Zoque from Chimalapa and Mixe from Guichicori  [Unpublished manuscript]. Berendt-Brinton Linguistic Collection ( U Penn Ms. Coll. 7 00, Item 107. ).  Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania. http://hdl.library.upenn.edu/1017/d/medren/9940733833503681

Personal communications

When an interview can be retrieved (e.g., in audio, video, or transcript form) from a source like YouTube, it can be cited in a reference list.  For an interview that has not been stored where others can access it, per APA Manual 6th edition, cite it instead as personal communications in text only.

Kirk, S. (2019, March 1)  Interview with Sam Kirk - part I  (D. Stewart, Interviewer) [.mp4] Retrieved from https://mediaspace.library.upenn.edu/media/0_xre417sl 

Domínguez, H. P., & Reguera, P. H. (1972).  Palma del Río [Map]. MAGNA 50: Mapa geológico de España a escala 1:50.000 (2nd series, sheet 942). Instituto Geológico y Minero de España. http://info.igme.es/cartografiadigital/datos/magna50/pdfs/d9_G50/Magna50_942.pdf

Lessing, E. (n.d.).  Family returning from fieldwork along the banks of the Nile [Photograph]. Erich Lessing Culture and Fine Arts Archives, ARTSTOR (SSID 18145600). https://library.artstor.org/#/asset/LESSING_ART_10313455305 

Film or video

Harris, H., & Bridenbach, G. (Directors). (2004).  The Nuer  [Film]. Documentary Educational Resources. (Original work published 1970)

YouTube or other streaming video

IT University of Copenhagen. (2018, February 26). Sarah Pink: Digital ethnography [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ugtGbkVRFM

Bostrom, P. A. (2014, February 28). Axes & celts style variation worldwide . Lithic Casting Lab. http://lithiccastinglab.com/gallery-pages/2014marchaxestylespage1.htm

Penn Museum. (2019, November 1). Early Copan acropolis program.  https://www.penn.museum/research/project.php?pid=7

Digital Egypt for Universities. (2002). Basketry . https://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/digitalegypt/Welcome.html

Special sources in Anthropology

The APA Style Manual was developed by the American Psychological Association. APA style recommendations often leave out common citations in anthropology, including artifacts, museum installations, and wall text. Such content is often covered in more detail in other citation styles, like the Chicago Manual of Style. Strangely, the 6th edition of the APA Style Manual includes suggestions on documenting archival works (section 7.10), but the 7th edition is less detailed on this subject.

However, APA is flexible enough that you can build a " frankenreference ": a reference to a citation not explicitly spelled out in the style manual. The examples below are some suggested frankenreferences for anthropologists using APA style.

Exhibition catalogs

Rose, C. B. & Darbyshire, G. (2016).  The golden age of King Midas exhibition catalogue . University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

Hickman, J. (2016). Gold the first day. In C. B. Rose & G. Darbyshire (Eds.), The golden age of King Midas exhibition catalogue  (pp. 60-63). University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

Many museums will have their own guidance on how to cite their objects. Consult their websites first to see if they recommend certain features of their records be included in your citation, and then use APA's general principles to order the items in your citation. See examples on citation guidelines from the  Penn Museum and the  United States Holocaust Memorial Museum .

Bogner, S., Schmitt, P., & Voigt, J. (2016). Raising robotic natives  [Installation]. Designs for Different Futures , October 22, 2019 - March 8, 2020. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA, United States.

[Human effigy vessel]. (1200-1500). Moundbuilders: Ancient Architects of North America, June 24, 2017 - April 26, 2020 ( Object 11586) . Penn Museum, Philadelphia, PA, United States. https://www.penn.museum/collections/object/29104

[Anasazi jar lid]. (n.d.). Penn Museum collections storage (Object 23019). Penn Museum, Philadelphia, PA, United States. https://www.penn.museum/collections/object/318098

Registrar object catalog cards

For information retrieved from a catalog card in the Museum Registrar's Office, rather than from the online collections database:

[Catalog card for Anasazi jar lid]. (n.d.). Penn Museum Registrar's Office (Object 23019). Penn Museum, Philadelphia, PA, United States.

Object/Artifact labels

[Object label for Highway 557 Through the Plaza , 2013, by Jenny Ellerbe]. (2017). Moundbuilders: Ancient Architects of North America, June 24, 2017 - April 26, 2020. Penn Museum, Philadelphia, PA, United States.

[Wall text for bone decorative items]. (2017). Moundbuilders: Ancient Architects of North America, June 24, 2017 - April 26, 2020 (Objects SAM-2016-2-4.1, SAM-2016-2-7.3). Penn Museum, Philadelphia, PA, United States.

[Wall text for Mississippian ceramics]. (2017). Moundbuilders: Ancient Architects of North America, June 24, 2017 - April 26, 2020. Penn Museum, Philadelphia, PA, United States.

Citation Mangement Tools

• Refworks Refworks is a web-based bibliography and citation manager provided by the Penn Libraries
• Zotero A free, easy-to-use browser extension to help you collect, organize, and cite your research sources
• Mendeley 2GB of free storage that assists with gathering, reading, and organizing research and citations.
• EndNote Basic 2 GB of free storage for reference management. The University does not have a site license for EndNote. Individuals and departments may purchase copies from Penn's Computer Connection.

Guide Co-Author

Samantha Kirk

Information Literacy Librarian

for Penn Libraries, 2011-2020

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• Last Updated: Apr 16, 2024 10:14 AM
• URL: https://guides.library.upenn.edu/WritingAnthropology

Research Paper

Category: anthropology research paper examples.

Today, after about 150 years, the discipline of anthropology is as active and relevant as ever. Incorporating the ongoing advances in science and technology, students in anthropology find no lack of engaging anthropology topics for research papers. There is the challenge and need to study and protect endangered nonhuman primates, to continuously search for fossil hominid specimens and hominid-made stone artifacts, and to comprehend the many complex relationships between our biocultural species and its dynamic environment. Moreover, research in anthropology has been very instrumental in increasing human tolerance for the biological variations and cultural differences that exist within the hundreds of societies that comprise our global species. As a new research area, applied anthropology strives to be relevant in this civilized but converging world (e.g., the emergence of forensic anthropology and biomedical anthropology).