This guide contains the
following sections:
• About Writing in
Anthropology
• Common Types of
Writing
• Book Reviews &
Ethnographic Analyses
•
Evidence in Anthropology
•
Conventions of Writing in
Anthropology
• Citation & Formatting
• Common Errors in
Writing in Anthropology
The Disciplinary Writing Guides are
designed to provide an introduction to
the conventions, or rules, of writing in
different subjects. These guides have
been designed by Southwestern
professors to help you understand what will
be expected of you in your classes.
By Dr. Melissa Johnson
Guide for Writing in Anthropology
About Writing in Anthropology
Thinking anthropologically first and foremost means temporarily
suspending ones’ assumptions about how the world works, about what is
“normal” and what is “strange.” In other words, anthropology exhorts its
practitioners to be “culturally relative”—to try to understand cultural
difference on its own terms. Anthropological thinking refuses
ethnocentrism and attempts to see difference without arranging that
difference in a hierarchy.
At Southwestern we focus on sociocultural anthropology. When
writing in/for sociocultural, or cultural, anthropology, you will be
asked to do a few things in each assignment:
• Critically question cultural norms (in both your own
culture and other cultures).
• Analyze ethnographic data (e.g., descriptions of
everyday activities and events, interviews, oral
histories) to identify significant and interesting
patterns.
• Organize ethnographic and other types of evidence
(such as historical accounts, newspapers, maps, etc.) to
describe and analyze a phenomenon, event or cultural
feature, or to support an argument about such.
• Critically review a theoretical perspective for its
effectiveness in making sense of cultural phenomena.
About
this guide
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In your anthropology classes at Southwestern, you will encounter several different types of writing, including:
Journal-entry style personal reflections ask you to connect class material with your own life
experiences, beliefs, and emotions. The mechanics of writing matter less in these
assignments than authentic engagement with the topic assigned.
Types of Writing in Anthropology
Personal Reflection
Short essay assignments may ask you to engage with (often controversial and challenging)
class material. These may be reflective essays (like the journal-entry style reflections
described above), or they may ask you to synthesize information and concepts that were
covered in class lectures, discussions, and readings. In these essays, the mechanics of
writing do matter, and there should be strong organization and development of ideas.
Short Essay
Research Paper
Research papers address a topic that is chosen by the student or assigned by the
instructor. These kinds of papers entail putting course content into conversation with
other scholarly literature on a topic or theme. You will be expected to do effective
searches for information in the library—both among the library’s book collection and
through the electronic databases that hold journal articles. Typically, you are not limited
to books and articles that are strictly ‘anthropological,’ but you will be expected to find
material from a range of disciplines that addresses the topic you are writing about. These
articles and books will then need to be synthesized and organized to speak to the
argument you plan to make. Research papers must be well organized, with each section
building upon the others and supporting the main argument of the paper. Sources should
be cited as they are used; it is not necessary to use direct quotations. A list of works cited
should be included at the end.
As an anthropology student at Southwestern, you’ll also be expected to write book reviews and analyses
of ethnographic data. You will encounter these latter assignments as either a short paper on a small set of data in
Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, or as a longer more in-depth analysis of a larger set of data in the
Ethnographic Methods class. Below you will find a further explanation of these two common types of writing.
A Closer Look:
Book Reviews and Ethnographic Analyses
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Book Reviews
In the SU anthropology program, book
reviews are not book reports summarizing the
content of a book. Rather, book reviews are essays
that critically evaluate the effectiveness of a text in
fulfilling its stated goals and in relationship to the
content of the course in which it is assigned. Reviews
should be like the book reviews found in academic
journals (such as American Ethnologist, American
Anthropologist, Ethnos, Journal of the Royal
Anthropological Institute and other similar journals).
Reviews describe what the author tries to accomplish
in the text and how they make their point. They
include a discussion of what evidence is provided and
how it is used, and they evaluate how well the author
achieved their goal in writing the book. Additionally,
book reviews should describe the theoretical
perspective and/or main concepts the author uses to
make their argument. Finally, effective book reviews
find the connections between the material covered in
the book and the themes and concepts addressed in
the course in which the review is assigned.
A number of anthropology courses require students to
engage in ethnographic analysis. You will collect ethnographic
data (through participant observation and interviewing) and
analyze this data for any patterns and cultural meanings that
emerge. You will then write up rich ethnographic
description, or detailed physical descriptions of the places and
people involved, as well as descriptions of how people behave
and interact. Often, assignments will ask you to connect the
ethnographic data you’ve created to scholarly literature on
related topics; thus you will be expected to conduct a search
of relevant scholarly literature through the library and its
electronic databases. One hallmark of our anthropology
program is our close attention to the production of
knowledge—the question of how knowledge is made
legitimate and academic. Because of this we ask students to
take a reflexive approach to their ethnographic writing. You
should use “I” and clarify who you are in relationship to the
research you’ve conducted and the analyses you put forth.
Excellent ethnographic analysis will include all of the above
elements and will be coherently organized around a broader
point that you are making with the analysis.
Ethnographic Analyses
Evidence in Anthropology
You may be asked to use any of a wide array of types of evidence.
For assignments asking you to engage in ethnographic analysis, you are expected to use your own field notes (the
notes you write describing the cultural phenomena you are studying, your accounts of your own participant-observation
in the cultural context on which you are focusing), or transcripts of interviews or oral histories you have conducted.
These kinds of sources can either be summarized in the paper in which they are used, or they may be directly quoted.
You may also use newspaper or magazine articles, websites, advertisements, or a range of other materials.
For book reviews, you will use the text of the book as their evidence. In mid- and upper-level courses, students
who write research papers or contextualize their ethnographic analysis in related scholarship will be expected to use
information from scholarly journal articles and academic texts that contain information on their topics. The best place to
begin your search for scholarly articles and books is the library’s main catalog, which leads to World Cat, the largest
database available for journals (and books), which offers extensive, immediate access to the full text of articles. JSTOR is
also good, but has a five-year publication delay, so you will not find sources for the most recent five years available in that
database. The library also has a rich collection of both monographs and edited volumes that can be useful, and a very
useable interlibrary loan service. Remember: any student paper that includes reference to published sources should
include a works cited list.
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For each of these sections, different types of research are required. First, the communication
object or artifact being analyzed must be researched. You will provide context for the object
Use of the first-person “I”
In anthropology papers, it
is often acceptable to use the
pronoun “I” to make the writer
visible to the audience. This
pronoun should be used judiciously
depending on the assignment.
Clearly, anthropology
instructors want students to use “I”
and express their opinion in the
journal-type assignments. Using “I”
is also expected in ethnographic
analysis. But because these papers
are not primarily about the student,
but rather about the cultural
phenomena being analyzed, we
expect a more judicious use of “I.”
For critical book reviews, research
papers and the literature review
(particularly the related scholarship
section) for the methods and
capstone papers, the use of “I”
would be less appropriate.
Active vs. Passive Voice
We encourage you to use the
active voice, but we also recognize that
beautiful writing may contain both
active and passive voices. However,
just as using “I” reveals the author to
the audience, active voice makes the
“actor” or “subject” front and center,
which is something we generally aim
for—we want the people we study to
be as present as possible in our writing.
Verb Tense
What tense to write in is a
challenging issue. The most important
point related to this is consistency. The
second point to remember is the
problem of creating a false sense of
authority and surety through using the
present tense in describing cultural
phenomena, and yet at times a writer
will indicate that something is an on-
going still present feature of what is
being described. Be aware of these
issues, aim for consistency and the
anthropology instructors will work
with you to find the best way to use
tense in your writing.
A Note on Style
Readers in anthropology
appreciate beautiful writing with
elegant style. Complex sentences are
welcome and should be mixed with
shorter sentences. You should aim for
beautiful, clear, elegant and evocative
style. Particularly in papers that
include ethnographic analysis, we
encourage students to write as rich and
thick an ethnographic description as
possible. You should aim to conjure up
the experiences you had, the events and
interactions you witnessed, for their
readers. Metaphor and other figures of
speech are welcome. Of course this
kind of rich writing should be well
matched with clarity!
To Quote or To Paraphrase?
When you use your own ethnographic data, you are encouraged to directly quote your research participants
(from interview transcripts and oral histories, newspaper articles, or historical documents, etc.). However, when using
information from journal articles and academic texts, you should aim to summarize, paraphrase, and synthesize as much
as possible. Anthropology courses are sequenced to help you master the skills required to synthesize (find common
themes and connections between a number of scholarly texts) scholarly literature by the time you reach the capstone
course. Paraphrased material should be cited at least once per paragraph, or, if several sources are used in a paragraph, at
the end of each sentence in which the source is used.
If there are short quotes that perfectly capture a central point a writer is aiming to make, it is acceptable to quote
the sources. Quotations three lines or shorter should remain in the text, and should be indicated with quotation marks,
and followed by a parenthetical phrase indicating author, date of publication, and page number on which quote
appeared). Quotations longer than three lines should be “blocked”: located on a line below and indented on either side
by 0.5 inches (and should include source information at the end the parenthetical as indicated above).
Conventions of Writing in Anthropology
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Citations and Formatting
How to Avoid Some Common Errors
It is conventional in anthropology to use parenthetical in-text citations to indicate a scholarly source,
and then a works cited list at the end of the paper that includes all sources used in the paper. Using footnotes to
indicate sources is relatively uncommon in anthropology. As a discipline, anthropology does not have as
uniform a practice of citation style as (for example) psychology does. Each main anthropological journal has its
own particular citation style. Thus, the most important point regarding citation style is consistency within a
paper. Instructors may assign a specific citation style, or else students should choose one style and use it
consistently. You should take care with on-line bibliography generators. These often will create errors in your
reference list. Carefully proofread your works cited list and your in-text citations, using a guide to the citation
style you are using to ensure your paper conforms to the style. As a department, we provide some information
on the Chicago B (author-date) style that is close to a number of the styles that different journals use. Look for
such a style guide on moodle sites for your course, or in the
“Student Resources” section of the Debby Ellis
Writing Center website.
You should feel free to use either footnotes or endnotes to add additional comments or notes about a
point in the paper. However, anthropology does not use footnotes or endnotes as a format for citing sources.
Sources are cited in text and a works cited list should be the last page(s) of the paper.
One of the most common errors in anthropology papers is some kind of ethnocentrism, or lapse in cultural
relativism. This is often expressed through erroneously attributing an emotion or value to why people are doing what
they are doing. For example, if a student noted that all the men at a party were winking at each other for ten minutes,
they cannot assume they know why unless they actually spoke to each man. Therefore, they cannot write that this was an
example of, say, “sexism” on the part of the men. Sometimes, in book reviews, students will make comments about how
“weird” something is—again, that is not how anthropologists think. Something might be different, but we do not
judge those differences.
One of the most difficult aspects of writing upper level ethnographic analysis papers is identifying the best
related scholarship, and ensuring that the thick ethnographic description, the analysis of the moment,
and the related scholarship all fit together well. You should not freak out if that seems hard: it is hard.
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All anthropologists struggle with this. Strategies for working through this include 1) taking a break from the paper and
coming back to it with fresh eyes; 2) having a peer (ideally someone with experience in writing in anthropology) read
and provide feedback and 3) making outlines of what you actually have on paper to see if the flow and linking of your
arguments and data make sense.
You should make certain that your paper flows logically—one idea follows the next, arguments/points
are well supported with evidence, arguments cohere throughout the paper. You might try reverse-outlining your
paper or bringing it by the writing center to ensure that your arguments are well organized and clear.
Try not to over-write. Although we encourage students to develop an elegant style, especially in lower-level
classes, you should aim first for clarity and precision in your writing. As you master clarity and precision, you
can experiment more with complexity of sentences, with the use of figures of speech, etc.
Be sure to read your prompt carefully and to answer each part of it. Anthropology instructors put a
great deal of thought and time into designing assignments, prompts, and assignment guidelines. The Debby Ellis Writing
Center offers online “Tips for Reading a Prompt”
in the “Student Resources” section of their website, and you can always
ask your professor or a writing consultant if you have any questions about what is expected of your paper.
