anthropologists use. You may have used some other method of citing sources, but the University expects students to learn how to cite using different methods. All you have to do to cite a source for anthropology papers is remember to put 3 things in your citation: (Author Date:Page). Sometimes there is no page number, so you can cite a “location number” or slide number. The AAA anthropology style guide, based on the Chicago Manual of Style, is provided to help you cite sources. Citations are extremely important in scholarly writing. If you don’t cite your sources, please do not expect to earn a high grade. You need citations throughout your paper, every time you use any data, ideas, or examples that other people have written or filmed.
Quotations: For this anthropology assignment, students are expected to paraphrase instead of “quoting,” unless the exact words of the author make a critical difference in your analysis of the data. Literature courses analyze an author’s writing style and wording, by picking a sentence or passage to “quote,” and then analyzing it. However, this is not a literature course. Anthropology is a humanistic science. Science courses, including anthropology, do not analyze an author’s writing style. Science courses analyze data, which you must summarize or paraphrase in your own words. You should be able to summarize or paraphrase information from sources, and not use “quotations” as a replacement for your own writing. If a person’s specific words are used as data, you should limit the amount of verbiage that you “quote” to just the important words that make a critical difference in your analysis. You should not have long “quotations” filling up the pages of your essay – this is called “patchwork.” Always cite a paraphrased passage or a “quotation.” Citations and quotations are two different things.
Bibliography: You list the full reference information for the source, at the end of your paper, in the bibliography section. This includes the author’s full name, the date of publication, the title, the place of publication, and the name of the publisher. Some of the course materials have not been published, so you can just cite the name of the author and the title, with “n.d.” (no date) and “unpublished” instead of a publisher.
Copying: Whatever you do, do not copy and paste any phrases or sentences off the Internet or from other people’s papers or published works, because for college term papers that’s considered plagiarism. Presenting somebody else’s writing as your work is a kind of theft, punishable by law, and the University has additional sanctions for it. Such shenanigans will earn you an F and a visit with the Dean for plagiarism. Therefore, be sure to study the slide show “How to Paraphrase,” so that you summarize and paraphrase the right way, and don’t get caught plagiarizing.
Editing: Edit your paper before turning it in. You can use a spell checker, but that won’t be enough. Go through manually and look for spelling and grammar errors. University students are expected to have good spelling and grammar. Study the slide show “How to Write an Expository Essay” for tips. Toss out sentences that do not relate directly to the analysis. Get rid of “fluffy writing” (see slide show). Make your sentences as clear as possible. Get rid of typos. Get rid of subtitles. Do not put any extra space between paragraphs. The paper should be double spaced (no more, no less). Use Times New Roman font, 12-point. Make sure the first sentence of each paragraph is indented 5 spaces.
