anthropology thesis format

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Department of anthropology.

Senior Thesis Option

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Deadlines for 2024-2025 Academic Year

Proposal form deadlines.

• Friday, September 6, 2024 (5:00pm ET):  Online Senior Thesis Proposal Form due for ANTH 4010 enrollment in fall 2024. See full details .
• Friday, December 13, 2024 (5:00pm ET): Online Senior Thesis Proposal Form due for ANTH 4010 enrollment in spring 2025. See full details . Students taking ANTH 4010 in spring are encouraged to submit their proposal as early as possible in the fall. 

Note: Proposals for taking ANTH 4010 in spring semester will be approved only if the student has already begun working on their project with supervision of an advisor in or before the previous fall semester.

Senior Thesis Deadlines Fall 2024

• Deadline 1: Advisor Review  - Friday, October 18, 2024 (5:00pm ET) 
• Deadline 2: Final Submission to Department  - Friday, December 13, 2024 (5:00pm ET)

Senior Thesis Deadlines Spring 2025

• Deadline 1: Advisor Review - Friday, March 14, 2025 (5:00pm ET)
• Deadline 2: Department of Anthropology Senior Thesis Prize  - Wednesday, April 30, 2025 (5:00pm ET) 
• Deadline 3: Final Submission to Department - Wednesday, April 30, 2025 (5:00pm ET)

Introduction Overview Thesis Advisors Research Ethics in Anthropology Funding and Research Support Thesis Format Preparing for Your Senior Thesis Project Proposing Your Senior Thesis Project to the Department ANTH 4010 Senior Thesis Style and Formatting Guide Deadlines for 2022-2023 Academic Year Deadline 1: Advisor Review Deadline 2: Department of Anthropology Senior Thesis Prize Deadline 3: Final Submission to Department Graduating with Departmental Honors Use of a Previously Written Term or Research Paper Multiple Theses

Introduction

The Anthropology Department encourages all majors to do anthropological research. You can find examples of senior theses on the library  Scholarly Commons .  You may participate in research through coursework and opportunities such as PURM, field and laboratory experiences, internships, and work-study. You may work on research projects directed by Anthropology Department faculty; Penn Museum curators, researchers, and staff; or advanced graduate students. We encourage you to explore research possibilities early on. Motivated students have the opportunity go one step further by conducting independent research and writing a senior thesis, though completing a senior thesis is not mandatory. 

Students considering the senior thesis option should discuss this possibility with the Undergraduate Chair and potential thesis advisors as early as possible, and no later than spring of the junior year. The senior thesis requires significant preparation and effort on the part of the student as well as their advisor(s). Though called a “senior thesis”, the process begins well before senior year. In addition, the quality of scholarship we expect exceeds that of the typical term paper. Considerable time and energy is required, which may preclude participation in other important aspects of undergraduate life, for example study abroad, summer jobs, or some extracurricular activities. Writing a senior thesis is not for everyone, and it is not the only way to get the most from your anthropology major. Because of these considerations, we hope you will reflect deeply upon what you hope to achieve through the senior thesis experience, and whether it is a good fit for you, before you begin. 

The timeline for the senior thesis process is as follows:

• In freshman, sophomore, and junior year , get experience doing anthropological research through coursework and opportunities such as PURM, field and laboratory experiences, internships, and work-study.
• Enroll in ANTH 4000 (the required Research Seminar), in fall of your junior year . While students may also complete this course in the fall of senior year, senior thesis students are strongly encouraged to enroll in the junior year, as it will help prepare them to conduct independent research.
• By spring of junior year , you should start defining your research questions and methods with the guidance of your thesis advisor(s) and the Undergraduate Chair. Determine whether you need to submit your research protocols for IRB approval , and if so complete the CITI training and IRB submission. At this time, seek funding to support your research. Most research funding deadlines are in February and March.
• Focus on data collection for your project during the summer between junior and senior year . You can also collect data in the fall of senior year, but it will leave you less time for analysis and writing, so summer is preferred.
• Work on the analysis, writing, and revisions of your thesis throughout your senior year . Enroll in ANTH 4010 (the Senior Thesis independent study) in fall and/or spring of your senior year . Students must take ANTH 4010 at least once to fulfill the senior thesis requirements.
• Submit your senior thesis in the spring of your senior year , following the senior thesis deadlines.

Thesis Advisors

For most students, the senior thesis advisor will be someone with whom they have already done research in another capacity. You should build connections with faculty members early by getting involved in research projects, internships, etc. This is the best way to form relationships that have the potential to develop toward a senior thesis project. Since serving as a senior thesis advisor requires a significant commitment of time and energy, it is best to ask someone who already knows you well. You should ask about your advisor’s schedule well in advance to assure that person would be able to work with you during the duration of your senior thesis project.

Your advisor will help you define and focus the thesis project and help you identify research materials, protocols for research, potential contacts in other departments, and funding sources for travel, research costs, and supplies. When your project is underway, your advisor will provide feedback during research, analysis, interpretation, and writing.

Generally the thesis advisor is a Full, Associate, Assistant, or Adjunct Professor in the Anthropology Department . You may also petition the Undergraduate Chair to enlist an affiliated faculty member, a faculty member in another department or school, a Penn Museum staff member, or an advanced graduate student to advise your undergraduate thesis project. In the case of a non-Anthropology faculty member, you must also arrange for a co-advisor who is a member of the Anthropology faculty. The role of the thesis advisor is distinct from that of your major advisor or primary faculty advisor, but the two advisors might be the same person. You may have more than one advisor for the thesis.

If you have an idea for a senior thesis project but you do not already have strong faculty connections in your junior year, it will be more difficult to find an advisor. If you are in this situation, we recommend you first meet with the Undergraduate Chair to discuss your project idea. Then, identify and reach out to out to 3 to 4 people who could potentially serve as an advisor. To identify possible advisors, search for people who research related topics and/or employ the methods and theory you plan to use.

Research Ethics in Anthropology

All students conducting senior thesis research must follow ethical research practices. Considerations for ethical research should begin with the American Anthropological Association Statement on Ethics , and discussions with your advisor.

Many anthropology senior thesis projects involve human research participants, and are therefore subject to review by the Penn Institutional Review Board. You can read more on the Penn IRB website under  Guidance for Student Researchers . Penn IRB also offers a  Student Guidance Manual . If your research involves human research participants, you must complete the CITI Training for Human Research . Then, you will need to submit your research protocols to the Penn IRB  before your project is underway. The IRB will review your project and request changes, if needed. Research that does not need IRB review may include archaeological projects or those entirely based upon museum collections and/or archives. If unsure, ask your advisor and the Undergraduate Chair, or reach out directly to the Penn IRB Student Research Analyst .

You must collect and store research data in a secure and responsible manner. See Penn Libraries resources on Data Management and Planning  for guidance.

Depending on your research, you may need certain permissions or clearances (for example, a background check or Child Abuse History Clearance.) You are responsible for determining if you require any such clearances, and securing them if needed.

The American Anthropological Association (AAA) provides a list of Ethics Resources  that you should refer to as you develop your research project.

Finally, students must adhere to the University of Pennsylvania Code of Academic Integrity throughout the senior thesis research process.

Funding and Research Support

Many students receive financial support from at least one funding source to help cover research costs. Such funding can be used to support travel, research expenses, and analysis related to a senior thesis project. Most deadlines occur in March or earlier, so students who plan ahead and apply to funding sources in the junior year are much more likely to receive financial support.

The Anthropology Department grants a limited number of Undergraduate Research Awards  awards every spring, and the Penn Museum also awards Student Field Funds . Juniors planning to complete senior thesis research are encouraged to apply to these funding sources, both of which have deadlines in March.

The Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships (CURF) maintains an extensive list of funding opportunities for undergraduate students, which we highly encourage students to explore. Sign up for the CURF mailing list  to stay informed about opportunities.

Additionally, students in the Benjamin Franklin Scholars program may apply for BFS Summer Research Funding .

Research Support

The Penn Libraries have a dedicated research librarian for Anthropology and Archaeology available to assist you, as well useful guides on Anthropology , Archaeology , and Ethnography . There are also guides for specific software you may use, such as Excel and NVivo . Students working on qualitative and mixed-methods research can use software on computers in the Penn Libraries .

The Information Commons provides invaluable resources including training , equipment lending , and software . This includes video and audio recording equipment and technology for interview transcription. Help with statistical research skills (including STATA, R, and Excel) is available by making an appointment for a Statistical Software Consultation .

Students interested in research on Penn Museum collections should consult with the Academic Engagement Department .

The Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials provides resources for students interested in archeological analysis and digital archaeology.

Thesis Format

The typical senior thesis is a long research paper. There is no designated required page length; however, your thesis must show substantial research on your chosen topic. You will work with your thesis advisor to agree on an estimated thesis length that is appropriate for your research topic. Previously, senior theses have ranged from 20 pages to 120 pages, depending on the focus of the research and the applied methods.

You may propose to complete your senior thesis in a format other than the typical research paper. For a thesis project with an experimental or non-traditional format (a documentary video, for example) you will work closely with your advisor to fulfill individualized departmental guidelines. In this situation, you must meet with the Undergraduate Chair to agree upon your timeline and evaluation measures before submitting your Senior Thesis Proposal Form.

Preparing for Your Senior Thesis Project

1. Devise a senior thesis idea based on your own interests and prior academic and research experience. 2. Identify your senior thesis advisor(s). 3. Establish your project’s specific focus and research protocols with the help of your advisor(s). 4. Determine whether you need to submit your research to the Penn Institutional Review Board (IRB). Most senior theses involving human subjects research need IRB review. If so, complete the CITI training and IRB submission well in advance of the time you will start collecting data. The review process may take several weeks and you may need to modify specific aspects of your project based on IRB feedback. 5. Apply for funding to support your research, if needed.

Proposing Your Senior Thesis Project to the Department

After you have adequately prepared for your senior thesis project, you must submit the online Senior Thesis Proposal Form to the department for approval.

When you submit the form, automated emails will be sent to 1) your listed advisor and 2) the Anthropology Undergraduate Chair. Each of them will be prompted to review your submission and approve your form with their digital signature.

After the approvals are complete, the Undergraduate Coordinator will contact you with instructions for enrolling in ANTH 4010.

The deadlines to submit the form are as follows:

• Friday, September 6, 2024 (5:00pm ET):   Online Senior Thesis Proposal Form due for ANTH 4010 enrollment in fall 2023.
• Friday, December 13, 2024 (5:00pm ET):   Online Senior Thesis Proposal Form due for ANTH 4010 enrollment in spring 2024. Students taking ANTH 4010 in spring are encouraged to submit their proposal as early as possible in the fall.

ANTH 4010 is the 1 c.u. senior thesis independent study course. To complete the senior thesis, you must enroll in ANTH 4010 during the fall and/or spring of your senior year. Your thesis advisor will serve as the instructor for the course. You must take ANTH 4010 at least once, but you may take it twice. If you take ANTH 4010 twice, you will receive an "S" grade for the first semester of work. When you complete your thesis, your advisor will assign a final grade to both semesters of the project.

The Undergraduate Coordinator will set up a section of ANTH 4010 for you and issue you a permit to enroll after receiving your completed senior thesis proposal form by the appropriate deadline. You will not be able to find ANTH 4010 in the Course Search, since the sections are created on an individual basis.

ANTH 4010 is not to be confused with ANTH 4000. ANTH 4010 is the independent study only for senior thesis students, while ANTH 4000 is the research seminar required for all majors.

Senior Thesis Style and Formatting Guide

Your thesis must follow the Department's Senior Thesis Style and Formatting Guide .

Deadlines for Spring 2024 

• Deadline 1: Advisor Review  - Friday, March 14, 2025 (5:00pm ET)
• Deadline 2: Department of Anthropology Senior Thesis Prize  - Wednesday, April 30, 2025 (4:00pm ET)
• Deadline 3: Final Submission to Department  - Wednesday, April 30, 2025 (5:00pm ET)

Deadline 1: Advisor Review

Friday, March 14, 2025 (5:00pm ET)

Description

You must submit a full draft of your thesis to your thesis advisor. By this time, your draft must include your data, analysis, discussion, and bibliography. Your advisor will review your thesis and note areas for revision. Then, your advisor will inform you and the Department (via an email to the Undergraduate Chair) if your thesis would be acceptable to fulfill the thesis requirement for departmental honors, once revised.

If the advisor does not recommend your thesis for departmental honors, they may offer you the chance to revise it to meet departmental expectations for honors. You and your advisor will agree upon a deadline for revisions.

Email your completed thesis draft to your advisor(s) by the deadline.

Deadline 2: Department of Anthropology Senior Thesis Prize

Wednesday, April 30, 2025 (5:00pm ET)

Each year the Department of Anthropology awards a cash prize for the best senior thesis. A committee of Anthropology faculty members evaluates the submissions, looking for a clear and well-written presentation of original research with appropriate theoretical framework and methodology. Your thesis must follow the Department's Senior Thesis Style and Formatting Guide .

Eligibility Criteria

Students must take ANTH 4010 in either the fall or spring of their senior year, and the advisor must agree that the thesis is ready for submission.

Email your completed senior thesis in Word or PDF format to the Undergraduate Coordinator by the deadline.

Deadline 3: Final Submission to Department

You must submit your senior thesis to the department following predetermined protocols. This multi-step process may take several days. Therefore, review the Submission Guide  well in advance of the deadline to ensure you can complete the steps on time. Your thesis must follow the Department's Senior Thesis Style and Formatting Guide . Once you've completed this process, you will need to submit a signed  Author Agreement  form to the Undergraduate Coordinator. 

Follow all of the requirements outlined in the Submission Guide  by the deadline. Reach out to the Undergraduate Coordinator if you have any questions. Submit the signed  Author Agreement  form after you've submitted the thesis. 

Graduating with Departmental Honors

Completing the senior thesis is one of the requirements for graduating with departmental honors (a notation of “Distinction in Anthropology” added to the student’s transcript upon graduation.) To earn departmental honors, students must:

1. Complete the senior thesis. Students must meet all requirements of the senior thesis by the appropriate deadlines, and the thesis advisor(s) and Undergraduate Chair must thereafter approve the thesis for honors.

2. Achieve a 3.50+ GPA in all coursework applied to the Anthropology major.

3. Opt-in to be considered for departmental honors by emailing the Undergraduate Coordinator no later than 30 days prior to your date of graduation.

Use of a Previously Written Term or Research Paper

Your thesis may be a substantially revised and expanded version of a term or research paper written for a course in Anthropology or a closely related field, but only with the express permission of your senior thesis advisor and the course instructor for whom you wrote the original paper. You must indicate this on the senior thesis proposal form. Additionally, the original paper must be submitted to the department with your senior thesis proposal form by the proposal deadline. Your senior thesis must incorporate an anthropological approach, perspective, methodology, and/or theory (even if the original paper did not.)

If you already carried out research with human subjects for the original assignment without receiving IRB approval, you must consult with your advisor to determine how to move forward.

See the University of Pennsylvania Code of Academic Integrity .

Multiple Theses

Anthropology students who are double majoring may consider writing a senior thesis for each major. A senior thesis cannot be submitted for credit to more than one department or program. In rare cases, students may petition to use library or research data as the basis for separate senior theses, provided that each individual thesis is framed within the theory and methods of the appropriate disciplines and/or departments. In order to do this, the student must petition and receive approval from the senior thesis advisors of both theses, the Undergraduate Chair in the Department of Anthropology, and the equivalent individuals in the other department, program, and/or school in advance of beginning the thesis process. See the University of Pennsylvania Code of Academic Integrity, Part D (Multiple Submission) .

Anthropology@Princeton

Senior thesis research, what does an anthropology senior thesis look like.

Independent work in the senior year consists of a thesis based on ethnographic research on a timely issue or deep analysis of the extant anthropological literature on a topic of interest. A thesis that has a central artistic component must be accompanied by a substantial written essay. The Anthropology Department encourages methodologically and theoretically innovative senior thesis projects that expand our understanding of diverse lifeworlds and reorient ethical and political imagination. The research and critical reading skills that students develop in writing the junior paper (JP) are just as crucial to writing the senior thesis.

Senior theses take many different forms in anthropology; many styles of writing and interpretation are valid. However a student approaches it, the thesis should address a clear research question, explain the significance of the question, critically engage literature relevant to the question, and present an analysis of data that bear on the question. Senior theses are expected to be based on original research, and are therefore more complex than JPs in their treatment of research topics. Correspondingly, Anthropology senior theses (about 20,000 words) are longer than JPs (about 8,000 words)..

What do Anthropology majors write about in their senior theses?

A student in the sociocultural anthropology track may choose any topic relevant to the discipline of anthropology. For a student in the law, politics, and economics track, the senior thesis should focus on an anthropological topic related to one or more areas of focus of law, politics, and/or economics. Since anthropologists consider the body the existential ground of culture, a student in the medical anthropology track can choose any anthropological topic for the senior thesis, provided the methodological and theoretical approach taken is approved by the student's senior thesis adviser. 

Senior theses in anthropology have focused on a wide variety of subjects and have been based on field, library, laboratory, and museum research. Some theses have also included creative components — for example, a theater production, photography exhibit, dance performance, or documentary film — but such projects must be accompanied by a substantial written essay. For an idea of the range of possible topics, see Anthropology Senior Theses and prizes awarded . Students can also refer to the Mudd Library's online catalog of Princeton University senior theses  to download an entire thesis online within the Princeton domain, or browse and leaf through a collection of bound copies of (2019 and earlier) Anthropology senior theses housed in the Anthropology Department office in 116 Aaron Burr Hall. 

Thesis Research

A senior thesis in anthropology may be based on field research, or grounded in deep reading and analysis of the extant anthropological literature on a specific topic. Doing thesis research during the summer between junior and senior years is very helpful but not required for anthropology majors. Individual situations vary.  For example, one student might plan the thesis during the spring of junior year and become fully engaged in thesis research during the summer; another might choose to spend the summer engaged in other endeavors, but make plans during the spring to conduct research at the end of the summer or upon return to campus in the fall. During the spring term of the junior year, JP advisers are available to help their students plan next steps. If a student plans to begin research after the summer, or has reason to continue research that was initiated during the summer, limited fieldwork may be conducted during the fall term, winter break, or intersession.

A junior major with ideas for a thesis topic begins by discussing those ideas with the JP adviser, although students are also welcome to consult other faculty members as appropriate to the specific project. A student interested in conducting research during the summer between junior and senior years should begin planning by the start of the spring semester in junior year, and should plan adequate time to complete the research (usually a minimum of four continuous weeks for field-based research, and possibly longer, depending on the project). Fieldwork-based thesis research requires IRB approval . Students learn about the IRB in the required core course ANT 301, The Ethnographer's Craft ,. Students must take ANT 301 prior to the proposed start date of senior thesis field research except in rare circumstances. (A student must be recommended by his or her JP adviser and approved by the director of undergraduate studies for an exception to the ANT 301 requirement. In the event of a spring study abroad in junior year, the director of undergraduate studies may choose to approve an ANT 301 substitute, if such a course is available.) When a student applies for senior thesis research funding in junior year, it is normally the JP adviser who helps the student and then evaluates the research proposal. The JP adviser is also normally the faculty member acting as the "PI" (principal investigator) on the student's IRB application seeking approval to conduct summer fieldwork.

The Student Activities Funding Engine (SAFE) is a student portal to all University funding opportunities, including support for senior thesis research offered by  departments, programs, and centers on campus, in addition to the University-wide Office of Undergraduate Research. One of the funding opportunities in SAFE is the Anthropology Department’s “field-based senior thesis research grant program." Funding from ANT is intended primarily as support for thesis research conducted during the summer before senior year, but ANT juniors may also apply in the spring for Department funding for thesis research planned in advance for senior year. For the Anthropology Department’s grant program, there is only one application cycle each year (in the spring); however, there are other University-wide funding opportunities that accept applications in the fall term of senior year.

The timing of summer research planning is partly determined by the deadlines to apply for funding (applicable to both library and field-based research), as well as the review cycle at the IRB for research involving human subjects (applicable to fieldwork only). 

Structure and Format

Anthropology theses are usually multi-part or multi-chapter projects, ranging from 20,000 to 25,000 words (excluding notes, references, illustrations, tables, and appendices) and contain three or four main sections.

Students should consult anthropology journals (like American Anthropologist) for guidance on the proper style of footnotes, citations, and bibliographies. Note that the citation of sources is not usually placed in footnotes in anthropological journal articles, but rather placed parenthetically in the text itself; footnotes are reserved for clarifications and other asides. For more detailed guidelines, refer to the American Anthropological Association (AAA) Style Guide .

Senior Seminar and Advising

Anthropology seniors are each assigned a thesis adviser early in the fall term with whom they ought to consult regularly all year. Additionally, students are welcome to consult any faculty member, within or outside the Anthropology Department, in developing their research. However, barring exceptional circumstances, an anthropology major’s thesis adviser will be a member of the Anthropology Department faculty. 

The senior seminar is a required, ungraded course that meets periodically during the fall term.  It is designed to help students "workshop" their senior theses. The format of the seminar is collaborative; students work closely with the other members of their group, helping one another to refine and revise their ideas and their writing as they move through the fall. At the end of the senior seminar and before the end of the fall term, students have written their senior thesis proposal.

For a detailed timeline for the senior thesis, students can refer to the "Senior Calendar" that is posted at the beginning of each academic year in the Canvas for Anthropology Concentrators. Departmental deadlines for the senior thesis are clearly shown on this calendar. Students are expected to use the calendar to help pace their own independent work. A student who is in danger of missing a deadline must read and understand the department’s policy on extensions and late work .

Senior thesis writers should also refer often to the Guide to Independent Work in Anthropology , a handbook that is updated as needed at the beginning of each new academic year. The anthropology Libguide and anthropology databases are also invaluable resources.

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Senior Thesis

Students considering an independent thesis must arrange for the sponsorship and support of a faculty member before beginning research. An independent senior thesis (not written within a senior seminar) should be based on original research and reflect the student’s understanding of fundamental theories and issues in anthropology. The thesis should be comparable in content, style, and length (generally 25–30 pages) to a professional journal article in its subfield. Students who wish to complete the senior comprehensive requirement through and independent thesis will enroll in a section of ANTH 195S supervised by their thesis sponsor or ANTH 195A , ANTH 195B and ANTH 195C series.

Senior theses have been based on independent ethnographic studies, life histories, and laboratory analyses of archaeological or osteological remains. The department has copies of past Senior Theses available for review in the Ethnographic Library (328 Social Sciences 1). These theses are an excellent resource for students who want to get an idea of the range of topics available for study and the appropriate structure and style of Senior Theses. Students are permitted to review the various theses but they are not to be removed from the Ethnographic Library.

Senior Thesis Process

Students who plan to write an independent Senior Thesis must begin planning well in advance – typically three quarters before they plan to graduate. The Senior Thesis process usually takes about a full academic year and requires that students are highly self-motivated and committed to their thesis topic. Most students spend at least one quarter conducting research and one quarter writing the thesis. The steps for completing a Senior Thesis are described below.

STEP 1:    Decide on a topic. This can be developed independently or in conjunction with a faculty member. The Senior Theses in the Ethnographic Library are an excellent resource for students in the process of determining the style, subject, and scope of their research and writing process.

STEP 2:    Find a permanent Anthropology faculty member who will sponsor and advise you on your thesis. Your faculty sponsor will supervise your research and writing, evaluate your thesis, and write your final thesis evaluation. Visiting faculty, lecturers and graduate students cannot supervise Senior Thesis projects. The department recommends that you approach a faculty member with whom you have taken a course with in the past and whose research interests are similar to yours.

Most faculty will not supervise students whom they have never supervised in a class, nor will faculty ordinarily work with students who have not already demonstrated superior work in their Anthropology coursework at UCSC. If you intend to do ethnographic fieldwork for your Senior Thesis you should first select a thesis adviser, then plan this research in consultation with your adviser. Do not complete the fieldwork first and then attempt to find an adviser.

STEP 3:    If the research for your thesis involves work with either human subjects or with animals, then you MUST talk to your thesis adviser regarding the Human Subjects or CARC applications. Human Subjects and CARC applications are a very important aspect of doing advanced research. Without submitting and gaining approval on a Human Subjects or CARC application students cannot present or publish any findings from thesis research.  

STEP 4:    Conduct your thesis research. You may elect to take an Independent Study course (ANTH 197, 198 or 199) with your thesis adviser so that you can receive units for your research. Keep in mind that only  ONE  Independent Study course may be counted towards your Upper- Division major requirements and that all students must complete 10 Upper-Division courses in the major.

STEP 5:    Enroll in ANTH 195S and write your thesis. For information on format, rules, and style, talk to your thesis adviser and see the  American Anthropological Association’s Style Guide . Anthropology Senior Theses must demonstrate proficiency in the discipline of Anthropology.   Your senior thesis must be submitted by the end of the quarter in which you are enrolled for ANTH 195S.  

Submitting Your Senior Thesis

The final draft of your senior thesis must be submitted to the department so that the Anthropology Undergraduate Advisor can confirm completion of the senior comprehensive requirment when processing major checklists for graduation.

Below is a link to the Senior Thesis Submission and Evaluation Form.  You will be required to provide the following information in the form:

• Student ID #
• Faculty Sponsor for Thesis (Instructor of Record for ANTH 195S or ANTH 195A/B/C)
• Current Quarter and Year
• Thesis Title
• Geographic Region of Research Project
• Summary of Thesis
• Upload of Thesis Document
• If you choose to share your thesis, it will be available to UCSC affiliates logged into their UCSC Google Account

You will not be able to submit the form until all of these fields are completed.

Upon submission of the form, you will automatically be redirected to DocuSign where you will confirm your decision to share the thesis by initial (required).  Because the thesis is unable to be transmitted to DocuSign, you will be prompted to upload a copy of your thesis again.  The document you upload through DocuSign will be appended to the DocuSign form.

Once you have submitted the DocuSign form, it will be routed to your faculty sponsor who will confirm that the thesis submitted satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement. 

If your faculty sponsor determines that the thesis warrants review for honors, they will select another senate faculty member from the Department of Anthropology to review as a second reader.  The second reader will confirm whether the thesis merits honors.

Finally, the completed DocuSign document will be routed to the Anthropology Undergraduate Advisor who will process completion of the senior comprehensive requirement. 

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Anthropology concentrators pursue a diverse range of topics and places that covers every time period from the pre-historical to the present, and every major world area. Recent senior honors thesis have investigated:

• The relationship between the Boston Catholic Church and its Spanish-speaking members
• Islamic Finance in Malaysia
• A Cancer Ward in Kenya
• Stigma in the Lives of Unmarried Women in Contemporary China
• Challenges in Housing Rights Advocacy in Bolivia

The requirements for honors eligibility are distinguished by program. Certain honors recommendations are possible without a thesis. 

Students are encouraged to consult A Student's Guide to Reading and Writing in Social Anthropology and the AnthroWrites website.

• Archaeology Honors
• Social Anthropology Honors
• Combined Archaeology-Social Anthropology Honors

Thesis Track (12 courses)

• Including one Archaeology Graduate-Level Research Seminar (2000-level)
• ANTH 99: Thesis Tutorial in Anthropology, a full-year writing workshop, culminating in the submission of a senior thesis and an oral thesis examination.

Non-Thesis Track (10 courses)

All graduating seniors in Archaeology who are not thesis candidates and have taken a 2000-level course may be considered for a non-thesis honors recommendation of Honors (but not High or Highest Honors), provided that their concentration grade point averages calculated at the end of their next to last terms are among the highest twenty-five percent of non-thesis candidates in their graduating class in Archaeology. To be considered for a High or Highest Honors recommendation in Anthropology, a student must complete a thesis, in addition to the requirements specified above.

• Basic Concentration Requirements

All graduating seniors in Social Anthropology who are not thesis candidates may be considered for a non-thesis honors recommendation of Honors, provided that their concentration grade point averages calculated at the end of their next to last terms are among the highest twenty-five percent of non-thesis candidates in their graduating class in Social Anthropology. To be considered for a High or Highest Honors recommendation in Anthropology, a student must complete a thesis, in addition to the requirements specified above.

All graduating seniors in Combined Archaeology and Social Anthropology, who are not thesis candidates may be considered for a non-thesis honors recommendation of Honors (but not High or Highest Honors), provided that their concentration grade point averages calculated at the end of their next to last terms are among the highest twenty-five percent of non-thesis candidates in their graduating class in Combined Archaeology and Social Anthropology. To be considered for a High or Highest Honors recommendation in Anthropology, a student must complete a thesis, in addition to the requirements specified above.

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Senior Honor Thesis

Anthropology

What is a senior honors thesis.

The Anthropology Honors Thesis program provides outstanding seniors the opportunity to conduct original scholarly research under the mentorship of an anthropology faculty member, to write an honors thesis, and ultimately to graduate with departmental honors.

The senior thesis requires two semesters that may begin in either fall or spring semester when the student has senior status. Normally, it is completed in a fall-spring sequence of semesters.

Registration in the two semester course Anthro H195 with the thesis advisor is required; a final grade for the course is awarded after the completion of Anthro H195B. The first semester is spent in the formulation of the topic, theoretical/literary exploration and research, methodological development, primary data collection/research/analysis, and beginning to write; the second semester is spent writing the thesis, submitting drafts to two readers for critical comments and suggestions in a timely manner, and polishing the final thesis.

Although there is no specific length requirement, a typical undergraduate Honors Thesis contains 50-100 pages of text, along with a bibliography, and often includes illustrations and tables.

Applying for the Senior Honors Program

Students apply in the semester before they want to begin the senior honors program by taking the following steps:

• The departmental decision on admission to the senior thesis program will include consultation with the faculty instructor for this course.
• Overall UC GPA 3.5 or higher at the time of application and when beginning the thesis.
•  Major GPA 3.6 or higher at the time of application and when beginning the thesis.

  NOTE: The major GPA is based solely on courses completed at Berkeley.

Requirements:

(1) complete prerequisites:

• complete at least 8 units of Anthropology courses and be enrolled in at least 8 more units successfully (for a total of at least 16 units in Anthropology at UC Berkeley)
• complete a section of Anth 196. Students interested in the honors thesis program should plan to take a section of Anthropology 196, an  upper-division Undergraduate Seminar, the semester before they intend to begin the two-semester senior thesis program. 
• complete Anth 114 and the Methods requirement or be enrolled in them when applying

No incompletes should be on record at the time of application or when beginning the thesis. All incomplete grades must be resolved before a student can submit an application for the thesis program.

(2) assemble a thesis committee:

• identify a faculty advisor who agrees to supervise Anth H195A and H195B
• present a thesis proposal, in writing, to the proposed faculty advisor for approval
• identify a second faculty reader, in consultation with the primary faculty advisor. The second reader may be a professor from another department, if approved by the primary Anthropology faculty thesis advisor.

The faculty advisor  confirms the proposal is acceptable by sending email to the Undergraduate Major  Advisor approving enrollment in Anth H195A for the following semester.   This step is required.

The Undergraduate Major Advisor confirms that course requirements have been met, and if they have, enrolls the student in the first semester of the two semester course Anthro H195. The student must request enrollment in H195B by the Undergraduate Major Advisor at the start of the second semester of the program.

Getting Started when you have met the requirements:

Your first priority is settling on a general topic and a particular faculty advisor. If you are unsure which faculty member in the Anthropology Department might best help you, consult with the undergraduate advisor in 215 Anthropology and Art Practice Building (Formerly Known As Kroeber Hall), and with the Anthropology Faculty Undergraduate Advisors.  Prepare a brief thesis proposal--a statement of the research question and your plan of action including a discussion of the research methods you will employ. Visit your prospective thesis advisor with your proposal in hand and ask if they are able to sponsor you. If the response is "yes," then the subsequent process is largely up to you and your thesis advisor. If the answer is "no" (the faculty member may be on leave the coming year, unable to commit the time that you and your project merit, etc.), meet with additional faculty until you find sponsorship.

In addition to the sponsorship of an Anthropology professor as thesis advisor, the honors program requires you to have a second faculty sponsor, commonly referred to as the second reader. The second reader is only required to read and comment on a near-final version of the thesis, but may choose to play a greater role. In unique circumstances, the second reader may be a professor from another department, if approved by the Anthropology thesis advisor. Discuss with your thesis advisor who would make a good reader for your project, and arrange to meet with a prospective reader(s). If they agree to work with you as your Thesis Advisor, you are ready to complete the thesis process. Ask your main Faculty Advisor to email the Anthropology Undergrad Advisor, (me :), to request your enrollment into the Prof's H195A, during the enrollment phase. Although it is helpful to secure both thesis readers at the start of the process, the second reader is sometimes identified within the first or beginning of the second semester of the Thesis program. But remember to always consult with your Main Faculty Advisor on the who to approach for the Second Reader position.

NOTE: It is recommended that the student find out early that both readers agree on the same research methodology and range of required readings, that the project is not too large to be completed in two semesters, and that both readers be available (not on sabbatical or leave) for both semesters.

Once you obtain sponsorship from an Anthropology faculty member and second reader, have your main Advisor email the Undergrad Advisor to request enrollment. And please remember to request enrollment from the undergraduate advisor at the start of the second semester for enrollment into H195B, the second semester of the Thesis program. The honor coursework, (H195A & H195B) may count as 2 of the 5 Anthropology elective requirements for the major.

NOTE: Anthropology H195A and H195B are independent study courses; there is no instruction or class time involved. All the work for the thesis and these 2 courses is done independently.

Application Timeline

• Best timing is February of Junior Year (Fall/Spring thesis); September of Junior/Senior Year (Spring/Fall thesis): Prepare a brief thesis proposal and meet with the prospective thesis advisor(s). Get the consent of a faculty member of the Anthropology Department to serve as your sponsor.  Discuss the project, appropriate methodology and research methods, and preparation of sample bibliography with the faculty sponsor.

• A request from your Faculty Advisor to the Undergraduate Advisor (by email) confirming they will serve as your Faculty Advisor initiates the enrollment process to begin the Thesis.

Level of Honors and grade for the honors course sequence

Anth H195A is the first half of a single, two semester course. It is graded IP (in progress). A final grade for the two semesters, which count as 2 of the elective courses for the major, is assigned at the end of Anth H195B.

Level of honors is assessed separately from the grade for the two semester honors course sequence. Level of honors is based on the review of the final written thesis by the two readers. The Honors categories are Honors, High Honors, or Highest Honors.

If the thesis is not of the quality required for honors, a student may receive course credit with a letter grade only.

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Writing your thesis statement

A thesis statement clearly identifies the topic being discussed, includes the points discussed in the paper, and is written for a specific audience. Your thesis statement belongs at the end of your first paragraph, also known as your introduction. Use it to generate interest in your topic and encourage your audience to continue reading. 

A strong thesis statement is refutable and specific. It makes a new point about theory or examines how two ideas relate in a new way. I adapts or critiques someone else's argument. Strong research thesis statements are:

• Specific : talk about a specific idea rather than a broad theme, the more concrete the better. 
• Text-based : your argument should arise from the text, your interview, or ethnographic research; it should not be an imposition of your own personal moral or ethical views. Don't cast judgment on the social actors.
• Unified : be sure that you're arguing one thing, and avoid bifurcated thesis statements.
• Not too obvious:  your paper should point out something that isn't immediately obvious to someone without a close examination of the texts or ethnographic data. Make sure that what you're writing about demands that a paper be written about it.
• Refutable : it should be possible to come up with a reasonable and valid counter argument to your thesis statement.
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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 the department administrator'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 the department administrator.

• 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 the department administrator 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.
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DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY

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Senior Theses and Honors

Conducting original research is central to the field of Anthropology. By undertaking original research in Anthropology students develop core skills in critical thinking, research, and written and oral communication. These skills, rooted in the holistic discipline of Anthropology, are widely applicable regardless of your career choice. Original research for the Senior Thesis may be based on library, laboratory, or field research on a topic that the student has chosen in consultation with their faculty adviser. The Senior Thesis is an opportunity for students to explore a topic of their interest in Anthropology.

Majors with an interest in pursuing original research in anthropology during their senior year identify a thesis topic and advisor during their junior year and submit an application to write a senior thesis to the Honors Coordinator by spring of junior year. The thesis requires:

• Completion of 399 in the Fall quarter of senior year
• Completion of 398 in Winter quarter of senior year

398 may be counted toward the 300-level requirements for the major. 399 is in addition to the 300-level requirements for the major

Honors in Anthropology

Students interested in pursuing honors in Anthropology are required to (1) prepare a 1-2 page project proposal and (2) secure a project advisor during their junior year. The proposal and an email from the advisor attesting to their work with the student should be sent to the Honors Coordinator, Prof. Erin Waxenbaum ( [email protected] ), by July 1 of the student’s junior year.

Students who write a thesis and whose theses and grades meet university criteria are recommended to the college for graduation with honors. Eligibility for honors includes:

• Writing an outstanding senior thesis
• 3.3 GPA overall
• 3.5 GPA in Anthropology 

Honors and awards

Students who prepare an outstanding honors thesis will be nominated for honors in anthropology to the Weinberg College Committee on Undergraduate Academic Excellence, which has the final authority to grant the honors degree. All students writing an honors thesis are also eligible for following departmental awards:

• Oswald Werner Prize for Distinguished Honors Thesis in Anthropology

This prize honors Professor Emeritus Oswald Werner’s research, teaching, fieldwork training and administrative contributions. He was a faculty member for 35 years, a department chair, founder, and director of the Northwestern University Ethnographic Field School, and an ardent supporter of undergraduate research.

• Friends of Anthropology Award for Distinguished Honors Thesis in Public Anthropology

This prize recognizes outstanding research that  matters to the communities in which the researcher works, addressing important  social issues and helping to foster change. The award was established in 2005 with funding from the "Friends of Anthropology at Northwestern" (FAN) Alumni Group.

• Elizabeth M. Brumfiel Award for Distinguished Honors Thesis in Archaeology

See a list of award-winners who have won scholarships and other prizes.

The Honors Coordinator for Anthropology is: Prof. Erin Waxenbaum 

Anthropology 201 Language, Culture, Power

• Requirements
• Charlene Makley's Website
• Anthro Home

Guidelines for Writing in Anthropology

• AAA Anthropology Style Guide
• Doyle Online Writing Lab
• Strunk, William, and E. B White.  The Elements of Style. 3 rd ed. New York: Pearson Longman, 2000. Print or Online
• Organize Evidence: Anthropological writing requires that you organize ethnographic data (descriptions of activities and events, oral narratives) and other types of evidence (such as historical accounts, newspapers, maps, etc.) to describe and analyze a phenomenon, event or cultural feature/practice.
• Identify a Compelling Question : While analyzing ethnographic data you should seek to identify anthropologically significant or interesting patterns in relation to the body of literature you’re working from (course readings, in our case).
• One of the most common errors we see in new researchers is some kind of ethnocentrism, or lapse in cultural relativism . Inexperienced researchers often attribute an emotion or value to why people are doing what they are doing. For example, if you notice all the people who present as men at a meeting are only speaking to other people who present the same way; it would be reductionist to attribute this to simple sexism .
• The job of the anthropologist is to investigate why this appears to be a standard mode of interaction at this particular meeting, with these particular participants.
• Commenting that something is weird, for example, is not an anthropological statement – nor does it aid in conducting an anthropological analysis. Things in your research context may be different than what you expect, but we do not judge those differences.
• Thinking anthropologically requires temporarily suspending ones’ assumptions about how the world works, about what is normal, and strange . In other words, anthropology exhorts its practitioners to be culturally and linguistically relative — to try to understand cultural and linguistic difference on their own terms . Anthropological thinking refuses ethnocentrism and attempts to see difference without arranging that difference in a hierarchy.
• A Title that clearly reflects the thesis statement or main point of the paper.
• A thesis statement is the controlling idea of an essay which presents the topic and the writer's perspective on that subject. An explicit statement, it focuses and limits the topic and usually occurs at the beginning of the paper. The thesis statement should contain an organizing principle or theme for the paper.
• Clear organization provides a map of the papers’ argument for the reader. The argument should be logically arranged so that a lay-person can follow it. Keep your audience in mind – they are not inside your mind.
• Your paper should explicitly engage at least ONE reading from the course syllabus. Define the methodological concepts of your discussion early on: how will your fieldwork data illustrate or challenge those concepts? If you introduce the term crosstalk in the first paragraph but fail to define it until the fifth, you will have simultaneously lost and annoyed your reader.
• A topic sentence controls the focus and direction of the paragraph.
• Evidence may be in the form of quotations (or paraphrasing) from your fieldwork notes, scholarly sources, statistical data, or other scholarly material that supports a position or argument.
• Your Conclusion should serve as a capstone to the paper. The conclusion should not be a simple restatement or summary of the rest of the paper. The conclusion should be strong and interesting, driving your thesis forward. Lead your readers into a new headspace – push them to think about your thesis in its totality and consider its future consequences. A caution: posing new questions in the conclusion often leads the reader feeling like there is no conclusion.
• It’s not enough to cite scholarly sources, you have to tell the reader why that source, quotation, paraphrase, etc., is of any use or importance. You have to connect that source to the thesis of the paper, and to the other sources in the paper.
• ACTIVE: The students produced well written, stylistically appropriate essays.
• Note: overuse of the passive voice is not poetic, nor does it sound cleverer, or smart. I promise.
• Charlene suggests that we strive to pay attention to our writing so as to avoid overly verbose passages.
• Charlene said to avoid excessive wordiness.
• When proofreading watch for long sentences. Be careful not to cram too many ideas (especially competing ones) in a single sentence.
• Shorter sentences are often far clearer than their rambling counterparts. Ask yourself: Are your sentences composed of a series of incomplete clauses delimited only by an absurd number of commas?

Professor Charlene Makley – Office: Vollum 312 – Phone: 771-1112, ext. 7461 – Office Hours: Mon 4:30-6 pm, Thurs 3:10-4:30 pm, via Zoom

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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Digital Commons @ USF > College of Arts and Sciences > Anthropology > Theses and Dissertations

Anthropology Theses and Dissertations

Theses/dissertations from 2024 2024.

“You are not the Same Person You Were:” On Diagnosis Seeking During a Liminal Period and Systemic Lupus Erythematosus , Kaylee A. Appleton

Good Times, Politics, and Collapse: The Archaeology of Old St. Joseph, Florida , Christopher N. Hunt

Seminoles, Soldiers, and Settlers: Identity and Power on the Florida Frontier , Jean Louise Lammie

Theses/Dissertations from 2023 2023

Environmental Justice from the Ground(water) Up: Coping with Contamination in Tallevast, Florida , Grey W. Caballero

The Local Neurologies of Substance Use Triggers , Breanne I. Casper

Entanglements of Teenage Food Security Within High School Pantries in Pinellas County, Florida , Karen T. Díaz Serrano

The Applicability of the Postmortem Submersion Interval Estimation Formula for Human Remains Found in Subtropical Aquatic Environments , Kara L. DiComo

Early Agricultural Lives: Bioarchaeological Inferences from Neolithic and Early Copper Age Tombs in the Central Po Valley, Italy , Christopher J. Eck Jr.

The Process of Government in Clearwater, Florida , Picot deBoisfeuillet Floyd

“I Was Doing the Best with What I Had”: Exploring Student Veterans’ Experiences with Community Reintegration, Food Insecurity, and Health Challenges , Jacquelyn N. Heuer

Transformative Psychedelic Experiences at Music Events: Using Subjective Experience to Explore Chemosocial Assemblages of Culture , Gabrielle R. Lehigh

“We Need to Have a Place to Vent and Get Our Frustrations Out”: Addressing the Needs of Mothering Students in Higher Education using a Positive Deviance Framework , Melissa León

“They’re Still Trying to Wrap Their Head Around Forever”: An Anatomy of Hope for Spinal Cord Injury Patients , William A. Lucas

Foodways of the Florida Frontier: Zooarchaeological Analysis of Gamble Plantation Historic State Park (8MA100) , Mary S. Maisel

The Impacts of Disability Policy and its Implementation on Deaf University Students: An Applied Anthropological Approach , Tailyn Marie Osorio

“I’m Still Suffering”: Mental Health Care Among Central African Refugee Populations in the Tampa Bay Area , C. Danee Ruszczyk

Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Immigration-Related Stressors, Pregnancy, Birth, and Post-Partum Experiences of Women Living Along the US-Mexico Border , Isabela Solis

Clinically Applied Anthropology: A Syndemic Intervention. , Jason W. Wilson

Theses/Dissertations from 2022 2022

Ethnographic Insight on the Construct of Blackness: Heritage, ‘Home,’ Community, and Reality in Carver City-Lincoln Gardens, Tampa, Florida, 1928-2021 , Lisa Katina Armstrong

An Assessment of Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Individuals Gender Affirming Health Care Practices in the Greater Tampa Bay , Sara J. Berumen

Mound-Summit Practices at Cockroach Key (8HI2) Through the Lens of Practice Theory , Chandler O. Burchfield

Crafting a Scene: The Nexus of Production and Consumption of Tampa Bay Craft Beer , Russell L. Edwards

Applied Anthropology of Addiction in Clinical Spaces: co-Developing and Assessing a Novel Opioid Treatment Pathway , Heather Diane Henderson

Japan’s COVID 19 Infection Rate: A Focus on Tokyo Neighborhoods , Lauren Koerner

Mental Health and the Effects of Stress and Violence on Migrant Farmworker Communities During the COVID-19 Pandemic , Russell Rice Manzano

Farmers’ Organizations and Development Actors in a Pandemic: Responses to Covid-19 and the Food-Energy-Water Nexus , Atte Penttilä

An Ideology of Racism: Community Representation, Segregation, and the Historical Cemeteries of Panama City, Florida , Ethan David Mauldin Putman

Beyond Health and Animal Rights: A Study in Black Veganism , Wendy J. Rib

“Even If You Have Food in Your House, It Will Not Taste Sweet”: Central African Refugees’ Experiences of Cultural Food Insecurity and Other Overlapping Insecurities in Tampa, Florida , Shaye Soifoine

Afro-Latinx and Afro-Latin Americans in the United States: Examining Ethnic and Racial Experiences in Higher Education , Glenda Maria Vaillant Cruz

“That’s What We Call ‘Aesthetics’”: The Social Construction of Tap Water Mistrust in an Underbounded Community , Abby Vidmar

Black Cemeteries Matter: The Erasure of Historic Black Cemeteries in Polk County, Florida , Juliana C. Waters

An Anthropology with Human Waste Management: Non-Humans, The State, and Matters of Care on the Placencia Peninsula, Belize , William Alex Webb

An Edgefield Ceramic Assemblage from the Lost Town of St. Joseph, Northwest Florida , Crystal R. Wright

Theses/Dissertations from 2021 2021

Aspiring to “Make it Work”: Defining Resilience and Agency Amongst Hispanic Youth Living in Low-Income Neighborhoods , Sara Arias-Steele

“I Wish Somebody Called Me, Told Me Not to Worry”: Evaluating a Non-Profit’s Use of Social Support to Address Refugee Women’s Resettlement Challenges , Brandylyn L. Arredondo

Of Body and Mind: Bioarchaeological Analysis of Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Anatomization and Institutionalization in Siena, Italy , Jacqueline M. Berger

Cannabis Capitalism in Colorado: An Ethnography of Il/legal Production and Consumption , Lia Berman

Analyses Of Woodland Check-Stamped Ceramics In Northwest Florida , John D. Blackburn

“Here Come the Crackers!”: An Ethnohistorical Case Study of Local Heritage Discourses and Cultural Reproduction at a Florida Living History Museum , Blair Bordelon

Privies as Portals: A Ceramic and Glass Bottle Analysis of a Late 19th Century Household Privy in Ellenton, FL , Shana Boyer

Making Change in the Nickel City: Food Banking and Food Insecurity in Buffalo, NY During the COVID-19 Pandemic , Sarah E. Bradley

Ware and Tear in Ancient Tampa Bay: Ceramic Elemental Analyses from Pinellas County Sites , McKenna Loren Douglass

Rethinking Settlement Patterns at the Weeden Island Site (8PI1) on Florida’s Central Gulf Coast , Heather E. Draskovich

Listening to Women: Using a Mixed-Methods Approach to Understanding Women’s Desires and Experience During Childbirth , Nicole Loraine Falk Smith

Archaeology and Seasonality of Stock Island (8Mo2), a Glades-Tradition Village on Key West , Ryan M. Harke

How Culture and Storytelling Can Influence Urban Development: An Ethnographic Look at the Community-Driven Revitalization of Newtown in Sarasota, Florida , Michala Head

Educational Experiences of Congolese Refugees in West-Central Florida High Schools , Michaela J. Inks

Constructing 'Child Safety': Policy, Practice, and Marginalized Families in Florida's Child Welfare System , Melissa Hope Johnson

"We're the Lucky Ones": A Social Network Analysis of Recovery After the Iowa Derecho , Kayla C. Jones

How Race is Made in Everyday Life: Food, Eating, and Dietary Acculturation among Black and White Migrants in Florida, U.S. , Laura Kihlstrom

Tourism, Education, and Identity Making: Agency and Representation of Indigenous Communities in Public Sites within Florida. , Timothy R. Lomberk II

Pregnancy and Fertility Amongst Women with the MTHFR C677T Polymorphism: An Anthropological Review , Caroline A. MacLean

A Biocultural Analysis of the Impacts of Interactions Between West Africans and Europeans During the Trans-Atlantic Trade at Elmina, Ghana , Heidi Ellen Miller

The Distribution in Native Populations from Mexico and Central America of the C677T Variant in the MTHFR Gene , Lucio A. Reyes

Politics vs. The Environment: The Spatial Distributions of Mississippian Mound Centers in Tampa Bay , Adam J. Sax

Seasonality, Labor Organization, and Monumental Constructions: An Otolith Study from Florida’s Crystal River Site (8CI1) and Roberts Island Shell Mound Complex (8CI40 and 41) , Elizabeth Anne Southard

Eating and Body Image Disorders in the Time of COVID19: An Anthropological Inquiry into the Pandemic’s Effects on the Bodies , Theresa A. Stoddard

The Early Medieval Transition: Diet Reconstruction, Mobility, and Culture Contact in the Ravenna Countryside, Northern Italy , Anastasia Temkina

The Science of Guessing: Critiquing Ancestral Estimation Through Computer Generated Statistical Analysis Within Forensic Anthropology in a Real-World Setting , Christopher J. Turner

Listening to Queens: Ghana's Women Traditional Leaders as a Model for Gender Parity , Kristen M. Vogel

Site Suitability Modeling in the Sand Pine Scrub of the Ocala National Forest , Jelane M. Wallace

Our Story, Our Homeland, Our Legacy: Settlement Patterns of The Geechee at Sapelo Island Georgia, From 1860 To 1950 , Colette D. Witcher

Identifying Skeletal Puberty Stages in a Modern Sample from the United States , Jordan T. Wright

Pollen-Vegetation Relationships in Upper Tampa Bay , Jaime E. Zolik

Theses/Dissertations from 2020 2020

Maternal Social Status, Offspring 2D:4D Ratio and Postnatal Growth, in Macaca mulatta (Rhesus Macaques) , Juan Pablo Arroyo

Social Exclusion of Older Mossi Women Accused of Witchcraft in Burkina Faso, West Africa , Clarisse Barbier

Fields Brook Superfund Site: Race, Class, and Environmental Justice in a Blasted Landscape , Richard C. Bargielski

The Effects of Feudalism on Medieval English Mobility: A Biological Distance Study Using Nonmetric Cranial Traits. , Jonathan H. Barkmeier

Before the Storm: Water and Energy Utilities, Human Vulnerability and Disaster Risk , Cori D. Bender

Recipes for the Living and the Dead: Technological Investigation of Ceramics from prehistoric Sicily. The case studies of Sant’Angelo Muxaro and Polizzello , Gianpiero Caso

Save Water Drink Wine: Challenges of Implementing the Ethnography of the Temecula Valley Wine Industry into Food-Energy-Water Nexus Decision-Making , Zaida E. Darley

İYo luché! : Uncovering and Interrupting Silencing in an Indigenous and Afro-descendant Community , Eileen Cecelia Deluca

Unwritten Records: Crime and Punishment in Early Virginia , Jessica L. Gantzert

‘It’s Been a Huge Stress’: An In-Depth, Exploratory Study of Vaccine Hesitant Parents in Southern California , Mika Kadono

Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy for Elemental Analysis in Bioarchaeology and Forensic Anthropology , Kelsi N. Kuehn

Middle Woodland Mounds of the Lower Chattahoochee, Lower Flint, and Apalachicola River Basin , Michael H. Lockman

Overturning the Turnbull Settlement: Artifact Analysis of the Old Stone Wharf in New Smyrna Beach, Florida , Tracy R. Lovingood

“They will think we are the Cancer Family”: Studying Patterns of Cancer Disclosure and Communication among Indian Immigrants in the United States , Kanan Mehta

Museum Kura Hulanda: Representations of Transatlantic Slavery and African and Dutch Heritage in Post-Colonial Curaçao , April Min

Nurses and Needlesticks: Perceptions of Stigma and HIV Risk , Bethany Sharon Moore

Circadian Rhythms and the Embodiment of Social Zeitgebers: Linking the Bio and Social , Tiffany R. Moore

Civic Engagement amid Civil Unrest: Haitian Social Scientists Working at Home , Nadège Nau

“Placing our breasts on a hot kerosene lantern”: A Critical Study of Microfinancialization in the Lives of Women Entrepreneurs in the Informal Economic Sector in Ibadan, Nigeria , Olubukola Olayiwola

Domestic Life during the Late Intermediate Period at El Campanario Site, Huarmey Valley, Peru , Jose Luis Peña

Archaeology and the Philosopher's Stance: An Advance in Ethics and Information Accessibility , Dina Rivera

A South Florida Ethnography of Mobile Home Park Residents Organizing Against Neoliberal Crony Capitalist Displacement , Juan Guillermo Ruiz

From Colonial Legacy to Difficult Heritage: Responding to and Remembering An Gorta Mór , Ireland’s Great Hunger , Katherine Elizabeth Shakour

The Role of Financial Insecurity and Expectations on Perspectives of Mental Health Services among Refugees , Jacqueline M. Siven

A Multidisciplinary Approach to Trauma Analysis in Cases of Child Fatality , Jaime D. Sykes

Governmentality, Biopower, and Sexual Citizenship: A Feminist Examination of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare Experiences of 18-24 Year-Olds in the U.S. Southeast , Melina K. Taylor

Characterizing Childhood and Diet in Migration Period Hungary , Kirsten A. Verostick

An Ethnography of WaSH Infrastructures and Governance in Sulphur Springs, Florida , Mathews Jackon Wakhungu

A Plan for Progress, Preservation, and Presentation at the Safety Harbor Museum and Cultural Center , Amanda L. Ward

Theses/Dissertations from 2019 2019

Pathways to Parenthood: Attitudes and Preferences of Eight Self-Identified Queer Women Living in Tampa Bay, FL , Emily Noelle Baker

"It's Not Addiction Until You Graduate": Natural Recovery in the College Context , Breanne I. Casper

Tales of Trafficking: Performing Women's Narratives in a Sex Trafficking Rehabilitation Program in Florida , Jaine E. Danlag

Perceptions of Infrastructure, Flood Management, and Environmental Redevelopment in the University Area, Hillsborough County, Florida , Kris-An K. Hinds

Eating in America: Easing the Transition for Resettled Refugees through an Applied Anthropological Intervention , Emily A. Holbrook

Genetic Testing and the Power of the Provider: Women’s Experiences with Cancer Genetic Testing , Dana Erin Ketcher

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Publishing Style Guide

Learn about AAA's style for all publications as well as specifics for citations, references, and more.

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AAA Style Guide

AAA publications follow the  Chicago Manual of Style , 17th edition, particularly in regard to reference citations, which are summarized below, as well as Wiley style in regard to in-text citations.

In-text citations

• Place citations in parentheses and include the author’s name and the source’s year of publication, with no intervening punctuation, at the end of a sentence or before a comma or semicolon, whenever possible: (Herzfeld, 2005).
• Always include page numbers for quotations or extensive paraphrases, using an en dash for page ranges: (Herzfeld, 2005, 146–47). (Note: they are preceded by a comma, not a colon; this is a major change from the AAA Style Guide.)
• Use semicolons to separate two or more references in a single parenthetical citation and list them alphabetically: (Bessire & Bond, 2014; Comaroff, 1996; Daser, 2014; Foucault, 2000).
• Do not include “ed.” or “trans.” in citations (and in the case of books that have been reprinted or updated, do not include the original publication year), as this information will be included on the reference list.
• Use the first author’s last name and et al. for works with three or more authors.

Reference list

• Do not embed the reference list in the endnotes.
• Include every source cited in the text and no others, listed alphabetically by author.
• When including multiple works by the same author, list them chronologically, from oldest to most recent.
• For works published by the same author in the same year, add a, b, and so on, and list them alphabetically by title.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns please 2:=E@iAF3Do2>6C:42?2?E9C@]@C8');">contact our Publications team .

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• Thesis Option

The thesis is a major requirement for those in the MA in anthropology thesis track.  The thesis should demonstrate the student's ability to apply knowledge and skills gained from the anthropology department's curriculum.  A desirable goal for an excellent thesis would be a work of sufficient rigor and quality that it could be considered for publication. Original data collection ("fieldwork") is recommended but not required for the thesis.  Analysis of secondary data-whether quantitative, qualitative, visual or other formats--is perfectly acceptable as long as the research is informed by a clearly articulated research question and under-girded by a research proposal.

The traditional thesis is a single document that often incorporates a literature review, definition of a problem, discussion of methods to address the problem, the subsequent research activity and results.  However, the student may design a thesis with different emphases, in consultation with their advisor.  For example the goal may instead be a more compact paper submitted to a peer-reviewed journal.  Other thesis plans may combine some research activity such as a video production, museum exhibit or an internship, with an accompanying paper.  Students pursuing the thesis option must develop a topic and research proposal that specifies their plans in the semester after their completion of 18 credit hours.

The thesis must be defended before a committee of three faculty, at least two of whom need to be on the Department of Anthropology faculty (which includes senior instructors and research faculty).  The structure of the thesis is largely determined by the  University of Colorado Denver Graduate School Rules ; i.e., a thesis must conform to the rules.

• For the thesis, students must prepare a full research proposal which must be approved by their thesis chair before beginning their research. This proposal must be completed by the semester after the student has completed 18 credit hours. Sections of the proposal should include, at a minimum:
• Introduction and statement of the problem: Should include a one sentence statement of the problem on the first page, and a discussion of its significance (i.e., why is it important that this topic be researched).
• Literature review covering theoretical and topical material.
• Research design and methods including a data analysis plan.

Note:   Wenner-Gren and National Science Foundation both provide good models and templates for the research proposal. Those in the medical anthropology track might want to consider following the NIH model, depending the nature of their research questions and career goals.

• All students proposing to work with humans or data on modern humans must apply for and receive approval from the  Human Subjects Research Committee  before they begin their research. Note: most of the material for the application will be drawn from the research proposal.
• The draft thesis must be reviewed and approved as "defensible" by the student’s thesis committee faculty chair before a thesis defense date can be set. Defensible means the chair has reviewed the draft and suggested changes have been made.
• The draft sent to the student’s committee must be substantively complete: All references must be in the text and properly formatted in a references cited section; there should be no "track changes" comments in the text; the text should be formatted according to Graduate School requirements.
• Given the complexity of faculty and student schedules, consultation on a defense date should be done as far in advance as possible.
• There must be a minimum of three weeks between the agreed-upon date for the defense and distribution of the draft thesis defined as defensible by the student’s chair. If you would like feedback from your committee members before the defense, you should plan to distribute the thesis at least 4 weeks before the defense date.

Note:  If you intend to graduate the same semester you defend your thesis, you must schedule, successfully defend, and complete all recommended changes in accordance with UC Denver Thesis and Dissertation Guidelines  . This effectively translates to having the thesis completed and “defensible” before the middle of the semester.

Your Thesis Committee

The committee generally consists of your major advisor and two other faculty members with whom you have worked during the course of your program. You may choose committee members from outside the department, particularly if they are experts in an area that you explore in the thesis. However, at least two of your committee members must be from the anthropology department. And, all committee members must belong to the Graduate Faculty.  See the rules of the Graduate School .

Thesis Preparation

Click here to obtain a copy of Directions for Preparing Masters and Doctoral Theses .

The Process of Submitting a Thesis

In the semester in which a student intends to submit the thesis for examination, he/she must first submit an  Application for Admission to Candidacy . This initiates a process of determining if the student has met all of the other requirements for the degree, and is eligible to submit a thesis. The application for candidacy form should be completed in consultation with your major advisor, and the graduate director. A  Diploma Card  is submitted at the same time, to initiate the process of preparing final records for graduation.

The completed thesis itself is then submitted for a format review. This review ensures that the material is presented in a readable format that is consistent with the standards of the university. The student then submits a  Request for Examination,  which publicly announces the exam or defense for all interested parties.

At the exam or defense, the student may be asked to revise or add to the thesis before it is approved. The revised thesis is then submitted to the examination committee for final approval, and then copies are handed in to the Graduate School. These copies are permanently kept in the library as a resource for other scholars in the field.

Thesis Submission

Questions concerning matters not discussed in this document must be directed to the thesis committee chairperson. Theses must be reviewed by the Graduate School for format review before the final examination or defense. Once the thesis is signed by the appropriate faculty committee, submit three reproduced or original copies of the thesis, two on CU bond and one on regular paper. The University keeps all three of these copies. You may also order additional copies at this time. The binding fee is due and payable when the thesis is submitted to the Graduate School. Since fees are subject to change, contact the Graduate School for current fees.

The Thesis Examination

The exam consists of a public presentation and defense of the work. The tradition calls for the following steps to be completed:

• Your thesis committee greets you, and then sends you out of the room while the chair of your committee discusses the thesis, asks if there are any particular concerns, and establishes the particular procedure for the conduct of the examination.
• After you are invited to reenter the examination room, the chair will invite you to provide a formal presentation of your research, which should generally not exceed 30 minutes in length.
• After your presentation, the committee will ask you questions about the thesis, work related to it, and perhaps general questions about theory, method, and practical implications of the research.
• When questioning is completed, you will be asked to leave the room again so that your committee may discuss the defense, and decide on whether to give you a pass or fail.
• A "pass" may take many forms, including a request for revision that must be approved by the full committee, or simply a request that revisions be reviewed by the chair.

Registration Issues

Students must be registered during the semester of their final examination/ defense. Students who choose to perform these examinations or defend their thesis on a date that falls between semesters (between Fall and Spring; Spring and Summer, or between Summer and Fall), must register for the semester immediately after their exam/defense.

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Anthropology: Student's Practical Guide to Writing Papers: Citation Format for Anthropology Papers

• What IS an anthropology paper?
• Style & Organization: Essentials
• Magical Rule #1
• Magical Rule #2
• Magical Rule #3
• Magical Rule #4
• Magical Rule #5
• Magical Rule #6
• Magical Rule #7
• Magical Rule #8
• Dissertations and Theses For Content and Templates
• Works by a single author
• Two (or More) Authors with the Same Last Name
• Multiple Authors
• Multiple Citations in One Sentence: When to Footnote
• Corporate Authors (Organizations, etc.)
• Annotated Bibliographies and Literature Reviews
• Information Cycle
• The Peer Review Process
• Differentiating Between Scholarly and Popular Article Literature

The seven magical rules of term paper writing apply to all research papers. But anthropology term papers are different from papers you may have written for other courses, or for a writing class. Anthropology, like sociology and psychology, uses a distinctive citation format. We think this format is easier to use than other formats and once you're familiar with it, we think you'll agree. 

Anthropologists document the use of other people's work--the sources of ideas or data used in a paper--by placing citations in the text of the paper. Documentation , for our purposes, means providing bibliographic references to sources. A citation is a bibliographic reference to a specific source--a book, an article, or other source of information. In-text citation simply means placing citations in the text of the paper, instead of in footnotes. In-text citation documents the use of sources of data and ideas, just as reference (bibliographic) footnotes do, but in-text citations are used instead of such footnotes in anthropology. You do not use reference footnotes or endnotes when you write a paper using the in-text citation format.

You were probably taught to use reference footnotes to document your use of sources, and the world is full of people who say "footnote" when they mean "citation." Hang in there; things will become clearer as we go along. For now, do the best you can to forget about using footnotes as a method of documentation.

The important thing to understand, then, is that in-text citation replaces reference footnotes. Here's what in-text citation looks like:

The evidence for this hypothesis is suspect (Burns 1969:32).

Tonkinson (1978:27) notes that the Aborigines of the Western Desert...

As you can see, the in-text citation supplies, in parentheses, the name of the author, the year of publication, and the page(s) on which the material cited can be found . When citing journal articles in the natural sciences, page numbers are usually omitted unless it is a direct quotation--most articles are short and if the reader wants to find the item, s/he can read the article. Not true for a 300 page book.   Note the punctuation: this is exactly how it should appear in all your anthropology papers. Also note that when the name of the author is used as part of the text, as in the second example, only the year of publication and page numbers are placed within the parentheses .

Now, if I'm your inscrutable TA and I'm interested in finding out more about something I read in your paper (because it is just so bizarre or wonderful that I have to know more about it), then I turn from your citation to your reference list at the end of your paper. This list of all the works cited in your paper provides information needed to locate sources online, or in the library or bookstore. The citations and the reference list make it possible for the reader to track down material that may be useful. As your TA, I can find interesting stuff simply by tracing your citation back to your source. In that source are more citations, leading me back to your source's sources (squared as it were). These in turn have citations and reference lists leading to their sources (sources cubed?). Your paper becomes a link in a citation chain when you cite from publications connected in this way. (TAs have funny ideas about how to spend their time.)

The citation format used in anthropology is less work than the footnote format because you only have to type out the complete bibliographic information for a source once--in the reference list. (Complete bibliographic information includes titles, publisher, place of publication, and so on. We'll get to that.) In a paper using reference footnotes, you have to type that information twice--once in the footnote itself, and then again in the reference list. This seems like extra work to me. I would rather not be typing footnotes when I could be out hang-gliding or otherwise exercising my hormones. I think in-text citations are quicker and easier than reference footnotes, and they do exactly the same thing in terms of documenting the use of a source and providing access to that source.

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Anthropology

Thesis Proposals

Students wishing to write a thesis (fieldwork- or library-based) must submit a proposal to the department, due on the Friday before spring break of their junior year.  Essay writers do not need to submit a research proposal.   

Your proposal should include all of the following elements. Be sure to include your name, and save the file as a word document titled "YourName.ThesisProposal." Proposals should be no more than 5 double-spaced pages, excluding the bibliography. The thesis proposal is due the Friday before Spring Break . All documents should be uploaded to the  Thesis (and Ethics) Proposal Moodle . 

How to write a thesis proposal

A proposal should set out what you want to do, how you hope to do it, and why it’s worth doing. It should also make clear that you have done the necessary preliminary research (literature review, understanding of the topic, and, where relevant, the history of your particular geographical area) to embark on a successful independent research project. Thus, consider how your project builds on and contributes to anthropological knowledge in your chosen area. Your proposal should also include an estimation of expenses, in time and money. This will allow you to compete for departmental funding, and also demonstrate that you have thought through the practicality and feasibility of your project plan.    

Anthropologists often deviate from what we initially plan to do. Fieldwork is an interactive process that depends on other people and is largely aimed at understanding what is important to others. So, a proposal is read only in part as a statement of what you will do; in part it is read as evidence of how well you can formulate a problem, think of ways to investigate it, and link it to other issues.

Your proposal should include all of the following elements: 

1. Introduction

In one paragraph, explain what do you want to do, how, and why. Why does this research matter?

2. Background

A. Research Location(s) : Identify the research site and describe the historical and contemporary factors relating to this site that are relevant to your research. What will your research add to our knowledge of this part of the world?

B. Literature Review: What have others (especially anthropologists!) written about your topic and/or area? Given what has already been written on the topic, why is your research important? What will it contribute to our knowledge, within the discipline of anthropology or within another field of scholarly interest? Are there debates in the literature to which your research will contribute? Does your research test out old assumptions and/or take ideas in a new direction? Discuss comparable studies and explain how your research is similar to or different from them. If there is limited work in your chosen area, consider whether there are similar processes going on in other parts of the world. How will your research scale up from a local site/problem to broader analytical or theoretical questions or problems? In short, explain how your research will expand on existing anthropological ideas and how it promises to advance our understanding of the world or a particular problematic. This is also the place to state the main research questions guiding your work.

A. What methods will you use? To get what sort of information? How will your methodology produce information that you can link into an argument or description? Will your methods provide cross-checks on one another, or multiple ways to understand your research site or topic? If your methods are a signal improvement on existing ones in the field, offering the promise of more precise, more reliable, more abundant or more complete results, say so, and say why.

B. Analysis: Be sure you indicate not only what you want to find out and how you will go about it, but also how you plan to make sense of what you discover. How are you going to organize the material you learn? What tools will you use to analyze the information gathered in participant observation, or interview (for example)? Also, make sure to explain how you will gather the contextual information (background, regional history, other necessary social or political context) needed to support the more specific argument you hope to make.

4. Timetable and budget

Include key dates and all estimated expenses, as well as a budget for what you want the department to support.

5. Significance and Style

What contribution do you hope your project will make to anthropological literature and ideas? What kind of ethnography do you plan to produce: a life history, a problem-oriented ethnography, a comparative survey, a personal narrative, etc.? Is the style of the ethnography important for the work you hope to do?

6. Preliminary Bibliography

Make sure to provide a thorough list of sources you have consulted for your project: this will demonstrate that you have undertaken the necessary preparation for a project of this scale and magnitude.

Other guides to writing research proposals that might be helpful to explore:

* Sydel Silverman, “Writing Grant Proposals for Anthropological Research” for Wenner-Gren available here

* Michael Watts, "The Holy Grail: In Pursuit of the Dissertation Proposal" at UC Berkeley available here

The Anthropology Department's Ethics and Thesis Proposal Review Committee, composed of all faculty members in residence in any given spring semester, will review the Ethics Questionnaire and Thesis Research Proposals. Details regarding the review process can be found  here .   

--> see the Guidelines for the Ethics Questionnaire

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