Not a ‘How To’, but a ‘How One Might’ in Anthropology Essays

As the title of this post suggests the art of essay writing in social science is a highly subjective process and determining your own method, style and tone of writing is a good place to start. Anthropology essays are no different in sense that require your own individualised style of writing, individualised, that is, within the limited parameters of academic writing.

When I first started my anthropology degree I found the prospect of writing an essay within the degree programme very intimidating. As is the way with university, the emphasis is on independent learning to a large extent, but it took me some time to realise that this not only meant learning and understanding the lecture and resource content, but also learning how to learn, to write, to read and so on. I discussed some broad writing tips in my last blog post, but here are a few dilemmas and potential solutions that correlate directly to my own experiences within an anthropology degree, which, I might add, have been very mixed but hopefully illuminating for others.

• Google searching tips on how to write anthropology essays is likely to be a waste of time. Instead, ask your tutors how to write your essay. They are limited in how much they can advise you on essay content, but they have pretty much free rein to divulge a myriad of useful tips for essay writing. Also, not only are they less intimidating and more willing to help than you might think, but they also tend to be the ones marking your essays. It may sound a little sneaky, but if you determine their preference for writing styles, structure, formats etc you’re likely to 1) write a coherent and thoughtful essay 2) cater to their tastes and therefore get higher marks.

• In anthropology we tend to be assessed via argumentative essays, i.e. we are offered a broad and provocative question /prompt and asked to present an argument in response. Essentially, you need to be able to demonstrate that you have understood the course content, formed an educated opinion based off this content and have the skills to enable you to explain, justify and expand on this argument throughout the essay in order to answer the question.

• Good planning, organising, research and mind mapping is central to achieving this.

• Managing and organising your resources: Our resources are, for the most part, ethnographic and often extremely dense as anthropologists are attempting to summarise months/years of fieldwork stories alongside all sorts of clever theoretical work. I would recommend highlighting these texts and making short notes on the page rather than opening another word document and basically re-writing the whole thing.

• Do not try to summarise each ethnography in the essay, your markers already know their stuff. Instead show how these examples feed into your argument. In other words don’t just state what others have said but show the reader explicitly what you have learned and how it is relevant to your thesis.

An example from an essay I’m trying to do….

Main argument: the relatedness of kinship and politics is evident in the way that they become intertwined as they simultaneously navigate diverse registers of social life.

This is exemplified in the way the language of kinship is realised and utilised within the political sphere. For instance, linguistic framings of land are associated with notions of motherhood whereas discussions of government, politics and leadership are underscored by connotations of fatherhood.

The ethnographic revelations of X, who studied Y in the context of Z, argue that linguistic and political ways of understanding nationhood are constituted, in part, through different languages of kinship which give rise to a multiplicity of affects, senses and sensibilities about how people interact with their state. X’s example of …. Illuminates this point by showing ….

• In this context, the examples of the intertwined relationship between kinship and politics, the examples are endless. Refining your focus on something like gender or the state is useful as they affect both kinship and politics, bringing them together. In short, a narrow focus is extremely important for a coherent and concentrated analysis.

• Your opinion, drawn from the ethnographic detail, is primary. Then follow this up with theory. It’s easy to let the theory dominate your essay but I would recommend not letting it do so.

• Its sometimes difficult, especially with word restrictions, but markers love to see evidence of comparative thinking. A good way of doing this is traversing different weeks’ topics rather than only discussing one. You don’t need to go into crazy detail, but a nod towards different weekly topics, linked together through the essay question is a money maker in essay writing terms.

Ultimately, you are walking the reader through your own opinion, not anyone else’s. Keep that in mind and try not to stress out too much because that never helps.