Instructions
Late papers will no longer be downgraded but MUST be turned in before the end of the semester.
Choose any topic related to biological anthropology or archaeology that you'd like to know more about. It can be a topic we've already covered in class, but you are also free to choose something we've covered little or not at all, or something we're going to cover before the end of the semester but haven't yet discussed, such as Neandertals. You'll use the Internet to find one or more websites on the topic you're interested in. If you're not sure whether the site or sites you've found are good ones to use, ask me about them.
Once you've found the website(s), write a paper about what you found. The paper has no page limit, but you should be able to do a good job in about 3 to 5 double-spaced pages, so about 750-1250 words. It should be written as anacademic paperwith standard paragraphs, introduction, conclusion, spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and grammar.
Your paper should include the following main elements:
1) Be sure to include a complete URL for the website or websites. Don't just give me a citation with the title of the website—I want the actual link(s).
2) Briefly describe,in your own words, the archaeological information presented in the website(s).Do notplagiarize by cutting and pasting text from the websites; your paper will be severely downgraded if you do so and could even receive a zero. Be sure to paraphrase what the website says by rewriting it in your own words. Don't just take entire sentences from the website and change a few of the words, or rearrange parts of a sentence from the website, since that kind of poor paraphrasing still counts as plagiarism and will be downgraded. You do not need to tell me about every detail from the website—summarize the information presented and hit the high points, while still being sure to give me enough information to figure out what each website was talking about. Imagine you're describing the websites to someone who has not yet seen them (even though I will, of course, look at them!). Tell me the main points each website is making, along with the main kinds of archaeological evidence it presents to support its main points.
3)Comparethe information on the website(s) you're discussing to similar information from class, citingspecificPowerPoint slides, lecture dates or topics, pages in your book, handouts, videos, etc. when you can. If all you are citing is lecture material, class handouts, or your book, you don't need to do a formal footnote or endnote, but can just run the citation into the text. Let's say, for example, that one of your websites talks about macaque monkeys. You could write: "This website covers macaque monkeys, anthropoids which were also mentioned in class (textbook p. 130, Overview of the Primates PowerPoint part 1, Slide 43). The site says that they are "very distant cousins" of humans, which we can see in primate taxonomy (lecture 3/22 Primates PowerPoint part 1, slide 14, book pp. 126 and 130, primate taxonomy handout)."
If you cover a topic discussed in your book(s) but not in class lecture, you will need to look at relevant parts of your book(s) to make the comparisons to class. This would include either parts of the book that I did not discuss in class lecture or topics that are in the later chapters of the books that we haven't covered yet. If, for example, you discuss websites on Neandertals, youmustlook ahead at the sections in chapters 11 and 12 and refer to them specifically in your paper, otherwise you won't earn all the points you could. If you choose something we haven't covered in class at all and that isn't in your book, you should still be able to make comparisons to similar things we did or will cover.I will post the PowerPoints for the later class modules ahead of time so you can always look at those, as well as at some articles and videos.
Youdo notneed to do additional research for the paper, butif you doconsult other books/websites, you must provide complete references for those additional sources. You can use any academic citation format you prefer.
4)Critically evaluatethe information on your website(s). Critical evaluation of the information on the website(s) will involve asking various kinds of questions about the website itself, how it presents information, and the kinds of information it presents. Here are some possible questions that might be relevant in your critique of each website. Feel free to ask the questions about these websites that you think are relevant—you DO NOT need to ask all of them! Can you tell whether the website is from a reliable source? Does it give the name of a specific author? Can you tell when it was last updated? Does the website present enough supporting empirical evidence? Does it present only some evidence but leave out other evidence? Does the website make unsupported assumptions? Does it agree or disagree with class? If it disagrees, is that because it's a reasonable alternate hypothesis based on the evidence, or is it badly misinterpreting or misusing the evidence? Is it making extraordinary claims without extraordinary proof? It is just plain wrong? Can you come up with testable alternate hypotheses that the website doesn't even consider? Are important questions left unanswered? Is it confusing? Does the website make obvious mistakes? Has what you've learned in class made you look at the websites in a different way than you would have before you took the class?
Make sure that your evaluation clearly explains why you feel the evidence presented in the website is good or not so good. If your chosen site presents some information that you think is solid while other information isn't as strong, be sure to explain both what makes the good information good and what makes the other information questionable.
If you want to critique the presentation of the websites themselves, pointing out ways the graphics or the links help or hurt the overall presentation of the information, feel free to do that, but make sure most of your paper critically evaluates websitecontent, not just looks.
Overall:Exactly how you organize your paper is up to you, as long as it includes all of these required parts in some way. You can be creative in how you discuss the website(s) and the information presented, as long as you summarize the website(s), relate the information back to specific material that we've covered in this class, and do critical evaluation. If you're not sure of your approach, or are having problems finding websites, I'm always happy to give advice or direction.