The Anthropology Department envisions the thesis as an opportunity for you to demonstrate your command of a focused literature on a particular topic within the discipline of anthropology. We expect that through the thesis process you will achieve the following:

Personal Intellectual Growth

• Demonstrate intellectual curiosity through the choice of topic and approach.
• Acquire a specialized set of skills (listening, formulating research questions, using constructive criticism) developed through a productive relationship with an advisor.
• Create a completed product.

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Content

• Demonstrate a depth of knowledge about one of the four fields in the discipline of anthropology.
• Evince your intellectual heritage by drawing on and citing appropriately the anthropological scholarship and theory relevant to your topic.
• Examine a cultural text or ethnographic case with depth and originality.
  — Describe, interpret, and analyze the text or case.
  — Recognize the contradiction, complexity, and embeddedness of this case.
• Indicate that you think anthropologically.
  — Understand insider’s / outsider’s perspective by demonstrating an awareness of your own positionality.
  — Understand a relativistic perspective as compared to an ethnocentric one.
  — Understand the limits of relativism.
  — Put the case in temporal or spatial context. Explain how the case is historically constituted and situated in a particular place and space.
  — Understand the social construction of reality.

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Methodology

• Demonstrate ethical research practices (which you explain in a methodology section).
• Apply ethnographic, ethnohistorical or archaeological methods which you specifically identify and justify (in a methodology section).

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Writing and Mechanics

• Compose a grammatically correct, well-organized, lucid and cogent document.
  — Use precise, concise language.
• Clearly articulate your argument in the introduction.
• Effectively present evidence to support your argument.
• Support your argument in a compelling conclusion.
• Engage the reader in the topic.
  — Be aware of and sensitive to audience.
• Write in the discipline, using appropriate style.
• Demonstrate academic honesty through appropriate in-text citation for paraphrases and direct quotes and a comprehensive bibliography formatted using the AAA Style Guide