HOW TO WRITE AN ANTHROPOLOGY ESSAY       1100w

Where choice is given, it is always advisable to write your anthropology essay on a subject you are at least in some way knowledgeable about. Familiarity, in this case, breeds content and it is always preferable to start from a position of knowledge than one of ignorance. Of course, should choice not be given, then an added importance is placed upon the research phase of your anthropology essay.

Preparation being key, it is important to fully understand what the question is asking. It is impossible to overemphasise enough how critical this point is in the creation of a good anthropology essay. Many a student has fallen foul of a surreptitiously placed comma, or, in their eagerness to start writing their anthropology essay, misread. Making sure you have read the question may seem obvious, trivial even, but the cliché says that the devil is in the details. Cliché doesn’t become so unless it is a point well worth repeating.

Perhaps even more important than understanding what the question title of your anthropology essay is asking you, is placing it in its context. Essay titles and questions are not arrived at arbitrarily by the professors and teachers who set them. They are a reflection of the course being studied. They are designed to test your knowledge of that course, of what you have been taught. Thus, whatever anthropology essay you choose or get assigned you should be able to discern, from lecture notes or course packs and the like, what academic context it belongs in. Your anthropology essay will be an argument, a discussion. Differing and opposing opinions should be present. Which opinions and which arguments should be discernible using your anthropology essay question in context. Ask, “What anthropological position does this question represent,” and, “Which positions are hostile to it,” “Which support it.” These questions should enable you to outline a few notes and these notes should help you focus on your next task, research.

An anthropology essay will have a word limit and that limit, believe or not, will generally be quite small. 2500 words may seem an awful lot of black marks on white but, in reality, it is not. Bearing this in mind is crucial while researching your anthropology essay. You need to be knowledgeable about the area that your anthropology essay falls under, but do not get bogged down in the minutia. Having established the context of your anthropology essay, focus your research in that area. Most courses offe