Prehistoric Cultures

Fall 2012 Calendar -- DAY

Fall 2012 Calendar -- EVENING

14 February 2012
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Instructions

(Some people find it useful to think of this as something like a book report, or movie review, but with a focus on a web page instead.)

Section A

1. First of all, have a look at the Texas A&M WebSite Anthropology World News

   • found at <http://anthropology.tamu.edu/news/>
     
     
   • scroll through the site, noting, in general, the kind of items that are being reported in the area of Prehistoric Cultures
     
     
   • "Kinds of items" includes things like people in the news, new fossils found, new prehistoric archaeological sites discovered, current controversies discussed, what's new with non-human primates (especially the great apes: chimps, gorillas, orangutans) reviewed, new methods explained, old things reinterpreted, unusual and / or special events noted, and things like that.  In other words, what are the groupings of things found on the main part of the Texas A&M page?

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2. If one or more of the subjects sounds interesting to you click on it and have a look
   
   
3. After you have had a look at the entire Texas A&M WebSite, Anthropology World News, write a paragraph or two about what trends you found

• This will be the "Introduction" to your Case Study

Section B

4. Next, pick one of those trends or discoveries that you mentioned in your introduction and explore it in greater depth
   
   

• if you are looking at Anthropology World News those items listed with several entries grouped together are usually the easiest ones to do

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5. If you want to you can try getting related information by looking at other sites on the web:

• Try surfing the web by searching with the search engines found by clicking on the Web "Search" button found on the upper righthand corner all of the course WebPages
  
  
  • This will take you to the course Search Engines Page

• Hint: When you do a search on an item that has more than one word, like "stone tools," click on the "phrase" button of the search engine -- otherwise it will search out everything with "stone" and everything with "tools," and the list of "hits" could get quite large

• These keywords might be useful to your project:

  anthropology, archaeology, prehistory, human origins, paleoanthropology, primates, nonhuman primates, apes, hominids, lithics, stone tools, and ice age
  
  

6. Also try getting more information from JSTORE, elelctronically stored journals, and look for other items from the UMD Electronic Reference Collection
   
   
7. For this Case Study you may also use traditional library materials, and, where appropriate, interviews and videotapes
   
   

   So have a look at one or more of the daily newspapers to see what they're reporting

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8. On-line Resources which might be helpful include:

1. Infotrac®
2. JSTOR©
3. LEXIS-NEXIS®
4. Soc-Anth-Cultural Studies Search Engines and Reference Works
5. UMD On-Line Library Resources
6. General Reference Works
7. Books and Manuscripts On-Line

9. Use the Forum to discuss your paper with others in the class. You will find that at your home.

10. DAY Case Study "What's New? Current Trends and New Discoveries" due Friday, 23 September 2011, 11:55 p.m.
    • (Unexcused late Case Study papers will result in a loss of 2% of the final course grade)
      
      
      
11. Length: 5 - 6 well-written pages
    
    

    • including one title page (see sample title page) and
    • and at least one separate "Works Cited" (or "References") page (see sample)
    • that leaves 3-5 pages of text
    • Style: For the Paper, academic
    • Format: Any standard format and citation convention (APA, MLA, Turabian-Chicago . . . )
      • doublespaced
      • with one-inch margins all around
      • with body type font 11 or 12
      • illustrations, tables, figures, diagrams . . . may be included, but must be properly placed and cited

    
    
    
12. The Case Study counts up to 100 points

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13. Criteria for Grading College Writing

     

14. Suggestion: Don't put off the Web Assignments. The web doesn't always work when you want it to
    
    
15. When you write anything you should consider audience, purpose, and your personal style
    • For your case studiy, your audience should be your classmates in this class
    • do not write your college papers to the professor as audience
      
      
16. Information about Handing in Your Paper
    
    
17. See the "Preparing the Final Draft" section of the Sociology - Anthropology - Criminology - Humanities / Classics Writing Guide to see the details of what your Case Study report should look like when you hand it in
    
    
    • Basically, it should look like the paper which follows

[more information on your title]

What's New?

Current Trends and New Discoveries

in Prehistoric Cultures,

or "It's All New to Me"




by George Bush, Jr.




Prehistoric Cultures

Case Study

Professor Roufs

14 February 2012

I. Introdution
[more information on an Introduction]

Put an introductory statement here, explaining the nature of your case study. Basically that is going to be some version of something like, "For the Case Study in Prehistoric Cultures we were to review the last four to six weeks of 'Anthropology World News' on the Texas A&M Anthropology web site. In the past month X, Y, and Z seem to be the popular topics. I found Z to be interesting and did further research on it. Here is what I found. . . ."

Notice that the introduction should Include a transitional statement at the end, in this case it's about finding an item of interest that's a good example of some current trend or new discovery.

Your introduction can be fairly brief. Most of your content should go in the "Body" of your paper.

II. Body
[Give this section an interesting subtitle, something other than "Body"]

Describe and discuss your chosen topic(s) here. (If you do a comparison / contrast paper you will need more than one topic, otherwise a single topic is fine.) Use some form of organizational structure. The "Journalist's Questions," Who,What, When, Where, How and Why are often helpful.

For Prehistoric Cultures Case Study #1 your "Body" could be made up of two parts:

1. A summary of the contents of the last four to six weeks of news on the Texas A&M WebSite Anthropology World News site. This is just a summary of the topics that you can see on the A&M site; you do not have to read all of the items.
   
   
2. For part B of your paper, pick one of the items and read about it, and then summarize what you found, and what your opinions are of it. Pick the topic from the Texas A&M Site that interests you most

Use the Paradigm Online Writing Assistant if you do not have much experience writing college papers.

III. Conclusions

Put your conclusions here. One school of "Conclusion" writing says that your "Conclusion" should simply recapitulate (basically restate) what you said in the main part ("Body") of your paper. This approach also suggests that you do not actually add any new information in this section.

For this type of an assignment, which is basically an exploratory essay, that is probably the best approach to take.