• Choose something in the reading that really grabs your interests (the best writing comes when the writer is most engaged with the topic). You may highlight an issue of interest to you, ponder an anthropological problem, develop a polemical argument, wonder about an enigma in the text/world, dispute the conclusions an author draws from her/his data, relate course materials to your own lives, current events, etc.

• NOTE: "Critical essay" need not mean you must criticize the reading as "bad" or flawed; you may offer a positive critical appreciation as well!

 

CHIEF GROUND RULE: Essays must relate your topic to the key assigned reading.  For weeks when there is no major book, essays should refer to at least two articles.   Maximum grade of "C" for essays not tied in to the key text (or, to two articles).     However, you are always free to draw on additional course readings, videos, etc.

• Choose a title that emphasizes the main topic of your essay.  Do not simply use the title of the assigned reading. Lure in your audience with an irresistible title!

• Analysis: break down a subject or an idea into its parts and explain how the parts relate to each other and to the whole (establish a context, state the claims, examine the claims, relate the analysis to the whole or to an issue stemming from the whole)

• Argument: assert a position, identify support and opposition, conclude by interpreting the significance of this evidence in relation to your position and follow its implications

• Do not simply summarize the readings--think critically about the authorâs theoretical assumptions, use of ethnographic data, strategies of analysis, interpretation, or representation, etc.

• Your essays ought to be informed by concepts from the course (you will get a better handle on these as the course procedes)

• Push yourself to consider the implications of your own argument for the cultural politics of difference today

• Write your essay using the first-person pronoun "I."  No VOG!  (Voice Of God, disembodied voice)

• Think speculatively, write creatively

• Try for a strong opening, the better to lure in the listener/reader. Sketch your topic or theme.

• Contextualize your chosen topic within the authorâs overall discussion. Clue in your reader by briefly answering the question, what is the article/book about?

• Locate statements, points, or quotes from the reading within their particular context.

• Briefly identify the work(s) and author(s) under discussion within your text, so we'll know what text(s) you're addressing

• underline or italicize Book Titles, put quotations around "Article Titles"

• Write your essay using the first-person pronoun "I."  No disembodied VOG (voice of god).

• Support your argument with some examples from the text that illustrate what you mean to say (you donât need direct quotes to do this, paraphrasing or summarizing is fine)

 
• give page number for quotes; if unclear from context, give author and title
• As a rule, put punctuation inside quotations: "xxxxxxx." "xxxxx," "xxxxx?" "xxxxx"(p.x).

• Explore the implications of your argument (e.g., for what is at stake in the cultural politics of difference in the U.S. today)

• Wrap up the end of your paper by tying it back in to your starting point for closure. This confirms your thesis point, reminds the reader of what you aimed to address, and shows how far your argument has taken you. (This is a good place to interpret your essayâs implications)

• Do you make a point? Avoid leaving your listeners in confusion, or in so-what land!

• Proofread your essay carefully (and use your spell-check!!!). Try having someone else read it aloud to you and listen for clarity, persuasiveness, awkward sentence structure or poor grammar (or, read it to someone else and solicit their reaction).
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NOTE: These are NOT simply "opinion papers"

• You are of course welcome to present your opinion (indeed, this cannot be avoided!)

• But think of "opinion" less as a matter of individual taste or preference, than as

• a point of view, a way of seeing, a perspective shaped by your (& your nationâs) subject-positioning (i.e. who you are, socially speaking) and experience
• rooted in the politics of your own social location at a particular intersection of culture/history/gender/race/class/ ethnicity/(trans)nation
• grounded in your knowledge of of the cultural politics of difference thus far

• Work these considerations into your analysis in light of our study of cultural diversity

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