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ANTH 350: Prehistoric Archaeology

Research Guide for ANTH 350

Building your arguments and conclusions

Dr. Chenoweth wants you to write an Argumentative Paper. Ask yourself these questions to build your own informed opinions, arguments, and conclusions:

Does your source raise questions you hadn't considered or make claims that shape your thinking? -Integrate these into your arguments to develop and focus them further 

Does your source provide evidence for any of your arguments? -Integrate the relevant evidence or data into your own argument and explain its significance

Does your source take a position counter to any of your arguments? -Include these sources to strengthen your own arguments by explaining and providing evidence of why you disagree with them

What relationships do you see between your sources? -Integrate the arguments and evidence from your sources together to use them as building blocks for your own conclusions and arguments

Dr. Chenoweth's Questions to Consider: 

Provide some context for the site. Where is it, and in what time periods was it occupied? Who lived there? Briefly describe the "popular account" you are considering: who made it and when?

How complete is the popular account? From your research, do you find important issues omitted by the account but present or even emphasized in academic literature?

How correct is the account? Does the account provide sources or arguments to back up its information? How convincing do these arguments seem? Are there substantive errors, compared to what you find in academic writing? Are there facts presented as concrete and simple that are actually disputed in academic accounts?

In there a difference in tone between the tone of the popular account and that of the academic accounts? How so? Does the popular account try to make things exciting or "mysterious" when they are not? What effect might this have on viewers/readers?

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