Introductory Essay
The introductory Essay needs to be based on my initial research. I attached all my research bellow. Please read all the documents attached below and write the introductory essay based on that.
Your introductory essay should be 5-7 pages (roughly 2,000 words) in length. Your essay should discuss overarching
takeaways from your studies in light of readings from the course. You’ll be asked to cite a minimum of 8 sources,
including 2 outside sources pertaining to your specialized topic.
Introduction: Give a detailed introduction to your field site/community of practice that helps to orient the reader
to the coming studies and makes it clear why you took the particular interest in it that you did. Include a
paragraph or two (if substantial enough material to warrant a second paragraph) description of your initial
premise or question. Giving this a unifying narrative can be very helpful. For example, if your premise or questions
evolved over the course of your project, give an overview of how and why that premise changed. (You may want
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to include concrete examples of how your exercises reflect your [evolving] research interests. If you include a
discussion of your evolving interests, you will want to consider how to carry this narrative through into your
discussion of your activities. See below.)
Overview of studies: Give an overview of the studies you conducted (including extra credit if applicable). You
should be sure to include a short discussion of your own questions or interests specific to each exercise; if
applicable in your case, one way of creating a conversation that spans paragraphs might be to frame it around a
narrative of how one exercise led to interests you picked up in the next; the evolution of a relationship or a change
in your fieldsite might be another way of approaching the organization of this section. However you organize your
discussion, you should give a concise explanation of the overall direction you took. Think about these questions: of
all the things you could have focused on about your site, what led you to focus on what you did? Of all the things
you subsequently saw, what drew you to document what you did? Of all the things you documented, what led
you to write up what you did? And, finally, and above all, how does what you documented and wrote up relate to
the broader (if tentative!) themes/subjects that you’ll be giving further elaboration in this essay?
Informing Ideas: You’ll want to devote at least a couple paragraphs to explaining the ideas informing the way you
approached these studies. For organization, you might want to consider dedicating a paragraph to describing
research related to your community or social phenomenon. For example, if you did your visual ethnography in an
online community, it would be very appropriate to have a paragraph dealing with useful research you’ve found
that parallels the kind of social phenomenon you’re studying. You might also want to have a paragraph that’s on
ideas informing your methodology and way of approaching the community you studied. To stick with the example
of online ethnography, this is where you could discuss readings that give tips for how to conduct virtual
ethnography. (This is where many of your citations will end up — including, perhaps, your outside sources.)
However you organize your discussion, you’ll want to make sure that you’re taking adequate time to explain the
ideas you’re presenting and to indicate how they pertain to your study as a whole.
Key takeaways/Conclusions: This should be distinct from the findings of your individual exercises. Be careful to
justify these conclusions so as not to traffic in unsubstantiated generalizations/stereotypes. Instead, looking across
your data you should be able to arrive at grounded assessments: observations that you can illustrate with
multiple examples given a reasonable, observation-based interpretation. (Some of these conclusions may be
tentative. If so, acknowledge it. You don’t earn more credit for acting certain of something you can’t properly
demonstrate than you do for hedging a conclusion you can give evidence for.) You may feature some of your most
interesting individual finds, but if you do so you should relate these to overarching observations. Importantly, the
function of this section should be to look across your data and draw inferences about the entire data set.
Work Cited: Include a works cited page, formatted according to a recognized standard (e.g. APA, Chicago, MLA).
See “what graders will be looking for” for more tips.
Citational Requirements
You must include at least 8 unique citations in your essay. Two of the works you cite must come from outside the
class and be directly related to your topic. Papers shared on the class website under “bonus readings” can count
toward your outside citations.
The works you cite must come from academic journals or published non-fiction books. These don’t have to be
anthropology journals, but if you’re looking for anthropology https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/ offers a
search engine for essays sponsored by the American Anthropological Association. Also, in Jstor and similar
repositories there are options in “advanced search” to limit your results by field. We highly recommend doing this
to get the most relevant results. Remember to sign in to UCLA’s proxy server so that you can access the resources
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on these sites. Here’s a link to the UCLA Library’s guide:
https://www.library.ucla.edu/computers-computing-s…
Formatting guidelines
Provide section headings.
Include a works cited page (in APA, Chicago, MLA or any other official format).
What graders will be looking for [20pts total]
The essay includes all five sections: intro, overview, informing ideas, key take-aways, and works cited. (You can
name your sections however you want, but they should be doing these five things.) [1pt]
The introduction gives (a) pertinent context for fieldsite, (b) clearly explains your interest and specific questions,
and (c) gives an overview of the way the research progressed/evolved. [3pts]
The exercise overview explains (a) the specific purpose of each exercise and (b) offers a brief summary of the
individual findings and questions which proved most useful as the research progressed. [3pts]
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The key takeaways offer insights which relate to observations in the exercises but transcend them: overarching
conclusions should look across the different exercises to consider what we might conclude when the evidence is
taken in sum. [4pts]
There is an accurate and focused discussion of background research, concepts from class readings, and
methodological considerations which makes substantive use of citations (e.g. properly integrated into the essay in
such a way as to justify a decision, explain a key concept, or give clarifying and plausible context to a social
practice). [4pts]
There is the correct number and kind of citations, including adequate works cited formatting. [1pt]
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