"Kinds of items" includes things like people in the news,
new fossils found, new 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.
If one or more of the subjects sounds interesting to you click
on it and have a look. After you have had a look at the entire Texas
A & M WebSite, Anthropology
in the News, write a paragraph or two about what trends
you found. This will be the "Introduction"
to your Case Study.
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
in the News those items listed with several entries grouped
together are usually the easiest ones to do.
If you want, you can try getting more 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 "wedding rituals," click on the "phrase" button of
the search engine -- otherwise it will search out everything
with "wedding" and everything with "rituals," and the list of "hits"
could get quite large.
Try using terms from the "Table of Contents" of your text as keywords in your searches
For the 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 papers to see what they're reporting.
Suggestion: Don't put off the Web Assignments.
The web doesn't always work when you want it to.
When you write anything you should consider audience,
purpose, and your personal style. For
your case studies, your audience should be your classmates in this
class. (Do not write your college papers to the professor
as audience.)
Use of AI-content generators for assignments in this class
When I taught Advanced Writing for the Social Sciences here at UMD, for over twenty-five years, my rule of thumb advice to students was to plan to spend 60% or more of their time and effort revising drafts (for academic type writing).
In 2001 Wikipedia appeared on the scene and very quickly became a useful tool asa starting point for many academic projects even though as an open-source resource the Wikipedia entries are not checked and verified in the same manner as other traditional reference materials.
Spelling and grammar checkers arrived on the general scene and helped with spelling and grammar checking, but, as you no doubt have discovered, they continue to require human editing.
And, of course, before that we had a selection of excellent Encyclopedia offering good starting points for many projects, the most popular being The Encyclopedia Brittanica.
And long before that there were libraries--since at least the days of Alexandria in Egypt, in the third century B.C.
The bottom line . . .
Today the evolution of research resources and aids continues with the relatively rapid appearance of ChatGPT and other automated content generators.
As many folks have already found out, they can be very useful as starting points, much like their predecessors. But, from the academic point of view, they are still only starting points.
Professors nationwide are for the most part advised, and even encouraged, to experiment with the potentials of ChatGPT and similar apps.
In this class it is fine to experiment, with the caveat that all of your written academic work demonstrates that your personal efforts—including content development and revision—reflect your personal originality, exploration, analysis, explanation, integrating and synthesizing of ideas, organizational skills, evaluation, and overall learning and critical thinking efforts.
That is to say you may experiment with the AI tool to do tasks such as e.g, brainstorming, narrowing topics, writing first drafts, editing text, and the like. AI-generated works should in no case be more than that.
In the end you need to become familiar enough with the various subjects, peoples, and places discussed in this class to research a topic and problem-solve on your own, and carry on an intelligent conversation about them in modern-day society . . . a conversation that goes byond your voicing an unsupported opinion.
For the record, what follows is the official UMD Academic Integrity Policy. Note that "unless otherwise noted by the faculty
member" this is the default policy.
"UMD’s Academic Integrity policy covers any work done by automated content generators such as ChatGPT or other generative artificial intelligence tools unless otherwise noted by the faculty
member. These tools present new challenges and opportunities."
"Within the confines of this
class The use of AI-content generators is strictly prohibited for any stage of homework/assignment
(e.g., draft or final product). The primary purposes of college are developing your thinking skills,
being creative with ideas, and expanding your understanding on a wide variety of topics. Using
these content generating AI tools thwarts the goal of homework/assignments to provide
students opportunities to achieve these purposes. Please make the most of this time that you
have committed to a college education and learn these skills now, so that you can employ them
throughout your life." -- Jennifer Mencl, UMD Associate Vice Chancellor, Academic Affairs, 10 May 2023
. "Academic dishonesty
tarnishes UMD's reputation and discredits the accomplishments of
students. UMD is committed to providing students every possible
opportunity to grow in mind and spirit. This pledge can only be
redeemed in an environment of trust, honesty, and fairness. As a
result, academic dishonesty is regarded as a serious offense by all
members of the academic community. In keeping with this ideal, this
course will adhere to UMD's Student Academic Integrity Policy, which
can be found at [http://www.d.umn.edu/conduct/integrity/Academic_Integrity_Policy.htm].
This policy sanctions students engaging in academic dishonesty with
penalties up to and including expulsion from the university for repeat
offenders."
— UMD Educational Policy Committee, Jill Jensen, Chair
(08/16/2007)
The instructor will enforce and students are expected to follow the University's Student Conduct Code [http://www1.umn.edu/regents/policies/academic/Student_Conduct_Code.html].
Appropriate classroom conduct promotes an environment of academic
achievement and integrity. Disruptive classroom behavior that
substantially or repeatedly interrupts either the instructor's ability
to teach, or student learning, is prohibited. Disruptive behavior
includes inappropriate use of technology in the classroom. Examples
include ringing cell phones, text-messaging, watching videos, playing
computer games, doing email, or surfing the Internet on your computer
instead of note-taking or other instructor-sanctioned activities."
— UMD Educational Policy Committee, Jill Jensen, Chair
(08/16/2007)
Failure to comply with the above
codes and standards when submitting an Extra Credit paper will result in
a penalty commensurate with the lapse, up to and including an F final grade for the course, and, at a minimum, a reduction in total
points no fewer than the points available for the Extra Credit project.
The penalty will not simply be a zero for the project, and the
incident will be reported to the UMD Academic Integrity Officer in the
Office of Student and Community Standards.
A Note on "Cutting and Pasting" without the Use of Quotation Marks (EVEN IF you have a citation to the source somewhere in your paper)
If you use others' words and/or works you MUST so indicate that with the use of quotation marks. Failure to use quotation marks to indicate that the materials are not of your authorship constitutes plagiarism—even if you have a citation to the source elsewhere in your paper/work.
Patterned failure to so indicate that the materials are not of your own authorship will result in an F grade for the course.
Other instances of improper attribution will result in a 0 (zero) for the assignment (or a reduction in points equal to the value of an Extra Credit paper), and a reduction of one grade in the final grade of the course.
All incidents will be reported to the UMD Academic Integrity Officer in the
Office of Student and Community Standards as is required by University Policy.
Put a transitional statement about finding
a item of interest here that's a good example of some current
trend or new discovery.
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 information on how to cite
items from the web.