Guidelines for the Article Analysis Assignment
Choose an article about a culture from a news website that was published within the past two months: The article can be about a type of music, literary genre (i.e. popular or avant-garde books), movie, fashion style or way of making a living (such as hunter-gatherer societies).
Select two of the following subdivisions that are presented in Chapter 1 of your textbook: Cultural anthropology (how is culture learned), archaeology (materials within the culture), or anthropological linguistics (how did people speak).
The article analysis should be one to two pages long, with 1.5 line spacing. The purpose of the analysis is to explain the article through the different points of view of these two different fields. Use the following outline to write your article analysis:
I. Introduction
Include: title of article, name of author, source and date of publication, very brief summary of the article, why the topic is important to society, the purpose of your paper (that is to explain an article through two subdivisions of anthropology)
II. How can the article be explained by subdivision # 1?
III. How can the article be explained by subdivision # 2?
IV. Conclusion
Which of the two theories you chose appears to be the “best” (the most suitable) to analyze the topic presented in the article and why?
Also briefly explain how this news article can relate to our present society and humanity as a whole.
References
List all of the sources that you used to write this article analysis. At the very least, this should include the textbook and the source of your article.
Note: For the article, do not only copy and paste a link. You also need the author, full name of the source (i.e. The New York Times), the date of publication, and the date you accessed the article online.
Important Note: The information you need for the two page article analysis assignment starts on page 7 of your textbook. This will provide you with an overview of the following different fields of anthropology. For the assignment you have to explain the article about culture through the points of view of two of the following fields:
– Cultural anthropology (Basically how is behavior learned through the media, our parents, other artists, etc.)
– Archaeology (This will focus on material culture such as artifacts, technology, and structures. Another way to ask this is: How will people in one thousand years look at the remains of the culture described in the article?)
– Linguistic anthropology (This focuses on the language that people use. Is there a certain vocabulary specific to a subculture? How did people’s way of expressing themselves change over the years? Do authors and musicians for example still speak like beat poets of the 1950’s or like Shakespeare? Language evolves.)
Chose two of the above and write at least two paragraphs about them between the introduction and conclusion. You will basically analyze one article through two “points of view” after taking another look at the outline.
