Guidelines for the Take-Home Essay: Archaeology and the Mass Media
Introduction: The Take-Home Essay
This paper will be a maximum 2-page essay (+1 page of bibliography) on how archaeological discoveries are presented in mass media.
The deadline to submit the take-home paper is April 4th by 11:59 p.m..
Topics should be discussed with the instructor at least 2 weeks before the due date. The deadline for submitting a topic is March 20th.
Please remember that given that students have three months to prepare their papers, the deadline will not be rescheduled in any case. The penalty for late papers is 10% off of the final grade of the essay for each day late, including weekend days.
Please submit your Take-home Paper electronically to the Assignments (Dropbox) folder as per the Course Schedule.
Archaeology and the Mass Media: A Introduction
For the final take-home essay, students will select an archaeological discovery of their choice made during the last 20 years (2000-2020). That said, in order to be able to find a significant number of sources, it is probably a good idea if students focus on archaeological discoveries made between 2000 and 2015. Topics should be discussed with the instructor at least 2 weeks before the due date (i.e. before March 20th).
The selected discovery has to be relevant for at least one field of archaeological research and it had to receive significant press coverage and media attention. Fields of archaeological research include human evolution, prehistoric archaeology, historic archaeology, zooarchaeology, ethnobotany, rock and cave art, indigenous heritage and the human colonization of America. These are just some areas of archaeological inquiry. Please remember that you can choose any field of archaeological research of your interest.
Final Take-Home Essay: Structure and Format
Please divide your 2-page essay in the following parts:
• Presentation: Please present the selected discovery in a short paragraph.
• Relevance: Please explain why your discovery is relevant for at least one field of archaeological research. You need to briefly discuss why the discovery in question has significantly expanded our archaeological knowledge.
• Academic coverage: Please present the main academic venues (i.e. academic journals) in which the discovery was presented.
• Media coverage: Please explain why (and how) the press and media covered this archaeological discovery.
Additionally, you need to include 1 page of bibliography following the instructions below.
Formal Requirements
Please write your essay according to the following instructions:
The paper should be written in English
Fonts: Acceptable fonts are Times New Roman, 12 point, or Arial, 12 point.
Spacing: The paper is 1.5-spaced throughout, including the title page, all quotations, notes, and the bibliography.
In-text citations should have all of the author, publication date, and page number (for more indications, please see the section below
Bibliographical References
Please refer in the text to the author’s name (without initial) and year of publication followed, if necessary, by the page number: for example, ‘Since Smith (1988) has shown that. . . ‘;’ the manuscripts are to be found in the British Library (Smith 1988: 12-16).’
The bibliography at the end of the paper should include all the sources quoted in the text in the following style:
• If you are quoting a book:
Binford, L. 1989. Debating Archaeology, Academic Press, San Diego.
• If you are quoting a chapter in a book:
Merton, R. K. 1942. ‘The Normative Structure of Science’, in: Robert K. Merton. 1973. The Sociology of Science. Theoretical and Empirical Investigations, Chicago & Londres, The University of Chicago Press: 267-278.
• If you are quoting an article in a journal:
Leone, M. P., Potter, P. B., Shackel, P. 1987. ‘Toward a critical archaeology,’ Current Anthropology 28: 283-302.
Instance
Please find in the link below an instance that you can take as reference to write your essay.
Presenting Neanderthal ‘Art’ in the Mass Media