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ANT 104: Cultural Anthropology

Keywords

Here's some keywords to use in your searches. Remember to use terms that will narrow your search! 

  • African
  • African-Americans/Black
  • Age grade and Age set
  • Anthropology
  • Anthropometry
  • Archaeology
  • Applied anthropology
  • Cargo cult
  • Caste
  • Caucasian
  • Cephalic index
  • Ceremony
  • Chief
  • Civilization
  • Clan (also Phratry, Sib)
  • Consanguinity
  • Culture
  • Cultural Anthropology
  • Economic anthropology
  • Ethnocentric
  • Ethnocentrism
  • Ethnography
  • Ethnographic films
  • Evolutionary
  • Functionalism
  • Gatherer-Hunter
  • Genealogy
  • Globalisation
  • Ideology
  • Indigenous
  • Inuit
  • Kinship
  • Marxism
  • Matriarchy
  • Medical anthropology
  • Name
  • Narrative
  • Oral History
  • Palaeontology
  • Participant-Observation
  • Pastoralism
  • Patriarchy
  • Pennsylvania Dutch
  • Peonage
  • Qualitative Research
  • Quantitative Research
  • Race
  • Reflexivity
  • Ritual
  • Shamanism
  • Social anthropology
  • Social Change
  • Structural-Functionalism
  • Structuralism
  • Symbol/Symbolism
  • Tribe
  • Tribal Laws
  • Tribal Records
  • Visual anthropology
  • Welsh
  • Yanomami

Reviewing Resources

Scholarly or peer-reviewed journal articles are written by scholars of a particular subject, whom are considered experts in their field.

  • Tip: Scholarly articles usually have an abstract (description of what you'll find in the article), charts/graphs, and a full biography or citation list.

Substantive news articles are reliable sources of information on events of the day/time or issues of concern for the general public or world. Articles from these sources are usually vetted (or double-checked) for credibility. 

  • Tip: Substantive new articles included a date and time posted with a byline (name of the writer of the article) at the top of the article. If a correction is made to the article, it will include a revision date and time. The correction is noted fully at the bottom of the article.

Popular articles are articles relating to entertainment for the general public, usually these articles are produced by corporations for profit.

  • Tip: Popular articles include advertisements (ads), usually, more ads than articles. These ads and the articles themselves are colorful Revisions are noted with date and time, but corrections aren't often noted. The byline is included at the bottom of the articles.

Tabloids "articles" relate to entertainment news but are used to generate a reaction from the general public. These "articles" are often false. 

  • Tip: No byline is included. No sources. Often linked to an opinion on a current social issue, no other sources mentioned.

Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Sources

What the difference between a primary, secondary, and tertiary source?

  • Primary sources are created as close to the original event or phenomenon as it is possible to be. For example, a photograph or video of an event is a primary source. More examples: Data from an experiment is a primary source, letters, journals, articles, speeches, video recordings, works of art, and books.
  • Secondary sources are one step removed from that. Secondary sources are based on or about the primary sources. For example, articles and books in which authors interpret data from another research team's experiment or archival footage of an event are usually considered secondary sources. More examples: Books written about an original event, artwork, or literary resources, biographies, essays, literacy criticisms, and commentaries.
  • Tertiary sources are one further step removed from that. Tertiary sources summarize or synthesize the research in secondary sources. For example, almanacs, fact books, textbooks, bibliographies, dictionaries, indexes, textbooks, and reference books are tertiary sources (Text in this section is from Suny Empire College's guide: Research Skills Tutorial).

Why is this important?

  • For your research assignments, you are asked to find primary, secondary, and tertiary sources. You'll need to be able to recognize the difference between all three. Remember primary sources are about the event. Secondary sources analyze the event and interpret another author's work. Tertiary sources summarize events from other authors after the event has occurred. 

Library Databases

Journals & Magazines

Anthropology Search Tips

Tips for Searching... 

  • Keep your search terms simple. For example: Ethiopia, kinship, economic anthropology, etc. Using sentences or long phrases can result in poor results.
  • Better search terms: You'll see every article is tagged with subjects describing the article. Try matching your search terms to these subject terms to get better results.
  • Narrow your results: You will often receive hundreds (if not thousands) of articles in your search, focus your results to make it MUCH easier to find what you need! Here's two ways to do this...
    1. Use the left column to "Refine Results":  
      • Selecting "Full Test from Montco" limits the list to articles you can access now.
      • Publication date can limit articles to a specific time period.
      • Source type allows you to limit the search to just magazines, academic journals, books, etc.
      • Subject shows common subjects within your search.
      • Click "show more" for additional options within each category.
    2. "AND": Use the word "AND" to connect two ideas in your search such as "China AND filial piety" It will limit your search to only articles that have both terms in common.
    3. You can use both of these methods together!
  • Email articles: When you click an article title, you'll see "email" in the right column. This method will include the option to include an APA or MLA citation!

EBSCO Discovery Search Tutorial

Video Credit: EBSCO Tutorials, Sep 19, 2023.