Anthropology How To

Emory's Writing Center provides thoughtful one-on-one attention and feedback at any stage of the writing process.

Sessions with tutors are available by appointment or during walk-in hours.

Emory subscribes to the Nature Masterclasses. These are online courses, workshops, and webinars delivered by Nature Research journal editors, researchers, and funders that are designed to help you improve your scientific writing.

The Emory Libraries Citing Your Sources Research Guide provides information about why to cite sources, how to avoid plagiarism, how to avoid common mistakes, and a list of style manuals. Anthropologists frequently use:

• Chicago Style (also see the Quick Guide)
• American Journal of Biological Anthropology Style
• American Psychological Association Style (APA) - Purdue OWL is an excellent resource

Be sure to check with your instructor to find out which style you should use. 

Data citation is straightforward in many cases. The citation must include the title, author, date, version, and a persistent identifier (e.g. DOI, Uniform Resource Name, Handle System). Including the checksum or a Universal Numeric Fingerprint is also recommended (allows future researchers to verify data integrity). Refer to your style manual for guidelines on citation formatting. For more information on data citation visit the ICPSR or DataCite pages.

If you are using a citation manager (e.g. Endnote or Zotero), select the appropriate output style. The citation manager should automatically format your citations and bibliography, but don't forget to check it for accuracy.

Bibliographic management software can save a lot of time and frustration. Start organizing as soon as possible!

Zotero and Endnote are both excellent tools for organizing bibliographies and creating properly formatted citations. Zotero is freely available at their website and Emory has a site license for EndNote. You can obtain a copy by downloading the software from Emory's Software Express site (Emory network ID required). Mendeley, Papers, and Citavi are other popular software options.

If you have questions about whether you can use particular content or about your own content, contact the Scholarly Communications Office. They offer workshops on a variety of topics related to copyright and publishing, as well as research data management and data sharing. They also offer in-person consultations (schedule an appointment here) or email with your questions (scholcomm@listserv.cc.emory.edu). 

Also get to know Creative Commons and their copyright licensing tools.