Guidelines for essay writing
This document provides some guidelines for essay writing and use of references at the Department
of Social Anthropology, UiB. For more thorough information, please visit Search & Write.
Expectations for an assignment
A compulsory assignment or an exam is expected to meet both the academic and formal
requirements. The formal requirements are to keep within the set word limit and to follow norms of
correct referencing.
Expectations of academic content means that the you as an author should use both theory and
ethnography from the curriculum, analytical concepts within the field of Anthropology, a scientific
language, and develop an argument that answers the assignment.
An assignment should resemble an academic article, both in terms of form and content. It can be a
good idea to study curriculum texts to get ideas on how to structure your argument, and to get the
feeling of form and style.
Ethnography as empirical data
In Social Anthropology, ethnography is the most common form of empirical data. The term
ethnography refers to the analysed data material that is produced on the basis of anthropological
fieldwork (long-term participatory observation). Ethnography is often published as a monograph, but
can also be found in shorter formats in articles and anthologies. In anthropological circles,
ethnography and empirical data are often used synonymously (such as if you are asked to use
empirical / ethnographic examples in an assignment). A good rule of thumb may be that "all
ethnography is empiric, but not all empirical data is ethnography".
Use sources outside the curriculum critically
In a student assignment, it is expected that the empirical basis derives from the syllabus. If the
assignment question opens up for the use of "contemporary cases" outside the course, you can also
retrieve empirical material from other disciplines, or from the news. Collecting material outside the
syllabus requires that you assess and use these sources critically and carefully. Make sure that your
assignment is based on syllabus material, so that you show the examiner that you master literature,
theory, and concepts from the course itself.
Structure
• State clearly which assignment you have selected.
• Format the text with one and a half line spacing, page numbering and a sober typography.
• If the assignment is to write an essay, it should be structured with an introduction, body and
conclusion. Use structural tools such as informative subheadings and essay title.
English language
It is important to work on developing your academic English, particularly if English is not your mother
tongue. Borrow guides to Academic language from the library and use good dictionaries and
Thesaurus/synonym dictionary (such as Lexico by Oxford dictionaries).
One of your main goals as a writer is to make the reader understand the ideas and the information
you are conveying. You may find plenty of tips online. Here are some basic advice:
• Focus on conveying one point at a time. Serve the information in portions and finish the
sentence before starting a new one.
• Use a straightforward language. Even though the language should be formal you do not need
to use complex expressions or language just to make your writing appear “academic”.
• Use the active voice. Write "Kari harvested apples" rather than "The apples were harvested
by Kari".
• It should be clear who is the subject, that is the “doer of an action” in the sentence.
• Read through your own text several times. Print the text and go through the paper version
with a red pen. Feel free to read the text aloud to yourself to pick up convoluted wordings.
Use your fellow students
To become a good writer, it is important that you work on your writing techniques. Not only by
yourself, but through getting feedback on your own writing from your fellow students. A good advice
is to start the semester by creating writing groups where you comment on each other's texts.
In some courses at the Department, the teaching assistants often facilitate “Writer’s Collective”. This
involves writing a text and to review a text written by a peer/fellow student. Contact your teaching
assistant if you want to participate.
A quick guide to referencing
References are used in academia for two main reasons: integrity and verifiability. The most
important reason to actively use in-text references is to avoid presenting other people's work as
something you have produced yourself.
Copying from others' texts or reproducing others' arguments and assertions without referencing
means presenting their work as your own. This is considered plagiarism. If plagiarism is discovered in
academic texts, this may result in the establishment of a disciplinary case and may lead to academic
suspension in accordance with the University's regulations. It does not matter whether the original
text is scientific work or a blog on the internet.
Ensuring verifiability means that you must – in the body of text – show the reader where you have
found the information you reproduce. This is to enable the reader to evaluate the writer’s
interpretation of the original argument or ethnographic detail. The reader should be able to find the
original sentence, original paragraph, original argument, or the original book.
Use a reference style template
In academia, there are several different "styles" or "templates". There is great variation of which
reference style is preferred by different journals and disciplines. The styles themselves also change
over time. So how should a new student learn consistent reference technique? The best advice is to
follow a specific reference style template. Once you have learned one reference style, it will be easier
to switch to another style, if necessary.
When writing for courses at the Department of Social Anthropology, students need to follow an
author-year-based reference style. The department does not accept footnote-based reference
styles.
Thorough guidelines for referencing, including templates, can be found at online writing centres such
as Search & Write, Owl Purdue, or style-specific sites such as The Chicago Manual of Style Online.
How to use in-text references?
The reference parentheses/brackets in the text body refer to a complete reference that is given in
the bibliography. We can distinguish between two main types of references: a general reference and
a precise reference. The precise reference contains page numbers. The references should be placed
at the end of a sentence − before the punctuation mark.
Precise/page references are used for both direct quotations and indirect quotations, meaning both
directly quoted and paraphrased arguments, information, ideas, empirical details, or other data
material retrieved from a source.
Note that so-called “paragraph referencing”, where you place a reference at the end of a paragraph
or page, is not considered as good reference practice for student assignments at the Department of
Social Anthropology. The following examples follow the style of Chicago author-year.
General references
Fire, water, air, and land are all elements of living politics in South Africa’s urban shacklands
(Chance 2019).
Precise references (page references)
The precise reference includes, in addition to information about author and year, a reference to the
page in which the specific information is retrieved from.
Water is a vital force in political belonging, as it connects sovereign territories to each other;
The body’s cells are connected to the means of life and domestic spaces to institutions and
commodity flows (Chance 2019, 43).
When it comes naturally in your text which author it is referred to, as when the name of the author is
written in the text itself, you can omit the author's name in parentheses.
The work of Kerry Chance (2019) is an example of this.
Chance (2019, 43) argues similarly.
To cite secondary sources
A rule of thumb is to only cite works you have read yourself. Yet, if you are reading a work that
quotes others, such as Sahlins (2004) quoting the philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1966), and you do
not have the opportunity to seek out the original text of Hobbes, you must specify that you have
obtained the information about Hobbes from Sahlins.
In Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes describes this condition as structural: “For WARRE, consisteth
not in Battell onely, or the act of fighting: but in a tract of time, where the Will to contend by
Battell is sufficiently known [...]” (Hobbes 1966, cited in Sahlins 2004, 172).
How to list sources in a reference list
All in-text references should be listed separately at the end of the text. The list should be organized
alphabetically by surname. The following examples follow the style of Chicago author-year.
Books
Bertelsen, Bjørn Enge. 2016. Violent Becomings: State Formation, Sociality, and Power in
Mozambique. New York: Berghahn Books.
Edited works/anthologies:
Rosaldo, Michelle Z. & Louise Lamphere (eds.). 1974. Woman, Culture, and Society.
California: Stanford University Press.
Chapter in edited works
Eriksen, Annelin. 2009. “Gender and Value: Conceptualizing Social Forms on Ambrym,
Vanuatu.” In Hierarchy: Persistence and Transformation in Social Formations, edited by Knut
M. Rio & Olaf H. Smedal, 89-112. New York: Berghahn Books.
Journal article
Ødegaard, Cecilie Vindal. 2011. “Sources of Danger and Prosperity in the Peruvian Andes:
Mobility in a Powerful Landscape.” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 17 (2):
339-355.
Article in electronic encyclopaedias
Luhrmann, Tanya Marie. 2021. «Mind». In The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Doi:
10.29164/21mind
Web page or blog
GRIP Secretariat. 2021. «The Pandemic, Smart Cities and Technology Inequalities: Interview
with Jaideep Gupte». Global Research Programme on Inequality.
https://gripinequality.org/2021/07/14-inequality-in-the-post-pandemic-city-the-pandemic-
smart-cities-and-technology-inequalities/
Film
Reed, Dan & Jamie Roberts (HBO). 2021. «Four Hours at the Capitol». Video. NRK TV. Sett 25.
februar 2022. https://tv.nrk.no/program/KOID28004321
