ARTS 2877: Technologies, Culture, Society

Essay Guidelines

Essay - Essay (2500 words) to be submitted before the due date.

Due Date: The essay is due June 1 at 12 pm mid-day. Note that the course guide says
May 28. You are welcome to submit it anytime up to June 1 at 12 pm, after which you
will incur a deduction for late submission.

The essay will be worth 40% of the final grade. It places emphasis on the development of
an extended argument.

Essay Question I

Select two or more thinkers we have explored in this class (Veena Das, Michel Foucault,
Marilyn Strathern, Pinch and Bijker, or other). Compare their arguments about the
relationships between technology and society. Write an essay drawing out the
implications that arise from this pairing.

Essay Question II

What do you see as the main contributions of Susan Kahn’s ethnographic study of
assisted reproductive technologies in Israel? Compare and contrast her analysis with
other studies that explore the cultural meanings and social responses to assisted
reproductive technologies.

Essay Question III

What are the ethical responsibilities and possibilities for practical action of
anthropologists and other professionals who do research on biotechnologies that are
intended to alleviate the human condition of social suffering (but which may in fact
intensify it)?

Note: You are required to consult at least eight sources to develop your essay.

II. Planning and Writing the Essay

The process of producing an essay can be broken down into the following three
activities:

(a) Researching the essay: this involves the selection and collection of relevant materials.
Relevant includes materials from our course which you will consult to aid in the
development of your essay, as well as references you will find through independent
library research. Take notes, which include the important elements of what you are

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reading: concepts, ideas, details of arguments and other analytic information, as well as
quotations or paraphrased summaries, which relate to your topic.

(b) Planning the essay: your sources and relevant information must be organised. Draw
up a one or two page plan of the essay using headings and subheadings.

(c) Writing the essay: remember that you are analysing, evaluating, criticising and
arguing, not just summarising and describing. You are not only trying to answer the
question in a structured fashion, but to engage critically with your sources. Make sure
that you substantiate your analysis throughout the essay. Generalisations need to be
supported with specific information and examples.

(d) Two stylistic points:

The personal pronoun:

There is no rule that says you cannot use the personal pronoun e.g. ‘In this essay I will
argue X’.

The use of sub-headings:

Although you may have been given different advice in the past I would recommend that
you use sub-headings.

(e) Presentation: the essay must be typed (12 point font), 1.5 or double-spaced with
standard margins and should be printed on one side of the paper only.

III. References, Footnotes and Bibliographies

Good academic practice requires that you reference your sources. It is important that
you acknowledge all sources fully (including Internet ones). All essays should have a
bibliography.

All essays must use a reference system consistently. Below is a modified version of the
Harvard Reference System. The key points are set out below.

Book:
A. Single author - Author, date, title, publication details (place of publication: publisher).
For example:
Yoneyama, Lisa. 1999. Hiroshima Traces: Time, Space, and the Dialectics of Memory.
Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

B. More than one author - Authors, date, title, publication details (place of publication:
publisher). For example:
Cohen, Jean and Andrew Arato (1992) Civil Society and Political Theory (Cambridge,
Mass: MIT Press).

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Chapter in a Book:
Author(s), Date, Title of chapter, editors of the book, Title of the book, Publication
details (place of publication: publisher), page numbers. For example:
Pinch, Trevor J. and Wiebe E. Bijker. 1987. “The Social Construction of Facts and
Artifacts: Or How the Sociology of Science and the Sociology of Technology Might
Benefit Each Other” In W.E. Bijker, T.P. Hughes, and T. Pinch, eds, The Social
Construction of Technological Systems New Directions in the Sociology and History of
Technology. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, pp.17-50.

Article in a Journal:
Author(s), Date, Title of article, name of journal, volume and issue number, page
numbers. For example:

Inhorn, Marcia. 2006. “Making Muslim Babies: IVF and Gamete Donation in Sunni versus
Shi’a Islam.” Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry. 30: 427-450.

Edited collections:
The first named author is produced as family name followed by given name; subsequent
authors are produced as other given name followed by family name. For example:
Chambers, Simone and Will Kymlicka (eds.) Alternative Conceptions of Civil Society
(Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press).

Internet source:
Author, date, title, url, date accessed. For example:
ECT Group (2005) Oligopoly Inc: Concentration in Corporate Power 2005
http://www.etcgroup.org (accessed 1 December 2011).

Further information on referencing is available on the UNSW Learning Center Website:

http://www.lc.unsw.edu.au/onlib/ref1.html

Marking criteria:
1 Evidence of putting ideas to work in a creative way.

2 Rigour: attention to detail, pushing points as far as possible, drawing out

implications.

3 Independent research: Drawing on ideas from beyond the course reader.

4 Development of clear arguments with a strong sense of structure.

5. Referencing: Accurate referencing.