The Rise and Fall of Ancient Civilizations
Some Common Problems with Essay #1
Learning how to write good papers isn’t fun. It’s hard work, it can be boring, and it takes a lot of time at first. It requires practice and dedication to overcome the initial obstacles. With practice, though, writing becomes easier, and new opportunities will open up for you as you learn.
Always remember that writing well is a skill you’ll be able to apply throughout your entire life. In most of the careers you aspire to, the ability to express yourself clearly in writing is a necessity, not a choice (and certainly not an accident!). In February 2000 the Indiana Fiscal Policy Institute issued a report based on a survey of employers and business leaders all over the state. The report’s primary conclusion was that employers are “starved” for workers with good critical thinking and communication abilities—the skills considered most important for business success. The employers and business leaders who responded to the survey stated emphatically that too many college graduates in Indiana lack these skills (Bloomington Herald-Times, February 14, 2000).
We don’t want that to happen to you, and we’re here to help you develop your critical thinking and writing skills. If you got a good grade on Essay #1, congratulations—you’re well on your way. If you didn’t get a good grade, don’t despair—you can improve with practice, and you’ll get credit for improving. (Remember those grade curves from the first lecture?)
Start by thinking about what you did wrong on Essay #1, and then rewrite the assignment. To help you, here are some common mistakes from Essay #1 and ways to avoid them.
Problem: Confusing Theory with Evidence
Example: If the text says “According to Childe, between 10,000 and 8000 B.C. droughts in the Near East forced people into farming,” is this theory or evidence? What can you conclude from the statement?
This sentence merely presents Childe’s theory. It doesn’t offer any facts to show that there were droughts between 10,000 and 8,000 B.C., that people began to farm during that time, or that they were forced to do so. The sentence simply tells you what Childe believed, and you can’t conclude anything more than that. It’s only a theory, with no supporting evidence.
Evidence consists of facts. The facts are excavated remains from specific sites and regions: specific stone tools, pottery, charred seeds, animal bones, radiocarbon dates, pollen profiles, and so on. Without such evidence, you are writing an essay based solely on the assumption that theories are correct. Your arguments cannot be tested and verified, which makes them scientifically worthless. You need to support your arguments with physical data, not just archaeologists’ theories.
Problem: Skimming the Text Quickly Rather than Reading Carefully
Example 1: Food production is the crucial factor in the development of sedentism (Lamberg-Karlovsky and Sabloff 1995:48).
Example 2: At Çatal Hüyük population increased by a factor of at least 528 over eight hundred years (Lamberg-Karlovsky and Sabloff 1995:82).
If you just skim the textbook looking for “facts” and end up writing sentences like the ones above, you’re getting yourself into trouble. These statements in your textbook aren’t facts at all—they’re provocative assertions meant to introduce more complex arguments. In both cases the leading statement is contradicted within a few sentences or paragraphs.
Take the time to read the whole text carefully and see how the argument develops. Make sure that you’re not basing your own arguments on something that simply isn’t true.
Problem: Incorrect Quotations
Example: “Braidwood believed that the shift to a food-producing economy resulted solely from an ever increasing cultural differentiation of human communities” (Lamberg-Karlovsky and Sabloff 1995:45).
That's not what the sentence in the textbook says. If you base an argument on an incorrect quotation, you may well lead yourself astray. This problem is related to the previous one, because incorrect quotations are often the result of skimming. If you use quotation marks, be sure you understand what the cited text means, and copy it exactly from the source.
Problem: Relying Solely on the Textbook Because You Didn't Take Good Lecture Notes (or Didn't Attend Lectures)
Example: The most recent evidence argues that the domestication of cereals began in the southern Levant and was made necessary by the onset of drier climatic conditions around 9000 B.C. (Lamberg-Karlovsky and Sabloff 1995:55).
Don't rely entirely on your textbook. It has a copyright date of 1995, but academic publishing tends to be slow, and most books are written several years before they appear in print. In fact, if you check the bibliography for the chapter on the Near Eastern Neolithic, you won't find any references more recent than 1992. Information reported after 1992 won't be in the textbook, but it may well be in your lecture notes.
For example, while the sentence given above is an accurate summary of what the textbook says, the textbook's argument relies on data published in 1991. More recent evidence--first published in September 1998--suggests that the cultivation of wheat and barley actually began during a period of warmer, wetter conditions, not drier ones. Furthermore, new data argue that wheat was first domesticated in southeastern Turkey, not the southern Levant. This information was presented in Lecture #4 (the second lecture on Near Eastern agricultural origins).
Just as you shouldn't base an argument on information that isn't true, don't rely on information that's out of date. Before you make an argument that depends on "facts" cited in the textbook, check your lecture notes to make sure that those data haven't been replaced by more recent information. You can't check your lecture notes if you don't have any; attend lectures and take good notes. Check them against the notes posted on the Web, if that's applicable. (It is in the case of Essay #1.)
Problem: Arguments that are Vague, Overly Generalized, or not Stated Explicitly
Example 1: Sedentism was, in a sense, necessary for agriculture.
Example 2: It is possible that under some circumstances climatic change caused agriculture.
You need to be more precise. Show in what specific sense something was necessary for something else to happen, where and when, and show under what conditions something was possible and under what conditions it wasn't. Beware of sweeping generalizations, which can be made questionable by a single counter-example. Make sure your arguments are specific and can be supported with hard evidence.
Similarly, make sure to say what your argument is in the first place. Your AIs aren't psychic, and they can't know what you're thinking unless you tell them explicitly. Don’t assume that the data will speak for themselves, because they never do. You can cite as much evidence as you want, but if you don’t explain why you’re citing it, or what argument you want to make with it, the evidence won’t make sense. (Proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation are immensely helpful in making your argument clear.)
Problem: Arguments Based on Assumptions about Human Nature
Example 1: People invented agriculture because they were inherently lazy and wanted more food for less work.
Example 2: Neolithic groups began to domesticate plants and animals because humans are naturally curious and inventive.
Don't make assumptions about human nature or generalizations about better lifestyles, progress, the rise of humanity, and so on. These kinds of arguments are very dangerous. They’re not only unscientific; they’re often just plain wrong. In this course, determine what people actually did in the past before you draw any conclusions about human nature.
Problem: Arguments Based on Popular Misconceptions
Example 1: With the invention of farming, people could have a more secure supply of food and better nutrition.
Example 2: Early agriculture gave people a wider range of foods to eat.
While derived from widespread and seemingly "logical" beliefs, these statements are neither logical nor correct. In fact, they are contradicted by the data, and close examination of the evidence shows that they are obviously wrong. Again, check the evidence first, then draw conclusions.
Problem: Arguments Based on the Assumption that People Foresee the Long-Term Consequences of Their Actions
Example: Agriculture was invented to begin the civilizing process.
Is there any evidence to suggest that the first Near Eastern farmers looked 5,000-6,000 years into the future and saw what Sumerian city-states would be like? Of course there isn’t. Don’t make arguments like this one, which mistakes an eventual result for an immediate cause.
Problem: Invalid Analogies to the Modern World
Example: When people developed agriculture, the benefits weren't immediately obvious, but that isn’t a problem. After all, people developed automobiles, even though the ultimate benefits weren’t instantly recognizable.
Whoa! This comparison may be superficially reasonable, but it won’t stand up to scrutiny. The inventions of agriculture and the automobile were two different kinds of events and two fundamentally different situations. The change from foraging to farming put the very basis of people’s survival—their food supply—at risk; the switch from horses to cars didn’t. If you’re going to make an analogy to the modern world, be sure to show how and why the comparison is applicable.
Problem: "Filler" Text
The length given for the assignment is a guideline, not a rigid requirement. Experience suggests that it will take most students about this many pages to answer the question adequately. Do not, however, add statements that are not directly related to the assignment in order to fill up space. If a sentence or paragraph doesn’t help to develop your argument but simply increases the length of your paper, get rid of it. (If that leaves you with only half a page of text, you probably need to think about the assignment some more.)
Problem: Incorrect Citations
Use the format given on the course Website.
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Last updated: 29 November 2000
URL:http://www.indiana.edu/~ancient/esa1prob.html
Comments: jakirk@indiana.edu
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