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1002:2018:further_information_about_this_unit

Further information about this unit

Unit description

Anthropology's long-term ethnographic method, within a specific cultural setting, allows for a particularly intimate understanding of people's experiences of the social worlds they inhabit. This unit shows the importance of this experiential intimacy for understanding some of the key issues associated with globalisation: the culturally diverse forms of global capitalism, the transnational communities emanating from global population movements, the transformations of colonial and post-colonial cultures, the rise of global movements and the corresponding transformation of Western nationalism.

Learning outcomes

This class in an introduction to anthropology as a distinct way of thinking about societies, social change, and cultural differences. We examine several different kinds of contemporary situations in which people live as a way to introduce the key concepts and methods by which anthropologists draw conclusions and explain people's behavior, values and ideas. If you participate fully in the class, by the end of the semester, you can expect to:

  • Know what makes anthropology different from other social sciences.
  • Understand the key concepts with which anthropologists define society, social form, and social change.
  • Understand how anthropologists apply these key concepts to contemporary situations, and what kinds of competing explanations they debate.
  • Be able to identify ethnographic description and analysis and see how anthropologists draw conclusions from it.
  • Be able to find ethnographic evidence and use it to develop your own argument in an essay. Understand why anthropologists reject simple, universal claims about human life in terms of 'human nature' and 'progress' (or 'modernity'), and how instead they use their in-depth, immersive study of sociocultural worlds to unsettle and critique these grand, general explanations.

Assessment criteria

This unit uses standards referenced assessment for award of assessment marks. Students’ assessment will be evaluated solely on the basis of students’ achievement against criteria and standards specified to align with learning outcomes. For reference to criteria and standards, please consult the grade descriptors for the School of Social and Political Sciences at http://sydney.edu.au/arts/sociology_social_policy/undergrad/grades.shtml.

Submission of written work

Compliance Statements

All students are required to submit an authorised statement of compliance with all work submitted to the University for assessment, presentation or publication. A statement of compliance certifies that no part of the Work constitutes a breach of Academic Dishonesty and Plagiarism Policy. The format of the compliance statement will differ depending on the method required for submitting your work (see “Assessment Submission” below). Depending on the submission method, the statement must be in the form of:

a. a University assignment cover sheet; b. a University electronic form; or c. a University written statement.

Assessment Submission

The essay must be submitted both online via the Blackboard site for this Unit of Study and in hard copy at School of Social and Political Sciences main office on Level 1 of Mills in the submission boxes by 4:00 p.m. on the due date.

Weekly writing assignments must be completed by 11:59 p.m. on the due date (before Monday morning lectures) and submitted online.

When submitting your printed essay, you must complete, sign and attach a cover sheet/compliance statement to any written work handed in for assessment. When submitting your essay to the Turnitin dropbox on Blackboard, you must first complete a 'compliance quiz' (asking if you agree with the Faculty's policies on plagiarism, true of false). This reveals the link to the dropbox.

Essays and assignments not submitted on or before the due date are subject to penalty. Refer to http://sydney.edu.au/arts/current_students/late_work.shtml for the Policy on Late Work. You lose two points out of 100 for every weekday that your essay is late. Weekly writings cannot be submitted late.

Academic dishonesty and plagiarism

Academic honesty is a core value of the University. The University requires students to act honestly, ethically and with integrity in their dealings with the University, its members, members of the public and others. The University is opposed to and will not tolerate academic dishonesty or plagiarism, and will treat all allegations of academic dishonesty or plagiarism seriously.

The University’s Academic Dishonesty and Plagiarism Policy 2012 and associated Procedures are available for reference on the University Policy Register at http://sydney.edu.au/policies (enter “Academic Dishonesty” in the search field). The Policy applies to the academic conduct of all students enrolled in a coursework award course at the University.

Under the terms and definitions of the Policy,

  • “academic dishonesty” means “seeking to obtain or obtaining academic advantage (including in the assessment or publication of work) by dishonest or unfair means or knowingly assisting another student to do so.
  • “plagiarism” means “presenting another person’s work as one’s own work by presenting, copying or reproducing it without appropriate acknowledgement of the source.”

The presentation of another person's work as one's own without appropriate acknowledgement is regarded as plagiarism, regardless of the author’s intentions. Plagiarism can be classified as negligent (negligent plagiarism) or dishonest (dishonest plagiarism).

An examiner who suspects academic dishonesty or plagiarism by a student must report the suspicion to a nominated academic in the relevant faculty. If the nominated academic concludes that the student has engaged in dishonest plagiarism or some other sufficiently serious form of academic dishonesty, the matter may be referred to the Registrar for further disciplinary action under the terms of the Academic Dishonesty and Plagiarism Policy 2012 and Chapter 8 of the University of Sydney By-Law 1999 (as amended).

Use of similarity detection software

Students should be aware that written assignments submitted in this Unit of Study will be submitted to similarity detecting software known as Turnitin. The detection and identification of work that may be suspected of plagiarism is an academic judgment for the unit coordinator, and similarity detecting software is one of the tools that an examiner or marker may use to inform a decision that plagiarism has occurred.

Turnitin searches for matches between text in your written assessment task and text sourced from the Internet, published works and assignments that have previously been submitted to Turnitin for analysis. It produces an originality report showing matches with various sources, and an overall level of match or similarity index.

There will always be some degree of text-matching when using Turnitin. These are caused by the use of direct quotations, technical terms and phrases, and the listing of bibliographic material. This does not mean you will automatically be accused of plagiarism.

Further information about Turnitin is available at http://sydney.edu.au/arts/current_students/plagiarism_and_turnitin.shtml.

Special consideration

The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences assesses student requests for assistance relating to completion of assessment in accordance with the regulations set out in the University Assessment Policy 2011 and Assessment Procedures 2011. Students are expected to become familiar with the University’s policies and Faculty procedures relating to Special Consideration and Special Arrangements.

Students can apply for:

  • Special Consideration (SC) for serious illness or misadventure
  • Special Arrangements (SA) for essential community commitments
  • Simple Extension (SE), an extension of up to 5 working days for non-examination based assessment tasks on the grounds of illness or misadventure.

Further information on special consideration policy and procedures is available on the Faculty website at http://sydney.edu.au/arts/current_students/special_consideration.shtml.

Other policies and procedures relevant to this unit

The Faculty’s Student Administration Manual is available for reference at the “Current Students” section of the Faculty Website (http://sydney.edu.au/arts/current_students/). Most day-to-day issues you encounter in the course of completing this Unit of Study can be addressed with the information provided in the Manual. It contains detailed instructions on processes, links to forms and guidance on where to get further assistance.

1002/2018/further_information_about_this_unit.txt · Last modified: 2020/01/25 15:28 by 127.0.0.1