Erin Martin

February 17, 2015

Enc 1102
Genre Analysis

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Blue sections indicate areas that were altered, or added, following the peer review for the
final draft of this assignment..

The Genre of Anthropology:

As Seen in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology
Concepts of Genre
Beginning at an early age, children are taught that the meaning of the word
genre is simply a category of writing, with examples such as mystery, comedy,
fiction, and non-fiction. This view went wholly unopposed until December of 1993 when
Amy J. Devitt, an English professor at the University of Kansas, published her research
in a paper titled Generalizing about Genre: New Conceptions of an Old Concept; this
paper denounced the old view of genre as a way to classify forms and text types and
instituted the relatively new idea of genre within a social context that may change as this
context changes.
Understanding genre requires understanding more than just classification
schemes; it requires understanding the origins of the patterns on which those
classifications are based (Devitt 575.)
This quotation from Devitt vocalizes the idea that genre is created by the
repetition of patterns to fulfill a need within a certain discourse community; the writings
of someone within a field of medicine will not look the same as the writings of an
elementary school teacher because their discourse communities have different goals and
expect results to be presented in a way that is effective and understandable for those it

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will involve. For example, a doctor may need to fill a prescription that will be easily
understood by a nurse and/or pharmacist in order to assure that the patient receives proper
care.

Genre within the Context of Anthropology

Within the field of anthropology, there are four main subfields- Cultural
anthropology, linguistic anthropology, archaeology and physical anthropology. Each of
these four subfields contains subdisciplines of their own; this makes anthropology an
exceptionally broad field of study. One common trait among these different subfields is
the division of responsibility understood by anthropologists. An anthropologist has a
responsibility to three groups of people- those who will be researched, those who fund
the research, and fellow anthropologists who rely on the research to further their own
studies. In order for an anthropologist to publish their research in a way that concerns
each responsibility, a very specific genre emerged, allowing anthropological information
to travel from one subfield to another in a way that promotes the corporations who
provide funding, respects the individuals or groups who were analyzed, and remains
comprehensible for those who wish to utilize that data.

Examples of Anthropological Genre

To further explore the genre used in anthropological research, I chose three
similar articles from the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, the first being,
Technical Note: False Catastrophic Age-at-Death Profiles in Commingled Bone Deposits
by Arkadiusz Soltysiak, a professor of bioarchaeology at the University of Warsaw in

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Poland; the second being, Estimation of the Most Likely Number of individuals From
Commingled Human Skeletal Remains by Bradley J. Adams and Lyle W. Konisberg,
professors of anthropology at the University of Tennessee; the third being Simple
Algorithms for the Estimation of the Initial Number of Individuals in Commingled
Skeletal Remains, by Efthymia Nikita and Marta M. Lahr, Professors of human
evolutionary studies at the University of Cambridge.

Participants Involved with the American Journal of Physical Anthropology

The American Journal of Physical Anthropology includes many of its own participants;
this includes those who review article submissions, the editor who reviews the articles
that have been previously selected, and, the publisher of the journal, Wiley Periodicals,
Inc. Along with those who influence the contents of the journal directly, there is a set of
participants who work behind the scenes to distribute the journal, this includes the person
who converts paper copies into online text, databases that include each volume of the
journal in their library and even subscribers who receive a paper copy each month and
create a demand for the information. Examples of databases include those similar to
OneSearch at the University of Central Florida that create a simple and effective way for
students, like myself, to access and study information published within this journal and
journals of this status.

The Globalization of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology

While observing the three examples of genre chosen from the American Journal of
Physical Anthropology, I noticed that, despite the title, only one article was written by an

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American anthropologist, the others being from the United Kingdom and Poland. As
previously mentioned, an anthropologist has a responsibility to fellow researchers to
publish their information in a way that is effective and comprehensible as a means of
expanding the knowledge across the entire globe. While the popularity of the internet
became a rather recent global sensation, the possibilities for anthropologists grew
indefinitely. This created new fields of untapped research opportunities which drastically
increased the size of the anthropological discourse community; thus, the journal began to
accept article submissions via the internet and sent peer review commentary via e-mail.
The acceptance of foreign research papers into the American Journal of Physical
Anthropology has allowed important research to cross borders to be used and studied by
anthropologists thousands of miles away in a matter of hours after publication. This
change directly affects the meaning of American anthropology as stated within the title
of the journal; the mention of America within the title is more accurately a description of
publication location and corporate headquarters than it is a description of a separate
discourse community within the field of anthropology. I find this to be appropriate since
anthropology involves the study of humans across all of time and space; this, obviously,
includes much more than America alone and our published research should, and does,
reflect this.

Participants Involved Within Each Article

The main participants involved within each article are usually mentioned multiple times
on the first page. The author or authors, of course, have their name and credentials typed
directly underneath the headline and again in the bottom right corner of the first page

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listing the contact information of each. For example, Lyle Konigsberg E-mail:
Lylek@utk.edu (Adams, Konigsberg 138.) This allows us to see not only who wrote the
article, but also if they are affiliated with a certain university or private institution. This
institution is considered to be another participant by providing resources, laboratories,
equipment, laboratory assistants, to the researchers, they make it possible for the research
to be conducted in an advantageous environment. In return for their aid, the author will
include the university or institution name into their credentials within the article as a
means of creating a positive reputation for said institution. The institution named within
the article, Simple Algorithms for the Estimation of the Initial Number of Individuals in
Commingled Skeletal Remains is Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies,
University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK (Lahr, Nikita 629.) This mention increases
the probability that another aspiring researcher will choose the University of Cambridge
as the ideal environment to conduct their own research.

The aforementioned responsibility to those who fund anthropological research is also

mentioned within each article; this information can be found at the bottom right corner of
the first page above the contact information of the authors. An example of this can be
found within the article, Estimation of the Most Likely Number of individuals From
Commingled Human Skeletal Remains, stating Grant Sponsor: National Geographic

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Society; Grant number: 699,912 (Adams, Lyle 1.) Much like the naming of an
institution, stating the name of the grant used to fund this particular research increases the
chances that a future scientist will apply for that same grant and in turn, create a long
history of positive results for the National Geographic Society.
It is also important to mention those individuals and groups who are not invited to
participate in this article. These articles, and this journal as a whole, are written for an
audience that already holds a certain amount of knowledge regarding the subject of
physical anthropology. This is highly noticeable on page 139 of Estimation of the Most
Likely Number of individuals From Commingled Human Skeletal Remains where the
author writes The key reason to use the LI for skeletal remains is that accurate estimates
of the original population can be derived from samples in which taphonomic biasing has
occurred (Adams, Konigsberg 139.) Neither before this statement nor after was the
acronym LI and the phrase taphonomic biasing explained in detail that would create an
understanding for someone who was not already familiar with these ideas. This shows
that the author expected the audience to be comprised mostly of highly educated
anthropologists with some background in the subfield of physical anthropology.

Participants: Acknowledgment
On the last page of all three articles, the author or authors included a paragraph headlined
Acknowledgments where they each express their personal thanks to specific
participants. Soltysiak did this by saying Thanks are due to the anonymous reviewer
for their helpful comments on the previous versions of this article and to Jessica Walker
for language correction (Soltysiak 557.) This is an interesting form of participant

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acknowledgment because it does not acknowledge every individual present during the
creation and distribution of each article, but rather those who are deemed to be most
important by the author. For example, as previously mentioned, Soltysiak thanked only
two individuals in his acknowledgments, yet, Nikita and Lahr, authors of Simple
Algorithms for the Estimation of the Initial Number of individuals in Commingled
Skeletal Remains, thanked multiple foundations as well as the University of Cambridge
and the fellow researchers who assisted in the data collection (Lahr, Nikita 636.) Aside
from content, the acknowledgment segment of the article is one of the only distinct
variations between each research paper.

Document Design: Font

The font within each document is structured and used in the same fashion. The title of
each article is displayed in the largest font on the page and bolded to signify the
importance of those words. The title is a summary of the paper, the main point of the
article is made to stand out and draw the attention of those who may be interested in that
specific topic. The next largest fonts, also bolded, are the segment titles, or headlines,
which detail that which will be discussed within the following paragraphs of the article.
Simulation, Results, Discussion and Conclusion, Acknowledgments, and Literature
Cited are the headlines depicted in Technical Note: False Catastrophic Age-at-Death
Profiles in Commingled Bone Deposits (Soltysiak 555-557.) The rest of the article is
written in Times New Roman font, size 12, to show the stark dichotomy between the

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explanation of the research and the title, headlines and journal title listed on each page.
This is to ensure that the audience can easily read the entire article without
misunderstanding the research.

Document Design: Columns and Spacing

The format of these articles adheres to the conventional design of a research paper
where each page has two columns, meant to be read one at a time from left to right. It is a
highly organized format that is exceedingly effective for research articles because figures,
such as pictures, charts, graphs, and formula sheets can easily be inserted into the
document without disrupting the existing flow of the article.

The spacing within the articles is used in such a way that it directs the eye to the next
important piece of information. The very first page of each article contains excess white
space surrounding the beginning of the writing to ensure that the beginning is obvious.
The writing from there on is dense and continuous until the eye arrives at the next
headline in the paper; this makes the reader aware that a new topic will be discussed in
the following paragraphs. Another area left without a large amount of wording is the area

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surrounding each figure. These areas are mostly blank to avoid confusing the figure
explanation with the continuation of the research article.

Content:
Simple Algorithms for the Estimation of the Initial Number of Individuals in
Commingled Skeletal Remains
This article contains the explanation of two distinct methods of determining the number
of individuals within an area of commingled skeletal remains. The authors discuss the
differences between these two estimation methods, MNI (minimum number of
individuals) and MLI (most likely number of individuals.) They go on to say that each is
considered to be accurate although they both contain certain drawbacks; the article uses
computer algorithms to compare the two and address these drawbacks. This involves a
detailed description of the use of hypothetical and actual skeletal samples to discover
which test allows a more accurate result. This article serves the purpose of comparing two
highly accepted methods of analyzing commingled skeletal remains in order to discover
the results with the smallest margin of error; however, it did not introduce a new method
nor outline the designed experiment for future testing (Lahr, Nikita 629-636.)

Content:
Technical Note: False Catastrophic Age-at-Death Profiles in Commingled Bone
Deposits
This article is quite a bit shorter than the other two articles from the American Journal of
Physical Anthropology and serves only to call to light a certain inaccuracy found within

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the MNI (minimum number of individuals) method of obtaining age-at-death profiles.
The author claims that his testing has verified that the use of this method in commingled
human remains deposits has overestimated the amount of sub-adult individuals present in
each sample. The problem then becomes bigger as it may lead to the misinterpretation of
information represented by these statistics. The author goes on to explain that the use of
the MLNI (most likely number of individuals) method may reduce the risk of this bias,
thus leading to more complete results. The authors reason for writing this article was to
introduce a serious issue faced by many physical anthropologists who want their statistics
to be as accurate as possible in order to maintain an unbiased, unskewed pattern of results
on which to base their research (Soltysiak 555-557.)
Content:
Estimation of the Most Likely Number of individuals From Commingled Human
Skeletal Remains
This article is the longest and most detailed article I chose as an example; it compared
three separate methods for comparing the Most Likely Number of Individuals within a
commingled human skeletal remains deposit as well as providing examples and giving
details of each based from a case study from Lodge 21 at the Larson site. The authors
compare the Lincoln index, Minimum number of individuals, and Most likely number of
individuals; the results of this are similar to the previously mentioned articles in that MNI
was found to yield the most accurate results. This is then explained within the context of
the Lodge 21 case where protohistoric inhabitants were massacred and left to decompose
in a mass grave. The main point of this article is to explain each method of analysis,

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compare them via multiple algorithmic studies, and to publicize their findings at the
Larson site for fellow anthropologists to utilize within their own studies.
Purpose
I do believe that the genre employed within anthropological research papers is effective
in its ability to meet the needs of all three anthropological responsibilities. Each article is
formatted in a way that is able to be perceived, understood and replicated by
anthropologists throughout all disciplines and subdisciplines within the anthropological
sphere. The importance of an easily identifiable and comprehensible form of writing
within a certain discourse community is unquestionably essential within scientific fields;
the ability to exchange new ideas, retest ideas of the past and compare results is a vital
element of scientific accomplishment and progression. Without an effective method of
presenting research to fellow anthropologists, countless unprecedented concepts would
remain mere hypothesis and never move forward to become established features within
the field of anthropology. Genre, within any discourse community, goes far beyond the
constraints of plot and character development, and into the core attributes of each
discourse community. As stated by Devitt, We do not construct the situation directly
through the text, however; rather, we reach the situation through the genre, since genre
responds to recurring situation, a text's reflection of genre indirectly reflects situation
(Devitt 578.) The situation reflected within the articles sampled from the American
Journal of Physical Anthropology is the constant development of anthropological
research and the need to express these developments as directly and effectively as
possible to distribute information to those who rely on it now and preserve it for those
who will access it in the future.

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Works Cited
Soltysiak, Arkadiusz. "Technical Note: False Catastrophic Age-At-Death Profiles In
Commingled Bone Deposits." American Journal of Physical Anthropology 4 (2013):
554. Academic OneFile. Web. 17 Feb. 2015.

Nikita, Efthymia, and Marta M. Lahr. "Simple Algorithms For The Estimation Of The
Initial Number Of Individuals In Commingled Skeletal Remains." American Journal Of
Physical Anthropology 146.4 (n.d.): 629-636. Biological Abstracts 1969 - Present. Web.
17 Feb. 2015.

ADAMS, Bradley J. [b1] (analytic), and Lyle W. [b2] (analytic) KONIGSBERG.

"Estimation Of The Most Likely Number Of Individuals From Commingled Human
Skeletal Remains (English)." American Journal Of Physical Anthropology 125.2 (0001):
138-151.FRANCIS. Web. 17 Feb. 2015.

Devitt, Amy J. "Generalizing about Genre: New Conceptions of an Old

Concept." College Composition and Communication 1993: 573. JSTOR Journals. Web.
19 Feb. 2015.

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