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VOLUME XIII, NUMBER 4

= INNOVATION ABSTRACTS

PUBLISHED BY THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR STAFF AND ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN

WITH SUPPORT FROM THE W. K, KELLOGG FOUNDATION AND THE SID W. RICHARDSON FOUNDATION

 

The Mushroom Method: How to Start Writing a Paper

I teach History of Anthropology, a course included in
the writing-across-the-curriculum plan to teach writing,
reading, and subject mastery as interdependent rather
than as separate skills. The class is an upper-division
course that combines lectures and classroom presenta-
tions, and requires extensive writing. The following in-
structions were developed because, after teaching the
class for two years, I found that I was still not seeing
much improvement between drafts (despite labor-
intensive “corrections” and breaking the paper into four
stages). The students needed more help in the first
stage—the chaotic data-gathering and processing. The
following instructions were designed to provide this
help.

Instructions for Growing a Mushroom

Using notecards when you first begin preparing to
write a paper is like providing the mycelium from
which mushrooms grow. (Mycelium refers to the
scattered filaments that, through a mysterious process,
come together and grow into a mushroom.) To create a
paper, you need to gather filaments. A paper is not a
bouquet of other people’s mushrooms; it is your own
mushroom, grown from numerous microscopic frag-
ments of information.

Your paper is a 10-page synopsis of the life and
contributions of a major contributor to disciplinary
anthropology between the mid-19th and mid-20th
centuries. It should contain information about this
person’s biography, the intellectual context in which
he/she was nurtured, a statement about his/her
theoretical orientation, and a review of his/her impor-
tant theoretical contributions.

What do I put on the notecards?

Begin by collecting bits and pieces of information
relevant to the above categories (biography, major
theoretical contributions, etc.) on notecards. Begin with
your assigned textbooks. Make a bibliographic card for
each textbook. Look up your person in the index.
Break down the information in the textbook into
categories (e.g., on a card headed “Personal characteris-

@iv’ put only the material that refers to personal char-

acteristics, such as the fact that he was very friendly but
was rumored to have murdered a native in the tea
fields, or that she was always approachable by students
but had a pathological hatred of short people with gray
eyes; on a card headed “Teachers” or “Influential
people,” include information such as “studied at Cam-
bridge under the noted historian Brooke” [put cross-
reference notes to yourself, such as cf. Cambridge;
Brooke]). Always include the source of your material
(e.g., Hodgen 1967: 22).

After transferring information from your textbook,
go to the books on reserve in the library and do the
same thing with them. Then go to the American Anthro-
pologist and look for obituaries. Try to read, or at least
look at, the major books and papers written by your
anthropologist. Continue to build up your biblio-
graphic files, keeping track of where things are and
whether you have to order them. Expand your hori-
zons by reading about the people encountered and
influenced by your anthropologist (if you’re doing
Frazer, you should read about Tylor et al., and also look
at books on the Victorian era); look at newspapers on
microfilm from the period during which your anthro-
pologist lived—perhaps around the time of birth and
death.

At this point do not try to write your paper (if it hits
you between the eyes, however, take it). This is the
gathering phase. Gather everything, even if it doesn’t
seem relevant at the time. You may gather something
that will turn out to be the central metaphor of your
final paper. You are like a truffle-hunting pig snuffling
along every inch of ground—slowly, methodically,
patiently. One mycelium does not a mushroom make.

How do I arrange notecards?

I arrange notecards alphabetically, primarily because
I do a lot of cross-referencing and keep developing new
categories, and it’s the only way I can find pieces of
information. I often put information in several catego-
ries and cross-reference the cards (for example: a
notecard headed “Birth” might contain the date and
place of birth, with cross-references underlined: cf.
death; Cambridge; 19th century; [parents’ names];

 

 

 

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