In the competitive world of academia, one of the key criteria for job-hiring and awarding fellowships and research funding is publication. By the time anthropology/archaeology students complete their MA or PhD degrees, they are well-trained in their fields of study and in preparing a thesis, but most are poorly equipped to restructure and rewrite their ideas to meet the demands and requirements of academic publication in international journals. This course serves to introduce students to the complete process of publishing a scholarly journal paper and to guide students through converting a topic or theme from their research into a publishable paper. The emphasis will be on publishing in English, which is critical for anthropology and archaeology in Taiwan to become further internationalized and so that Taiwan scholars can more effectively participate in global academic discourse. Students in this course will learn how to rethink their thesis or term paper ideas into more-publishable forms and identify target journals. This could include re-shaping their “local” scope thesis into something of broader, “international” interest or bringing to the fore the “Big Picture”, creative approach, or new and significant outcomes laying behind their research. They will learn about the submissions process and journal guidelines, how to prepare their manuscript and illustrations, and peer review. An outcome of the course will be a draft manuscript in a submittable form for an academic journal.

The orientation of this course is anthropological, stressing the publication of research results of a high standard for an international, academic audience: the course is not designed as instruction in English language usage, but students will be given opportunities to prepare and revise their paper manuscripts with constant feedback from their peers and teacher; we will also identify sources for students to seek help for English-language related issues.