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Style Guide and Useful Writing Tips
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Style Guide and Useful Writing Tips
Archaeological writing requires that the author use a reference system referred to as "in-text citation." All this means is that any references must be placed within the text, NOT in endnotes, footnotes, or any other system. The following example indicates how an in-text citation system works. The example is not exhaustive, and the writer must use her judgement in many instances. Each writer needs to follow her own style and should adjust references and citations to that style (so long as the format is followed in general). I have made observations about certain stylistic factors in the text. These notes are found in ALL CAPITOL LETTERS AND ARE SET OFF BY BRACKETS "[ ]." Please take time to look over this example before you begin writing.
Introduction [NOTE THAT IT IS OFTEN USEFUL TO USE SECTION HEADERS TO GUIDE THE READER]
Popular and scholarly thinking about how humans interact with the physical environment is often polarized into two explanatory frameworks. The first can be identified with the Ecologically Noble Savage (Redford 1990) , and the other what William Balée (1998a:16) calls Homo Devastans. [NOTE THAT THE BALÉE REFERENCE FOLLOWS AFTER HIS NAME, NOT AT THE END OF THE SENTENCE; OBSERVE ALSO THAT THE PAGE NUMBER IS CITED HERE SINCE THE IDEA IS VERY SPECIFIC. ALSO, THE REFERENCE IS FOLLOWED BY LOWERCASE "a" TO DENOTE THE FIRST OF TWO REFERENCES TO BALÉE] The Ecologically Noble Savage is Rousseau-esque in his qualities. Human nature, in this doctrine, is benign. The Ecologically Noble Savage does not actively work to diminish biodiversity. In some instances, the Noble Savage may promote biodiversity. In all cases, this archetype demonstrates ecological sensitivity, wisdom, and dignity. Furthermore, the Ecologically Noble Savage represents the sum of indigenous values and knowledge; these values are more discerning than any promoted by Western scientific thinking and are manifest by the neutrality of the indigenous effect on the environment (Balée 1998a:14-19) . [NOTE AGAIN THE USE OF PAGE NUMBERS FOR A SPECIFIC IDEA]
Homo Devastans, however, is the archetype of ecological villainy. This doctrine of human nature suggests that it is in the human genome to pollute, despoil, and waste natural resources (Dubos 1974). [NO PAGE NUMBERS ARE USED HERE SINCE THE REFERENCE IS VERY GENERAL] Those who hold this paradigm, which could be argued to be the prevailing worldview of many environmentalists, argue that humans everywhere lower biodiversity by polluting their local environments (see the discussions in Balée 1998b). [NOTE HERE THAT NO PAGE NUMBERS ARE NECESSARY; ALSO NOTE THE USE OF LOWERCASE "b" TO DENOTE SECOND BALÉE REFERENCE-- SEE BIBLIOGRAPHY] It is not in our biological or cultural temperament to act as stewards or managers of non-human natural resources. Although not explicitly considered in most instances, it is apparent that these views of human nature are thought to differentiate indigenous from Western value systems.
Historical accounts frequently emphasize these polar opposites to explain how environments have been transformed over time. Pre-modern cultures are said to be environmentally and ecologically transitory and neutral. Their effect on the land and on resources is minimal or not visible. Their ability to transform landscapes is at such a reduced scale that they leave no lasting consequence (Denevan 1992). This perceived impermanence is especially evident in North America (Bowden 1992; MacCleery 1994). [NOTE THAT MULTIPLE IN-TEXT REFERENCES ARE LISTED ALPHABETICALLY] The notion that pre-modern peoples did not (or could not) effectively or significantly alter their environment comes together in two separate strands of popular myth-history (Heehs 1994; McNeill 1986). In North America today the Native inhabitants of our continent are acclaimed as the first ecologists and environmentalists (Crosby 1986; Sale 1990). A heroic myth has emerged in which the Native Americans lived in "harmony" with the land, neither taking more than they needed, nor despoiling or altering the land (Sale 1990). The prevalence of this picture in popular media and Native American myth-history is significant and shapes the present-day discourse over the fate of America’s remaining "wilderness." Similarly, however, the myth-history of the European settlers of North America worked also to minimize the role pre-modern Native Americans had in affecting their environment. This notion dates back to the first colonists and it is perpetuated even today. As M. J. Bowden (1992:20) observes: [PAGE NUMBER IS USED HERE SINCE IT IS A QUOTE]
The grand invented tradition of American nature as a whole is the pristine wilderness, a succession of imagined environments which have been conceived as far more difficult for settlers to conquer than they were in reality... The ignoble savage... was invented to justify dispossession... and to prove that the Indian had no part in transforming America from Wilderness to Garden.
[BE SURE THAT ALL QUOTES ARE PROPERLY AND ACCURATELY COPIED]
In a curious irony, the myth-histories of groups at vastly different ends of the philosophical spectrum coincided to perpetuate two myths. On the one hand was the notion of the pre-contact Forest Primeval, untouched and unaltered by the natives and heroically conquered by the European colonists. On the other hand was the myth of the passive "ecologically invisible" Indian (MacCleery 1994:7), the prototype for today’s environmentalist [NOTE THE USE OF PAGE NUMBER FOR SPECIFIC QUOTE]. The combined myths resulted in a popular image of
Indians who lived... in harmony with nature, making no irremediable changes in the environment, and handing over to the Europeans a virgin land. Whether denigrated as ignoble savages or idealized as native (sic) [THE USE OF "sic" INDICATES AN ERROR IN THE ORIGINAL TEXT] Americans living in perfect equilibrium and harmony with the environment, the Indians are given no credit for opening up the Eastern Woodlands, for creating much of America’s grassland, and for transforming hardwoods to piney woods .
Despite a plethora of evidence to the contrary (Kidder 1998), indigenous peoples are rarely recognized as active, determinant agents of environmental change or transformation. Usually, historical narratives present Native Americans as bystanders in the great colonial effort to recast the landscape in a suitable fashion for their continental tastes.
In this paper, I want to explore how we might reconcile both our language and more critically our thinking about human relations with the environment. I wish to cast the issue of native roles in shaping the environment of New Orleans in the framework of historical ecology. Historical ecology focuses on the interpenetration of culture and environment (Balée 1998a); rather than seeing the relationship between nature and culture as a dichotomy, historical ecology requires that we see this relationship as a dialogue (Kidder and Balée 1998). In this context, we can ask if Peirce Lewis (1976:17) is correct [NOTE THAT THE AUTHOR’S NAME IS DROPPED SINCE IT IS SELF EVIDENT. ALSO, THE PAGE NUMBER IS REALLY IN REFERENCE TO THE NEXT SENTENCE, I.E., THE SPECIFIC IDEA OF AN INEVITABLE CITY]. Is New Orleans an inevitable city? Moreover, if it is, why? I want to briefly touch on two aspects of the modern landscape that are relevant to our discussion. First, I want to look at the marsh as an exemplar of historical ecology. Then I want to explore the role Bayou St. John plays in shaping the city. My goal is to show that the modern city is shaped, in part, by Native peoples of south Louisiana acting as active agents that transformed the land and the colonial experience.
References Cited
Balée, William L.
1998a Historical Ecology: Premises and Postulates. In Advances in Historical Ecology, edited by W. L. Balée, pp. 13-29. Columbia University Press, New York.
Balée, William L. (editor)
1998b Advances in Historical Ecology. Columbia University Press, New York.
Bowden, Martyn J.
1992 The Invention of American Tradition. Journal of Historical Geography 18:3-26.
Crosby, Alfred W.
1986 Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Denevan, William M.
1992 The Pristine Myth: The Landscape of the Americas in 1492. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 82:369-385.
Dubos, René
1974 Beast or Angel? Scribner, New York.
Heehs, Peter
1994 Myth, History, and Theory. History and Theory 33:1-19.
Kidder, Tristram R.
1998 The Rat That Ate Louisiana. In Advances in Historical Ecology, edited by W. L. Balée, pp. 141-168. Columbia University Press, New York.
Kidder, Tristram R., and William L. Balée
1998 Epilogue. In Advances in Historical Ecology, edited by W. L. Balée, pp. 405-410. Columbia University Press, New York.
Lewis, Peirce F.
1976 New Orleans&emdash; The Making of an Urban Landscape. Ballinger Publishing, Cambridge.
MacCleery, Doug
1994 Understanding the Role the Human Dimension has Played in Shaping America's Forest and Grassland Landscapes. Eco-Watch 2/10/94.
McNeill, William H.
1986 Mythhistory, or Truth, Myth, History and Historians. American Historical Review 91:1-10.
Redford, Kent
1990 The Ecologically Noble Savage. Orion Nature Quarterly 9(3):24-29. [NOTE THAT THIS REFERENCE USES THE ISSUE NUMBER BECAUSE THE JOURNAL IS NOT SEQUENTIALLY PAGINATED]
Sale, Kirkpatrick
1990 The Conquest of Paradise. Alfred A. Knopf, New York.