Undergraduate Student Papers

A lot of undergrads work hard on papers only to turn them in and forget about them. Clearly particularly outstanding papers might be published but oftentimes works aren't well-written enough or are too long or have some other flaw that prevents publication.  We hope to begin to archive student work to keep their ideas alive as well as give undergrads a quasi-formal place to present their work.  Obviously it's far from a journal and in the mindset of open-access but a start.

Any work submitted to be posted must be your own material. Don't bother plagiarizing (copying) from any of these papers, they'll show up on Google very easily, making you an easy target.

That said, contact us if you have one to add!


The Facebook Effect: Social Network Sites and Changing Experiences of LGBT Students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

By Jason C. Romero | Keywords: Facebook , LGBT, gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer, transgender, internet, equity, diveristy, ANTH411_F07

For my project I addressed the effect that LGBT students use of Facebook has on their use of LGBT services associated with the university. I interviewed a gay student and the director of the Office of LGBT Resources, and found that students' use of Facebook both diminishes and enhances LGBT services offered by the university in a complex relationship. Facebook empowers LGBT students by enabling them to find other LGBT students outside of the LGBT services associated with the university. However, these same services use Facebook to reach LGBT students, and the construction of Facebook contributes to additional advertising for these students. Whether or not students use these services, though, they are still considered to perform a symbolic function that the Internet is incapable of replacing.

Why ISU students use Facebook

By the Anthropology 285 class of Fall 2006 | Online Communities, Facebook, ISU, Social Spaces

This project explores ISU students’ use of the social networking website Facebook, and asks why students participate in Facebook. The author conducted six interviews and did participant observation by making a Facebook site as well. The results show that students use Facebook as a time filler. For example, a high rate of students used it strictly to “check-up” on others, in their own words to “creep” on them. As social networking sites continue to increase in popularity, despite all the risks involved for developing students ready to enter the business society, this study illuminates why Facebook is so appealing to ISU students.