AI-Anthropology-Toolkit

Use this skill whenever a user needs help writing a research article, thesis chapter, or dissertation chapter for anthropology. Triggers include: "write my article," "journal article," "ethnographic writing," "methods section," "findings section," "thick description," "ethnographic vignette," "thesis chapter," "dissertation chapter," "article structure," "manuscript draft," "using quotes in my paper," "participant voice," "anonymize my manuscript," "blind review version," "anonymous version for submission," or writing for anthropology journals. Covers full research articles and their sections, thesis and dissertation chapters, section-level drafting and revision, and preparing anonymized manuscripts for blind peer review submission, across all subfields. Do NOT use for peer review or reviewer responses (use academic-review skill), conference abstracts or presentations (use conference-materials skill), grant proposals (use grant-proposal skill), or public-facing writing (use public-engagement skill).

Use this skill whenever a user needs to find, screen, organize, or synthesize scholarly literature — literature reviews, annotated bibliographies, literature matrices, systematic or scoping reviews, or building a theoretical or conceptual framework from sources. Triggers include: "literature review," "lit review," "review the literature," "annotated bibliography," "literature matrix," "synthesize these papers," "systematic review," "scoping review," "PRISMA," "screen these abstracts," "research gap," "theoretical framework," "conceptual framework," "organize my sources," "what does the literature say." Covers review-type selection, search strategy and logging, screening with audit trails, annotation and matrix construction, and framework development. Do NOT use for formulating research questions (use research-question), writing the article or chapter prose (use research-writing), or collecting non-scholarly data (use digital-computational-methods).

Use this skill whenever a user needs help writing, evaluating, or responding to peer reviews for anthropological research. Triggers include: any mention of "peer review," "review a manuscript," "write a review," "reviewer comments," "respond to reviewers," "rebuttal letter," "revision plan," "manuscript evaluation," "assess this paper," "reviewing for [journal name]," "R&R response," "how to review," "reviewer feedback," "revise and resubmit." Covers writing constructive peer reviews for anthropology journals, evaluating manuscripts from the reviewer's perspective, and responding to reviewer feedback (rebuttal letters, revision plans). Review types: invited review, desk review, blind review, open review. Do NOT use for grant review panels (use grant-proposal skill) or student work feedback (use teaching-materials skill). This skill handles peer review as a professional scholarly practice and revision as a strategic engagement with reviewer critique.

Use this skill whenever a user needs help writing professional philosophy statements for academic career advancement. Triggers include: any mention of "research statement," "teaching statement," "teaching philosophy," "diversity statement," "DEI statement," "tenure narrative," "promotion statement," "research vision," "future research plans," "statement of purpose," "personal statement for academic job," "how to write a research statement," "how to write a teaching statement," or "tenure portfolio." Covers research statements, teaching statements/philosophies, diversity statements, and tenure/promotion narratives for anthropologists at all career stages. Do NOT use for CVs, cover letters, or job talks (use job-materials skill), course syllabi or assignments (use teaching-materials skill), or grant proposals (use grant-proposal skill).

Use this skill whenever a user needs help preparing materials for an anthropology conference presentation. Triggers include: any mention of "conference abstract," "AAA abstract," "organized session," "roundtable proposal," "poster session," "workshop proposal," "slide deck," "conference presentation," "conference talk," "academic poster," "speaker notes," "20-minute talk," "15-minute talk," "CASCA abstract," "AES presentation," "SfAA abstract," "help with my AAA panel," "poster design," or "oral delivery." Covers abstract writing for individual papers, organized sessions, roundtables, poster sessions, and workshop proposals; slide deck design for 15-20 minute conference talks; academic poster design including content structure and visual hierarchy; and speaker notes with oral delivery preparation. Do NOT use for job talks (use job-materials skill), public talks for non-academic audiences (use public-engagement skill), or full paper writing (use research-writing skill).

Use this skill whenever a user needs help designing fieldwork data collection instruments or protocols for qualitative or anthropological research. Triggers include: "interview guide," "interview protocol," "focus group guide," "observation protocol," "field notes," "field note template," "fieldwork protocol," "data collection instruments," "sampling strategy," "purposive sampling," "snowball sampling," "data management plan," "DMP," "transcription protocol," "researcher training," "pilot testing," "semi-structured interview," "life history interview," "key informant interview," or "participant observation protocol." Covers interview guides, focus group guides, observation protocols, field note systems, sampling and recruitment, training, pilot testing, and data management. Do NOT use for IRB protocol narratives (use irb-protocol skill), consent documents (use informed-consent skill), or methodology selection (use methodology-selection skill).

Use this skill whenever a user needs help designing informed consent processes or documents for qualitative or anthropological research. Triggers include: "informed consent," "consent form," "consent process," "information sheet," "verbal consent," "community consent," "media consent," "consent for recording, photos, or video," "ongoing consent," "process consent," "re-consent," "consent waiver," "consent template," "assent form," "guardian consent," "culturally appropriate consent," "consent in low-literacy settings," or "consent for longitudinal or multi-site research." Covers designing consent processes (written, verbal, community-based, tiered), writing consent forms and information sheets, cultural adaptation, media and recording consent, and consent for special populations and contexts. Do NOT use for full IRB protocol narratives or data management plans (use irb-protocol skill) or methodology selection (use methodology-selection skill).

Use this skill whenever a user needs help selecting, justifying, or evaluating research methods for anthropological or qualitative research. Triggers include: "which methods should I use," "how do I justify my methods," "method-stance alignment," "my reviewer says my methods don't match my theory," "multi-method design," "mixed methods in anthropology," or "what methods fit an interpretivist / critical / STS / feminist / applied project." Also trigger on questions about epistemic coherence between theory and methods, evidence types needed for a research question, composing a multi-method system, writing a methods justification narrative, or data governance as a design decision. Do NOT use for writing a full research plan (use research-plan skill), grant proposals targeting a specific funder (use grant-proposal skill), or designing specific instruments like interview guides (use fieldwork-methods skill). This skill handles the upstream design decision of which methods and why.

Use this skill whenever a user needs help writing for non-academic audiences or communicating research to the public. Triggers include: any mention of "op-ed," "blog post," "public writing," "writing for the public," "Sapiens," "The Conversation," "public anthropology," "popular writing," "community report," "return of results," "podcast preparation," "media interview," "talking points," "press release," "public scholarship," "engaged anthropology," "translating research," "accessible writing," "plain language," "policy brief," "community summary," or "media training." Covers public-facing writing (blog posts, op-eds, popular press), podcast and media preparation, community summaries and return-of-results documents, and register translation from academic to accessible language. Do NOT use for academic conference presentations (use conference-materials skill), peer-reviewed article writing, or grant proposals (use grant-proposal skill).

Use this skill whenever a user needs help coding qualitative data, building a codebook, or conducting thematic analysis for anthropological research. Triggers include: "code my interviews," "qualitative coding," "codebook," "thematic analysis," "themes," "deductive coding," "inductive coding," "hybrid coding," "code frequencies," "co-occurrence," "intercoder reliability," "analyze my transcripts," "analyze my field notes," "AI-assisted coding," "NVivo," "MAXQDA," "QDPX," or "how do I analyze my qualitative data." Covers codebook development from literature or data, applying codes (deductive, inductive, hybrid), building themes from coded data, multi-lens parallel analysis, and quality validation. Bridges to the toolkit's computational notebooks (Semantic Chunker, Codebook Builder, Coding and Thematic Analysis). Do NOT use for designing data collection instruments (use fieldwork-methods skill), method selection (use methodology-selection skill), or writing up findings (use research-writing skill).

Use this skill whenever a user needs help writing, drafting, revising, or structuring a standalone research plan for anthropological or qualitative research. Triggers include: "research plan," "research design," "study design," "fieldwork plan," or "methods plan" when not tied to a specific funder or committee milestone; requests to draft or revise plan sections (problem statement, research questions, methods, analysis, ethics, feasibility, timeline); and questions like "what should my research plan include" or "how do I plan my fieldwork." Also trigger when a user has a project idea and needs to develop it into a structured, evaluable plan. Covers all anthropological subfields and qualitative social science approaches. Do NOT use for grant proposals targeting a specific funder (use grant-proposal skill), dissertation prospectuses for a committee defense (use dissertation-prospectus skill), or research question development without a full plan context (use research-question skill).

Use this skill whenever a user needs client-facing or industry deliverables for applied anthropological work — consulting, UX research, business anthropology, or practicing roles. Triggers include: "statement of work," "SOW," "client report," "stakeholder readout," "executive summary," "insight synthesis," "research repository," "atomic insights," "workshop facilitation," "design sprint," "product team," "consulting engagement," "case study portfolio," "translate my research for business," "UX research deliverable." Covers engagement scoping, insight formulation, readouts and reports, workshop design, research repositories, and translating anthropological concepts for business audiences without losing them. Do NOT use for academic articles or chapters (use research-writing), op-eds and public writing (use public-engagement), academic job materials (use job-materials), or executing the analysis itself (use qualitative-analysis).

Use this skill whenever a user needs digital or computational research methods for anthropology — studying online communities and platforms, analyzing cultural material at computational scale, or deciding how to bring AI into the research relationship. Triggers include: "digital ethnography," "netnography," "study an online community," "subreddit," "social media data," "trace data," "platform research," "topic modeling," "text network," "named entity recognition," "computational anthropology," "embeddings," "talk with my data," "should I use AI to analyze my data." Covers digital fieldwork design and platform ethics, and matching computational methods to corpus and question. Do NOT use for offline fieldwork instruments (use fieldwork-methods), broad method-stance alignment (use methodology-selection), or executing qualitative coding (use qualitative-analysis).

Use this skill whenever a user needs help writing, drafting, revising, or structuring a dissertation prospectus, dissertation proposal, qualifying exam proposal, upgrade/transfer document, or fieldwork clearance proposal for anthropological research. Triggers include: "prospectus," "dissertation proposal," "qualifying exam," "QE," "upgrade proposal," "transfer of status," "fieldwork clearance," "I need to write my prospectus," "how do I structure a dissertation proposal," and questions about committee expectations, prospectus defenses, or upgrade vivas. Covers US prospectuses, UK upgrade/transfer/fieldwork proposals, and dual-purpose prospectuses that also serve as grant applications. Do NOT use for standalone grant proposals without a committee audience (use grant-proposal skill), journal articles or thesis chapters (use research-writing skill), or research question development outside a prospectus context (use research-question skill).

Use this skill whenever a user needs help writing, drafting, revising, or structuring a grant proposal or funding application for anthropological research. Triggers include: any mention of NSF, Wenner-Gren, Fulbright, ERC, SSHRC, Wellcome, or other research funders in the context of anthropology or ethnographic research; requests to write a Project Description, research narrative, budget justification, or broader impacts statement; questions about framing ethnographic methods for a grant committee; requests to translate a research plan into a funder-specific format. Also use for "grant writing," "proposal writing," "funding application," or "fellowship application" in anthropology, sociology, STS, or other social science fieldwork research. Do NOT use for journal articles or chapters (use research-writing skill), research plan writing without a specific funder (use research-plan skill), or IRB/ethics protocols and consent documents (use irb-protocol or informed-consent skill).

Use this skill whenever a user needs help writing, revising, or evaluating an IRB or ethics protocol for qualitative or anthropological research. Triggers include: "IRB," "ethics protocol," "IRB application," "ethics review," "human subjects," "Common Rule," "protocol narrative," "exempt vs expedited vs full board," "data security plan," "confidentiality," "de-identification," "deductive disclosure," "vulnerable populations," "fieldwork ethics," or "recruitment script." Also trigger on questions about recruitment materials, data management plans for IRB, risk assessment for qualitative research, digital ethnography ethics, or oral history IRB issues. Covers all qualitative and ethnographic methods. Do NOT use for upstream method selection (use methodology-selection skill), full research plan writing (use research-plan skill), or grant proposals (use grant-proposal skill). This skill handles writing IRB-ready protocol narratives and associated documents.

Use this skill whenever a user needs help preparing academic job application materials for anthropology positions. Triggers include: any mention of "academic CV," "curriculum vitae," "cover letter," "job application," "job talk," "academic job market," "tenure-track application," "postdoc application," "VAP application," "lecturer position," "how to write a cover letter," "CV formatting," "job talk preparation," "campus visit," "search committee," "application package," "tailoring applications," or "academic hiring." Covers academic CV design and formatting, cover letters tailored by position type, job talk design and delivery, and application strategy. Do NOT use for research/teaching/diversity statements (use career-statements skill), conference presentations (use conference-materials skill), or grant proposals (use grant-proposal skill).

Use this skill whenever a user needs help designing courses or creating teaching materials for anthropology. Triggers include: any mention of "syllabus," "course design," "lesson plan," "assignment prompt," "rubric," "discussion guide," "teaching anthropology," "intro to anthropology course," "ethnographic methods course," "seminar design," "learning objectives," "Bloom's taxonomy," "active learning," "case study for class," "in-class activity," "grading rubric," "reading list," "course schedule," "flipped classroom," "inclusive pedagogy," or "teaching portfolio materials." Covers syllabus and course design, lesson plans and discussion guides, assignment prompts, rubrics, case studies, and in-class activities across anthropology subfields and course levels. Do NOT use for teaching statements or philosophy documents (use career-statements skill), conference presentations (use conference-materials skill), or curriculum-level program design.

Develop, refine, and stress-test anthropological research questions. Use this skill whenever a user mentions research questions, RQs, dissertation questions, proposal questions, or asks for help formulating what they want to study. Also trigger when users say things like "I want to study X," "how do I narrow my topic," "is this question too broad," "help me write my research question," "I'm writing a proposal and need questions," or "what should I be asking." Covers sociocultural, linguistic, archaeological, biological, medical, applied, and design anthropology as well as cognate qualitative social sciences. Works across genres: journal articles, dissertation proposals, grant applications (NSF, Wenner-Gren, Fulbright), and applied/consulting projects. If someone is working on any pre-fieldwork intellectual framing task, this skill applies.