The Written Assignment
Purpose
The purpose of this assignment is to help you develop: 1) analytical and research skills; 2) an understanding of how to write a research paper; 3) an understanding of Western Civilization.
Overview
You are required to write one 3 to 5 page essay that addresses some subject from class and argues how/why your subject was important at the time and how/why it influenced Western Civilization. Such topics might be political, social, economic, or religious in nature. The period of time under consideration is roughly 5000 BCE to 1600 CE.
Selecting a topic should be a well thought out process. A starting point for this is the text book. Look at chapters 1 through 13 and see if theres anything that interests you. Topics must be approved by me in advance. This approval typically involves me asking students about their papers during the first few minutes of class or students emailing me their suggestions.
Structure and Format
You must use at least 3 primary source documents and 4 secondary sources in your research (the definitions will be discussed in class). You may NOT use your text book or lecture notes as source material in your paper. You may use journal articles or books normally found in printed form, but obtained off of websites, but you may not use history related websites, such as History.com, TheBible.com, Wikipedia, etc., as sources. Again, we will discuss more about this in class.
The font must be 12 point, Times New Roman and must have 1 inch margins on all four sides (top, bottom, right, left) and be double spaced. You must use the Chicago Manual of Style (Links to an external site.) (CMS) aka, the Turabian style of citation for your paper. More specifically, you must use footnote and bibliography, not endnotes, the Author-Date style of citation (ie. parenthetical form) or the MLA style of citation.
The essay must have a cover page stating your name, date, class, professor (my name), and title of your paper. The cover page is NOT numbered and does NOT count toward the 3-5 pages. While the first page of your actual text does count toward the 3-5 pages, it is NOT numbered either. The first numbered page is page 2. You must have a bibliography (not a “Works Cited” page) identifying the sources you used and formatted in the CMS style discussed above; it, too, does not count toward the 6-8 page requirement. All photos you use in your paper, whether embedded within the text or at the end of the document, must be related to and referenced in the text of your paper and not included as “filler.”
Clarity in writing, proper sentence structure, grammar, spelling, etc. is important for a good grade. A good rule of thumb for every course that requires a written assignment is your professor should NEVER EVER be the first person to read your paper. Therefore, I strongly encourage you to have someone with a substantial command and knowledge of English grammar read your paper before you hand it in. Unfortunately, the volume of papers I have prevents me from proof reading drafts.
When submitting your paper to me, your paper must be uploaded via Canvas and must be in Word.doc format, not PDF, Txt, or some other format. Do not email your paper to me.
Your paper is considered late if it’s not in Canvas by the due date. The grade of the paper will be reduced one grade level each day it is late.
Further information about developing a thesis statement can be found at:
http://historyprofessor.org/argument/a-thesis-statement-template/ (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.)
(Several other links on this web-site might be helpful to you throughout your college career)
Further information about writing a history paper can be found at:
http://chnm.gmu.edu/courses/westernciv/writing/types_of_writing/research.html (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.)
http://writingproject.fas.harvard.edu/files/hwp/files/bg_writing_history.pdf (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.)
Another excellent source on CMS and an example of a paper in the Chicago style can be found at:
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/chicago_manual_17th_edition/cmos_formatting_and_style_guide/general_format.html (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.)
Useful tips on grammar:
http://quickanddirtytips.com/grammar-girl (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.)
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