Assignment Content
Students will write a historical essay that consists of 1,500 words (roughly 6 pages in a Word Document). Students are asked to select a figure that was explicitly examined in the course, which was integral to AMERICAN history. Given the scope of this class, students should select an individual that was born and lived between 1700 and 1860. This essay intended to illustrate the core work of a historian. Students should examine and use different types of scholarly, secondary sources to complete this project. Students should use this exercise to describe historical context, beliefs, and actions of a historical figure as described by historians.
Objective: How have scholars perceived, interpreted, and analyzed the life and decisions of your selected figure? Students should only use sources including monographs (books) and scholarly journal articles. Scholarly journal articles are those sources located in JSTOR and Project Muse (the databases housed on the NWF librarys website).
Remember: the historical essay should be a summation and analysis of the secondary literature on your given historical figure. Historical essays that are a pure biography (simply recounting the life of the historical figure) rather than an assessment of the secondary literature (and the major debates among scholars) will receive a grade no higher than a C. Additionally, historical essays that demonstrate the use of non-suitable sources will receive a grade no higher than a C. The objective of this assignment is to ensure students know how to locate scholarly, secondary sources. Web based resources outside of the listed and approved databases or other non-suitable sources do not demonstrate that students have learned how to locate suitable, scholarly sources. Furthermore, historical essays that do not demonstrate the use of 10 suitable, scholarly sources will receive a grade of no higher than a C.
Students that do not demonstrate the use of at least 10 sources will receive a grade no higher than a C. Furthermore, papers that cite unsuitable sources (those not deemed scholarly as detailed in this syllabus) will receive a grade no higher than a C on the assignment. Students should ONLY consult scholarly books and scholarly journal articles (i.e. articles accessed by using the databases from the colleges library website). Scholarly journal articles are those sources located in JSTOR and Project Muse (the databases housed on the librarys website). Since students are to use Chicago Style footnotes for their citations, students do not need an attached bibliography for this paper since sources should be cited with footnotes. Be sure to cite your sources as used in the paper. Attaching a bibliography at the end of the paper without in-text citations does not illustrate how those sources were used or the information obtained from each source for the paper. Students will receive a grade deduction for failure to illustrate how the sources were used throughout their paper.
To be clear, scholarly sources are those journal articles as accessed from only JSTOR or Project Muse from the college librarys databases or scholarly books. Do NOT use material intended for children or young adults. No other databases should be used to locate sources for this project. Websites should additionally not be used for this project.
Help Provided: The instructor has uploaded guides in the Student Guides and Supplemental Information folder. The instructor posted a sample historical essay paper for further guidance on how to construct the historical essay. The instructor has also posted several other guides (Research Guide and Tips for Success Guide) to provide tips for locating sources for course assignments, information to access the colleges library, and other strategies to be successful in this course.
Please note: Since the bibliography is submitted in advance of the paper, students may find different sources as they continue their research. If students locate different, new sources after they submitted the bibliography, they are free to use those sources for their projects. Students do not need to submit a new bibliography for review. Students should be sure these new sources adhere to the guidelines detailed above in the bibliography assignment regarding suitable sources. Students are always responsible to cite any and all sources used for all course assignments (written work and exams).
Please check files for references on formatting… Also need the bibliography written.
