Home

Syllabus

Required Texts

Assignments

Research Paper

Exams

Grading

Final Draft

As you write the final draft, I want you do some specific things:

1. Make an argument. State a historical problem that requires solution. Offer a solution. The real test of your thesis is that it should not be descriptive; it should make a point that someone could dispute if their evidence were strong enough. Please bold-face your thesis.

2. Support your thesis. Have clearly in mind the separate sub-claims you need evidence for. Convey those sub-claims clearly.

To accomplish this last point, I want you to break your paper into sections. Begin each section with a short introduction that puts your sub-claim in the thesis position. Please bold-face the thesis of each subsection. Like any intro, these section intros will work best if they state a problem that the sub-claim is resolving, so include a common ground and disruption. Finally, restate your sub-claim in the conclusion of the section to make sure you get it across.

3. Make sure you tie the separate pieces together into a unified piece. That is, the whole should be coherent.

I am particularly concerned with the coherence between and within paragraphs. To make sure I correctly see the main point of each paragraph, Please underline the topic sentence of each paragraph that appears in the body of each subsection.

4. Provide a title page. This title page should provide the title, your name, the class and the date. The title should reflect your overall point in this paper, it should be centered on the page one third of the way down and it should not be underlined or within quotation marks unless it is in fact a quote. The rest of the information on the title page should be at the lower right of the page. Title pages are not numbered, the subsequent pages should be, starting with "1."

5. The paper should be typed, double-spaced, indented at the beginning of a paragraph, and with 1 inch margins on all four sides. Keep copies of all drafts in case something terrible happens.

6. Do not use the passive voice unless you have a good reason for it.

7. Understand that I value clarity and coherence above all things. Citing dozens of different sources will not help your grade if you produce prose that is confused or contradictory. Do not try to distract me with details; dazzle me with the clarity of your argument. Imagine that you are writing this paper for your roommate or a sibling; do not imagine that I will be able to decipher your thinking any better than they can. If you are having problems expressing your ideas clearly, come see me. If you know ahead of time that this will be a problem, come see me early.

8. Think about your tone. According to the American Historical Association, "Historians celebrate intellectual communities governed by mutual respect and constructive criticism. The preeminent value of such communities is reasoned discourse—the continuous colloquy among historians holding diverse points of view who learn from each other as they pursue topics of mutual interest. A commitment to such discourse—balancing fair and honest criticism with tolerance and openness to different ideas—makes possible the fruitful exchange of views, opinions, and knowledge." So take a tone which strikes that balance.