Formulate a specific research question that focuses on the state of or progression of corporate social responsibility/business ethics.
Then, you will need to find–within the Federal Trade Commission websites or the Duke University Ad Access and/or the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History Digital Archives (links on Canvas under Pages) and/or physical archival items–at least two (3 if you are going the diachronic route) primary documents that are, at minimum, 10 years old.
You will use your primary sources as centerpieces in an argument that you construct about the history of corporate social responsibility/business ethics as you answer your research question.
There are a couple of ways you can go about this:
As you will read on p. 209 of RI, synchronic historical papers treat a particular phenomenon as it exists in a particular time and context. For this kind of paper, you would investigate and draw conclusions about something in its own time, supporting your interpretations with references to specific historical primary documents: This is what the climate of business ethics was like in the 1980s.
Diachronic papers treat a particular phenomenon across time. Topics in this vein would include investigating the development of CSR over the years or the rise of ethics in importance over time. You would need to find primary documents in a few different time periods to do this assignment effectively. (If you find two sources that are over 10 years old, you will also use more recent sources to establish the now of your argument.) In this sense, you could argue how these instances in the past have or have not affected the present and/or future.
In either case, while you are to provide analysis of these primary sources for context and support, your paper should use the analysis of those texts to make an argumentative case. Your paper will be a historical argumentthat is, a paper that presents an answer to the research question that is based upon an interpretation of primary sources.
A successful response to this assignment will be 4-5 pages long and will conform to the qualities of good writing that we will set out in class. It will also feature primary sources as the major support for the argument you makefor the conclusion you come to as a result of your research. (You should include photographs, scans, or copies of the material you work with, either in the flow of the text or as an appendix, as appropriate. See the example in RI, Appendix B, p. 404-413.)
You may use secondary sources, but limit them to filling in gaps or providing background. If you wind up quoting a secondary source more often than one of your primary sources, you need to rethink how youre constructing the argument. If you use external sources, document them properly.
