Skill-building objectives:
* Analyze and compare primary-source documents.
* Understand and describe relevant context.
* Identify and evaluate someone else’s main idea or argument.
Tasks for Source Paper 2 (revolutionary period, 1760s-1840s. Chs. 14-17)
* Analyze two primary sources.
* Use two secondary sources to provide context.
* Identify the arguments in your secondary sources.
* Evaluate: Do your primary sources support or undermine the secondary source’s argument?
Requirements:
* Word limits: 1,000-1,200 words.
* If you choose to write the minimum length, be aware that your writing must be both concise and detailed to get a good grade.
* If you choose to write the maximum, your writing must be relevant. Filler or unsupported speculation does not constitute good academic writing.
* Primary sources must be from class meetings or from Vol. 2 of the book Worlds Together, Worlds Apart. Documentary sources are in sections titled, “Global Themes and Sources.” Visual sources are in sections titled, “Interpreting Visual Evidence.”
* 1 primary source may be a visual source, 1 must be text. Both primary sources may be text if you prefer.
* Primary sources used during class meetings may be used, but this must be approved by the professor at least one week before the assignment is due.
* Secondary sources must be books or journal articles found through the KSU Library website (https://library.ksu.edu).
Things you absolutely should NOT do:
* Try to tell a story. Your task is not to list facts or convey a narrative; it is to analyze sources of information.
* Use sources that are not academic books or journal articles (especially online sources).
* Use any source that is not cited (plagiarism).
* Use book reviews or letters to the editor as secondary sources.
* Use textbooks, encyclopedias, or dictionaries as secondary sources.
* Use secondary sources originally published before 1960.
* Use secondary sources in the “Very Short Introduction” series.
* Include more than 80 words in quotes.
* Write in bullet points, question-and-answer, or lists.
Tips for identifying proper academic books:
* “University Press” in the name of the publisher.
* Known publishers of academic material such as Anvil, Bloomsbury, Harper Academic, Palgrave Macmillan, Pearson, Penguin, Routledge, St. Martin’s, Viking, W.W. Norton.
* NOT included in the K-12 Collection or “Juvenile Nonfiction.”
* The author holds an advanced degree or is employed by an educational institution.
Tips for identifying peer-reviewed journals:
* “Journal” or “Review” in the title of the publication.
* Academic discipline in the name: “History,” “Political Science,” “Sociology,” “Literature,” etc.
* Found in a reliable database such as JSTOR or Project Muse.
* Published by a university.
Primary source citations:
* List the primary sources you are using at the top of your paper.
* If you are using a document from the textbook, list the author, title in quotation marks, and page number in the textbook.
* DO NOT use the “Source” information at the bottom of the document. You are not using the publication listed there, you are using your textbook and that is what you should cite.
* Example:
Hernán Cortés, “Approaching Tenochtitlán (1520),” 624-626.
* If you are using a source discussed in class, list the title given to you in quotation marks.
* Example:
“Fatwas by Eu’s-Su’ud Efendi, Ottoman shaykh and judge (1490-1574).”
Secondary source citations:
* List your bibliographic citations at the top of your paper, using the format outlined in the Chicago Manual of Style online citation guide.
Chicago Manual of Style, online citation guide: https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide-1.html.
Use the following models:
* Book Bibliography entry second example.
* Formula:
Author’s last name, Author’s first name. Book title: book subtitle. City of publication: Publisher, year.
* Example:
Dominy, Graham. Last Outpost on the Zulu Frontier: Fort Napier and the British Imperial Garrison. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2016.
* Journal article Bibliography entry third example.
* Formula:
Author’s last name, Author’s first name. “Journal article title: journal article subtitle.” Name of publication Volume, no. (Month year): start page-end page.
* Example:
Carrasco, David. “Quetzalcoatl’s Revenge: Primordium and Application in Aztec Religion.” History of Religions 19, 4 (May 19880): 296-320.
* DO NOT Use Word or any word processing software’s citation tools, or online citation tools. They are never correct or up-to-date.
In-text citations:
* You are not required to use footnotes.
* I recommend that you not quote from your secondary sources. That is probably a waste of your allotted words in quotations.
* If you are drawing information from one of your secondary sources, use an in-text citation at the end of the sentence using the author’s name and the page number.
* Example: “Scholars agree the Aztecs believed the god Quetzalcoatl had a physical dwelling on earth, but debate where it was located” (Carrasco, 298).
* Alternatively, you can write the sentence in a way that makes your source of information clear.
* Example: “In the article, ‘Quetzalcoatl’s Revenge,’ David Carrasco states that scholars agree the Aztecs believed the god Quetzalcoatl had a physical dwelling on earth, but debate where it was located.”
Tips for analyzing primary sources:
* Remember: summary is not analysis. You may have to engage in some summary of the source’s content, but that should not be all you do with a source.
* What are the main points contained in the document? What is the author / speaker / creator trying to say?
* What does the language imply about the mindset, ideology, or political priorities of the creator / author?
* How does this source relate to your other primary sources? Are the same events or ideas discussed? Do the authors refer to one another?
* What do your primary sources say or show about your overall theme or topic?
* Who created this document?
* When was it created?
* What is its audience / who was meant to receive it?
* Why was this document created? What problem or issue was it meant to address?
* How was it promulgated? Was it sent as a letter, published, broadcast, or spoken aloud?
Tips for using secondary sources:
* To what events, ideologies, or individuals does the primary source document refer?
* What events preceded the creation of the primary source document / what instigated its creation?
* What followed the primary source document? Did it lead directly to a historical action or event?
Tips for organizing a historical essay:
* Introduction: briefly mention each of your sources and how they relate to your topic or theme.
* Body paragraphs: analyze your sources (primary and secondary) in conjunction with one another.
I recommend that you NOT separate your sources and write about them in separate paragraphs. That organizational scheme will tend toward summary, not analysis and will hamper you from discussing them in conjunction with one another.
Conclusion: recap the main points from your sources and how they relate to your topic or theme.
Drafts
The professor will read drafts and give feedback if they are email to the professor at least one week before the assignment due date.
