Paper #3 Assignment—Historical Argument About a Primary News Source
The Assignment
The assignment is to present a historical argument about a small set of primary news sources.
Your goal is to develop an interesting, not obvious, historical argument, and to develop it out of the sources at hand: your primary sources, some elementary research (in reference works), and an understanding of the context (our reading in Kovarik or other).
This paper is quite similar to the first paper assignment. I suggest you develop your paper with the same stages: reading, compiling notes, brainstorming argument, constructing an outline, drafting and reworking the text of the paper.
The work that you do for this paper will be integrated into the final paper assignment, a research paper of 8 to 12 pages (including context, historiography, primary source evidence and analysis, etc.).
Some Guidelines
- Length: 3 to 5 pages
- Format & citations: follow the guidelines in the Sample Short Paper. For citations, use Chicago-style footnotes with precise references, following the examples in Mary Lynn Rampolla as explained in the Sample Paper
- Include a bibliography – in bibliographical format – of the sources that you have read for this paper
- Upload paper in pdf format to Moodle assignment
Criteria
- Does it show a mastery of the primary source?
- Does it show a strong understanding of context?
- Does it present a strong thesis?
- Does it deliver this thesis with well-chosen examples and strong analysis?
- Is it well organized (with a strong structure and well organized paragraphs)?
- Is it well written (in clear, precise, direct prose)?
- Does it cite all sources and use information ethically?
- Is it free of small errors (of grammar, spelling, punctuation, format)?