Senior Research Seminars for 4493x-4494y and 4391x-4392y
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The Senior Research Seminar, in which students write their senior essay, is a required course for all students majoring in American Studies, European Studies, and History. In the early weeks of the fall term students will select and refine their topics. They then devote the remainder of the fall term to establishing a set of primary sources on which their thesis can be based and exploring the secondary literature on their topic. By week 12, they will submit a 15-page section of the thesis. In the early weeks of the second semester students submit a complete first draft of their thesis. They then continue with their research and writing, refining their thesis throughout the semester. The completed thesis, which should run to about 40 pages (plus notes), is submitted by mid-April. As students work on their own essay, they also serve as peer editors for their classmates. Students work throughout the year, sometimes individually with their advisers, sometimes with their adviser and their peer editor, and sometimes with their entire seminar group. Since this is a year-long course, grades are given to the registrar only at the end of the academic year. Individual advisers, however, may choose to grade their students on their work for the first semester. The student's grade for the course is calculated on the basis of her success in the following areas: meeting deadlines throughout the year (i.e., handing in specified assignments on the specified date), showing energy and ingenuity in research, contributing to the learning process in section and serving as a peer editor [total, 40%]; the quality of the thesis itself [60%]. |
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Kate Turabian, et. al., A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, paperback 6th revised edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).
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Sept. 6 -- SO WHAT IS A THESIS ANYWAY? Group meeting. Faculty introduce students to the challenges that lie ahead. Students should be able to identify their research interests as specifically as possible at this meeting. On the basis of these interests the faculty divide the students into seminar groups of 6-8 students. Over the course of the next two weeks, students should meet individually with their advisers to choose a thesis topic. Sept. 13: -- SEMINAR MEETING - MODELS FROM THE PAST Students meet in their seminar groups to explore the nature of primary research and discuss further what a senior thesis should look like. The faculty has placed several senior theses from recent years on reserve in the Barnard Library. Each adviser assigns one of these theses to be read and analyzed by the members of his or her section. For your assignment, check your adviser's door as soon as you know whose section you will be in. Each student should read the thesis assigned for her group, write a brief evaluation on the basis of the criteria set out below, and come to class prepared to discuss her reactions. Please pay particular attention to the choice and use of primary sources in the thesis you read. QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER WHEN READING (AND WRITING) THE SENIOR THESIS: 1. Topic: A good topic should pose an interesting question that can be answered by available evidence. How well does the thesis do this? 2. Title: A good title is difficult to create. It should excite the reader's interest, while reducing the thesis's core idea to a few words. 3. Statement of Argument / Introduction: The introduction should draw the reader into the topic and make clear where the writer is going. The writer should pose an answerable question and articulate the argument she will construct to answer that question. Does the author accomplish these goals? 4. Discussion of the relevant scholarly literature / Historiography: A good essay is part of a larger conversation among scholars. How well does the author define the scholarly discussion to which she wishes to contribute? Does the writer make clear what others have said on the subject? Does she make clear what her position is and what she is adding to the debate? 5. Primary Sources: Perhaps the main requirement of the senior thesis is that it convey a coherent argument that is centered on and driven by original research in primary sources. How well does the thesis satisfy this requirement? 6. Broader Context: To be successful an essay must provide sufficient context to make clear how the particular issues being explored relate to larger social, cultural, economic, political, or intellectual themes. Authors generally rely on secondary sources to establish this context. How rich is the secondary literature that the author has explored? Has the author provided adequate context? Has she struck the right balance between analysis and context? 7. Analysis of Evidence: On what kinds of evidence does the author rely? Is the evidence used sufficient to satisfy the author's goals? Has the author constructed a convincing argument based on that evidence? 8. Organization: The longer a piece of writing, the more critical the organization. How well organized is this thesis? Do the chapter divisions make sense in terms of the overall argument? 9. Details: Is the note form (either footnotes or endnotes may be used) proper and consistent? Does the author effectively use notes to convey useful information tangential to the main argument? Are quotations over 35 words indented? Sept. 20: INDIVIDUAL MEETINGS Students will meet individually with their advisers to discuss the topics they wish to pursue. Sept. 27: GROUP MEETING - DEMYSTIFYING THE WRITING PROCESS Room TBA. Faculty and students will discuss the process of writing the senior thesis. Common problems and difficulties connected to the writing process are considered in an open forum along with practical techniques for dealing with them. During the second hour, students meet with their advisers. Students should bring to this meeting a preliminary thesis statement and bibliography. The student’s thesis statement will then be passed along to the Barnard reference librarians in preparation for the following week’s meeting. Oct. 4: GROUP MEETING - LIBRARY RESEARCH TOOLS Students meet as a group with reference librarians from the Barnard Library. By the time this class meets, advisers will have given the librarians a list of topics on which students plan to work. The librarians discuss the many specialized bibliographies and reference works available to students and give a brief demonstration of the use of electronic media in research. After this introductory session, students will be able to make individual appointments with librarians to refine their search for sources. Students should be sure to take advantage of the new computerized data bases available to them. They should also find a note-taking program, or devise a system for themselves, to keep track of their sources. Oct. 11: SEMINAR MEETING - SUBMISSION OF THESIS TOPICS Each students should bring to class (and be prepared to discuss) a one-page statement of her thesis topic and a bibliography of the primary and secondary sources on which she plans to rely. The bibliography should be divided into two sections. The first should include some of the primary sources on which the thesis will be based. The second should include scholarly articles and books. (See Appendix B of the syllabus, which deals with bibliographic form, for guidance on preparing the bibliography.) The thesis statement should define the problem the student wishes to explore. As she composes her statement, each student should ask the following questions: Have I chosen an important, interesting, researchable topic, one that poses a clear question, and one that can be answered by primary sources and available evidence? If not, what further refinements might improve my statement? ( For guidance, see Appendix C to this syllabus, "Shaping a History Senior Thesis Topic.") Oct. 18: SEMINAR MEETING - SCHOLARLY DEBATES To facilitate the writing of the section of the thesis on scholarly literature, each student will bring to class (and be prepared to discuss) a two-page analysis of the TWO most important secondary works on which she will be relying. In making her presentation each student should answer the following questions: How have these authors explained the phenomenon that I am investigating? What assumptions have they shared? On what matters have they disagreed? For instance, if a student wanted to explain some aspect of the rise of the predominantly white, middle-class woman's movement in mid-nineteenth-century America, she would find vigorous disagreement among scholars. Some have emphasized the growing similarities between women and men in educational attainment and work experience as critical to women's heightened aspirations. In contrast, others have pointed to the growing differences between men and women (some speak of "separate sexual spheres") in economic life as the key factor that enabled a vanguard of middle-class women to act on their own behalf. The student would need to explain these contrasting interpretations to her classmates and come to some provisional conclusion about how her particular research might contribute to this debate. Occasionally, a student chooses a topic about which there appears to be very little prior discussion in the scholarly literature. If a student finds herself in this position, she should ask what larger debate among scholars might incorporate her interest. Every topic fits into some larger scholarly discussion. Here are some examples: debates over the causes of the rise of the modern state; debates over the meaning of sexuality in different historical epochs; debates over the ways in which national identities come to be constructed; debates over the meaning of consumption in modern culture. Oct. 25: SUBMISSION OF THESIS PROPOSAL Now that everyone has a topic and has thought about the place of her topic within the larger scholarly literature, it is time to submit a thesis proposal. The proposal, while brief (4-5 pages), is the first major stage of the writing process and should be taken very seriously. It should define the problem under investigation, discuss the issues involved, analyze the scholarly literature that already exists on the topic, and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the available primary resources. It should also provide a suggested table of contents divided into 5 to 7 headings, followed by a brief summary of each section of the essay. Appended to it should be a bibliography of the primary and secondary works being used. By this date each student should be assigned a peer editor from among her seminar classmates and should be assigned, in turn, to be someone else's editor. Being a good editor means being sufficiently acquainted with the topic of your author to be able to give meaningful advice. Refer to Turabian when in doubt about some aspect of the editing process. Each student should give one copy of her proposal to her adviser and another to her editor. Nov. 1: SEMINAR MEETING - DISCUSSION OF THESIS PROPOSALS Having carefully edited their authors' proposals, students meet in their seminar groups and each editor will present the work of her author. Students will discuss ways of strengthening each other’s work. November 8 & 15: PAIRED CONFERENCES ON DRAFTS Students begin writing a 15-page section of their thesis. Any section will do, beginning, middle, or end, but experience has shown that students have the greatest success when they choose a section/chapter from the middle of their thesis; beginnings and endings are always the hardest. One portion of this draft must deal with the analysis of a central primary source: reliability, point of view, how it must be or will be read, how it will be used within the thesis. All drafts must be annotated and include a full bibliography. Authors and editors will meet in pairs with their adviser to discuss progress and problems. Nov. 22: No Meeting (Day before Thanksgiving) Nov. 29: SUBMISSION OF 15-PAGE DRAFT Students must submit two copies of their 15-page drafts, one to the adviser, the other to their editor. Editors then have two weeks to edit and prepare comments on their authors' work. Readers should keep the following questions in mind as they edit: Has the author made clear how primary sources relate to the larger issue being explored in her thesis? Does the author paraphrase when she should paraphrase and quote when she should quote? Is each quote properly analyzed? Is proper note form followed, both for the primary source and any secondary sources relied on for context? Are there any grammatical lapses? How might the writing be improved? Dec. 6: PAIRED CONFERENCES - DISCUSSION OF DRAFTS Students will meet with their adviser and editor to discuss their drafts and to plan ahead for the spring term. Please keep in mind that the second fifteen pages of thesis is due three weeks into the second semester, and the completed first draft of the thesis is due the first week in March. **** WINTER BREAK **** SPRING SEMESTER, 2005 Jan. 17 - Jan. 24: PAIRED CONFERENCES Each student will meet with her peer editor and her adviser to discuss progress on her research and writing, as she completes the first draft of her thesis. Jan 31 - SUBMISSION OF NEXT 15 PAGES OF THESIS Students submit two copies of the next 15 pages of their thesis (properly annotated), one to their editor, the other to their adviser. Each author should provide a few words of introduction and an outline of the thesis, to indicate how this section fits within her larger project. Feb. 7: SEMINAR MEETING - PRESENTATION OF WORK IN PROGRESS Each peer editor presents the work of her author, and students discuss how each thesis might be further strengthened. Feb. 14: PAIRED CONFERENCES Students meet with their editors and advisers to discuss progress and problems as they complete the first full draft of their theses. Feb 21: **SUBMISSION OF FIRST DRAFT OF THESIS** Students should submit two copies of their thesis, one to their peer editor, the other to their adviser. Drafts should be complete, properly annotated, and with a full bibliography. Feb 28 - Mar. 7: SEMINAR MEETING – PRESENTATION OF THESES Each peer editor presents the work of her author, and students discuss how each thesis might be further strengthened. Mar 14: SPRING BREAK Mar. 21 – March 28: PAIRED CONFERENCES Students meet with their editors and advisers to discuss progress and problems as they revise their theses. This is the period of the year that students usually find the most rewarding, for it is only after an author has completed a full version of her thesis that she can really refine what she wants to say and gain mastery of her material. Use the "Questions to Consider When Reading (and Writing) the Senior Thesis," found on pp. 2-3 of this syllabus, in commenting on each other's theses. April 4 - 11: SEMINAR MEETING - PRESENTATION OF THESES Each student gives an oral presentation of her completed work to her seminar group. [Students may shrink from presenting their completed work before it is truly complete, but experience has demonstrated that distilling one’s entire thesis to a brief presentation helps students refine the introduction to their thesis.] April 18: *SENIOR THESIS DUE* Each student submits two copies of her thesis, bound in plastic covers at Village Copiers or any similar store, to her adviser. April 25: SENIOR THESIS PARTY All faculty and students are invited to celebrate the completion of their work together. Time: 4:15-6:00; Room, TBA. A NOTE ON GRADING: Two faculty members, the adviser and a colleague from a different historical field, will read each thesis and determine a grade for it. The student's grade for the course will be calculated on the basis of her success in the following areas: meeting deadlines throughout the year (i.e., handing in specified assignments on the specified date), showing energy and ingenuity in research, contributing to the learning process and serving as an editor [total, 40%]; the quality of the thesis itself [60%]. Criteria used for grading the thesis can be found on pp. 2-3 of this syllabus.
APPENDIX A: ANNOTATION
WHEN TO USE
NOTES:
WHERE TO PLACE
THE NUMBER OF A NOTE:
WHETHER TO PLACE
NOTES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE OR AT THE END OF THE THESIS:
PROPER FORMAT FOR NOTE REFERENCES: The first time you use any source, cite it in full. You need to use a full citation only the first time you cite any work. Every time thereafter, you should use the abbreviated short title form (see the section under this heading below). FULL BOOK CITATION
Author's full
name (first name, initial, last name) EXAMPLES OF FULL CITATIONS FOR BOOKS: Author: The first time an author's name appears it should be written in full. For footnotes, place the first name first and the last name last. (Only in the Bibliography should you place the last name first.) If a work has more than three authors, use the first author’s name and follow it with "et al.": 1. Judith A. Baer, Equality Under the Constitutions: Reclaiming the Fourteenth Amendment (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983), 105-130. All book titles must either italicized or underlined (choose one or the other and then be consistent throughout). Note Well: There must be a comma after the author’s name, a comma between the place and date of publication, a comma after the parenthesis containing the publication place and date (but no comma before this or any other parenthesis), and a period at the conclusion of every note. Editors and Translators: The names of editors and translators appear after the title, unless that person had primary responsibility for preparing the book for publication: 2. Marc Bloch, Feudal Society, trans. L. A. Manyon (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), 69. 3. Thomas W. Copeland, ed., The Papers of James Madison, 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), 49. 4. Deborah L. Rhode, ed., Theoretical Perspectives on Sexual Difference (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 257-260. Edition: References should generally be to a hardbound edition. If an edition other than the first is used, the number should be given: 5. John W. Hazard, The Soviet System of Government, 4th ed. rev. (Chicago, University of Chicago, 1968), 25. Reprint: If you are using a book that has been reprinted, include the original date of publication, as well as the date of reprinting: 6. Gunnar Myrdal, Population: A Problem for Democracy [1940] (Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1956), 15. Multivolume Works: Works of more than one volume should be identified in notes by the number of volumes in the work and the number of the volume from which a quote has been taken. Some multivolume works have a general title and individual titles for each volume; in that case list the general title and then the particular title to which the note refers. Notes for books that are part of a series should list the title of the book in italics, followed by the title of the series in roman letters: 7. Edward T. James et al. eds., Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary, 3 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), 1:119. 8. Fernand Braudel, The Identity of France, vol. 2, People and Production, trans. Sian Reynolds (New York: Harper Collins, 1990), 237-238. 9. James Losh, The Diaries and Correspondence of James Losh, ed. Edward Hughes, 2 vols., Publications of the Surtees Society, vols. 171, 172 (Durham, England: Andrews & Co. for the Society, 1962-63), 2:200-212. FULL CITATION FORM FOR ALL ARTICLES: (To be used only the first time a work is cited. Every time thereafter, use the Short Title citation form as outlined below.
Author's Full
Name (first name, initial, last name) EXAMPLES OF FULL CITATIONS FOR ARTICLES Article in a Scholarly Journal: 9. Mary Louise Roberts, "Samson and Delilah Revisited: The Politics of Women's Fashion in 1920's France," American Historical Review, 98 (1993): 657. Note Well: First name first; comma after the author’s name; comma after the title of the article (should be placed inside the quotation marks); the name of the periodical must be placed either in Italics or underlined (choose one but be consistent); comma after the name of the periodical; comma (or semicolon) after the date of the periodical in parethesis; period at the conclusion of the footnote. Chapter in a Book: 10. Patricia O'Brien, "Michel Foucault's History of Culture," in Lynn Hunt, ed., The New Cultural History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 25. Article in a Magazine: 11. Lucy Eisenberg, "Scientists vs. Animal Lovers: The Conflict That Never Ends," Harper's, November 1966, 101-10. Citing a Newspaper: 12. New York Times, 11 August 1965, p. B3. Citing a Government Publication: 13. U.S. Congress, Senate, Congressional Record, 9 October 1987, pp. 14011-12. Citing a Court Case: (Complex citation. Please follow carefully the form you have found in the secondary works you have consulted.) Citing a Book Review: 15. Ronald M. Radano, review of The Creation of Jazz by Burton W. Puretti, Reviews in American History, 21 (December 1993): 671. Citing a Well Known Reference Book: 16. Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed., s.v. "Prayers for the Dead." Citing Dissertations: 17. Anna Louise Bates, "Protective Custody: A Feminist Interpretation of Anthony Comstock's Life and Laws" (Ph.D. diss., State University of New York at Binghamton, 1991), 34. Unpublished Papers: 18. Poshek Fu, "Struggle to Entertain: The Ideological Ambivalence of the Wartime Shanghai Film Industry, 1942-1945" (paper delivered at the 108th Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, San Francisco, California, January 8, 1994), 15. FULL CITATION FOR UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS :
Title of
document, if any, and date EXAMPLES: 17. Lawrence E. Skelly to Joseph L. Hetzel, 6 March 1947, American Civil Liberties Union Papers, Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University, Princeton, N.J. 18. Diary of Lewis Tappan, 23 February 1836, Tappan Papers, Library of Congress, Washington D.C. 19. Joan Hayes, "Abortion Law: A Case History," January 1970, Box 3, National Abortion Rights Action League Papers, New York Public Library, New York, NY. 20. Thurgood Marshall, interview with Ed Edwin, February-June 1977, Washington, D.C., Columbia Oral History Program, Columbia University, New York, NY. ========================== *SHORT TITLE CITATIONS*: After the first reference to a particular source of whatever kind, all subsequent references should be shortened.
The shortened
reference to a book should include only: Example:
For the first
citation of any book use the
For all
succeeding citations use the
Example 2:
Book, Short
Title: SHORT TITLE CITATIONS FOR ALL ARTICLES:
The shortened
reference to an article should include only:
Example:
Article, Short
Title Citation: A shortened reference to a manuscript source should include only the title and name of the collection.
APPENDIX B: BIBLIOGRAPHY FORM: At the end of your thesis you should provide a list of the books and other references you have used. You may find it convenient to divide your bibliography into categories, such as Manuscripts, Interviews, Books, and Articles. Within each category works should be arranged alphabetically, by the author's last name. SOME TYPICAL BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ENTRIES: The basic information given in a bibliographic entry parallels that given in a footnote, but note the differences in format. Note, for instance, that lines after the first are indented. Books by a Single Author: Cafe, William H. Never Stop Running: Allard Lowenstein and the Struggle to Save American Liberalism. New York: Basic Books, 1993. Books by Two or More Authors (Note that each name appears in inverse order, and that semi-colon is used with three or more names). Adler, J.H., et al. The Pattern of U.S. Import Trade since 1923. New York: Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 1952. More than One Work by the Same Author: Mead, Margaret. Blackberry Winter: My Early Years. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972. ______________. Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth. New York: Morrow, 1928. Editor or Translator Named in Addition to Author: Ariès, Philippe. Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life. Translated by Robert Baldick. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962. Multivolume Work: Hall, G. Stanley. Adolescence: Its Psychology and Its Relations to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, and Education. 2 vols. New York: Appleton, 1904. Association as "Author": American Historical Association. Directory of American Historians. Washington, D.C.: American Historical Association, 1994. Edition other than the First: Crews, Frederick, and Sandra Schor. The Borzoi Handbook for Writers. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 1989. When Paperback Reprint Is Used: May, Henry. The End of American Innocence: A Study of the First Years of Our Own Time, 1912-1917. [1959]. Reprint, New York: Quadrangle, 1964. Volume in a Series: Lloyd, T.O. Empire to Welfare State: English History, 1906-1985. 3rd. edition. The Short Oxford History of the Modern World. Edited by J.M. Roberts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986. BIBLIOGRAPHY FORMAT FOR ALL ARTICLES: Article in a Scholarly Journal: Tonomura, Hitomi. "Black Hair and Red Trousers: Gendering the Flesh in Medieval Japan." American Historical Review 99 (February 1994): 129-154. Article in a Popular Magazine: Hamilton, Ian. "Spender's Lives." The New Yorker, 28 February 1994, pp. 72-84. =========== Manuscript Material: William J. Brennan Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Unpublished Paper: Ditz, Toby. "Secrecy and Candor in the Mercantile Writing of Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia." Paper read at the Eighty-Seventh Annual Meeting of the Organization of American Historians, 14-17 April 1994, in Atlanta, Georgia. Interviews: Appel, Cheri. Interview with Ellen Chesler, 1 February 1989, New York, NY. Sophia Smith Collection. Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts.
APPENDIX C: SHAPING A HISTORY SENIOR THESIS TOPIC--SOME PRELIMINARY REMARKS Most of the time, topics (questions) are made, not born. You begin with a fuzzy notion of something that interests you, something that seems worth investigating, and you proceed from there. But how? How do you get from something broad and incoherent to something defined and doable? Follow your curiosity. Conceiving your topic in the form of a question often helps. Work continually to focus your question. You can never provide the whole answer to any large historical question—nor should you try to. Think of yourself as making a finite, limited, yet trustworthy contribution to the larger history of your subject. Once you have your topic, begin to recognize its parts and to break it down into manageable pieces. Visualize how it can be divided into chapters and what the headings of the chapters might be. It is almost always easier to work on a topic part by part than to attack the whole directly. Your question needs to be one that can be asked and answered historically. What this means, of course, is that it has to involve the "past" in some form or other. The practice of history in the last few decades has expanded to include a large number of new subjects and areas previously excluded, so that almost any aspect of human experience is now fair game. It helps, for all sorts of reasons, if you locate your subject in a period that has, in some sense, "closed," so that what you're writing about is not completely open-ended and lacking in form. In fact, "form" and "shape" are aspects that you should be considering when constructing your topic. Historians are generally less concerned with discovering universal truths and constructing seamless systems than they are with investigating disjunctions: pieces that don't seem to fit; evidence that raises questions; beliefs and actions that have a certain strangeness to them and thereby indicate shifts in social, political, and cultural life over time. Historical argument is different from the political and courtroom argumentation we see so much of in our culture. Our job is not to construct an air-tight brief or to discount and devalue evidence that does not fit. Our job is more difficult: to capture the richness and complexity of the past while at the same time working to isolate and clarify particular aspects of a particular historical subject. Once we have isolated and clarified, we are in a position to suggest how the pieces originally fit together or worked together in their historical context. Good history proposes and tests hypotheses--it makes a case for the answers it provides--but it doesn't presuppose that there is only one "right" answer, or only one way to read the pieces, or only one way to reconstruct the way they worked together in the past. It is likely that the full outline of your topic will emerge only after you have had a chance to familiarize yourself with the primary and secondary sources. The more you do this, the more you are likely to see what areas require further examination and explication. This recognition, in turn, helps you to sharpen and focus the questions you are asking. You start out with a question, a problem, an issue, on a subject that you're interested in, and then proceed to refine it by working dialectically. You approach your sources, the sources as it were talk back to you, and the process continues until you sense that you have arrived at a question that is working for you and leading you into interesting territory. Some general considerations of a practical nature need to be taken into account from the outset. If you are planning to use primary sources (and all of us will for this project), ask yourself whether they are locally available and accessible (and in a language you can read). What about the secondary literature? Is it available and accessible? And, of course, how much do you know about the subject? Is it something you're going to have to learn from the ground up? If so, do you have the time to learn enough of the basics before you proceed to the more sophisticated aspects of the topic? Or is it something you already know about in some detail (perhaps something you've studied in an introductory course or a seminar) and can approach from a position of less than total ignorance? The best history papers always give the reader a general idea about the body of sources available on the particular question as well as the sources actually consulted. This can be done either in a series of notes as each particular source is introduced, or in a general historiographical discussion within the text itself, or both. A section on historiography might consider the following: What are the particular questions raised by this body of sources? Which sources are most trustworthy; which have to be approached with caution and why; through what lens(es) should the modern reader look at them, and why? It is good to begin thinking about these historiographical questions right from the start of your project. At some point (and it is better if this happens sooner rather than later), you will come to the realization that you cannot afford to reinvent the wheel. You don't have all the time in the world, and you need to find an efficient and economical way of getting at your subject. Don't spend your time and energy simply recapitulating the information you have gotten through reading secondary sources. Rather, look for openings, questions, points that have not been considered to your satisfaction, problems that have been raised by the information you have found in the primary and secondary sources. Often your reader will need some broad, preliminary information in order to understand where you are coming from and where you are heading. Providing contextual information may be necessary at various points in your paper. But get to the meat of your topic and your interpretation as soon as and whenever possible. We understand your desire to tell the "whole story" of whatever aspect of history you choose to discuss. But resist this temptation. It is necessary for you to learn the general history of your subject in order to do your work, but it is not your task to recapitulate this information. You’ve got to choose one limited aspect of the story on which to focus--one focused area in which to make a real contribution to the subject through your particular reading of available primary sources. The most successful papers work from the particular to the general. Think of yourself as a contributor to a much larger project. You are responsible for illuminating your piece of the puzzle and for getting it right so that others coming after you can use it. You will not be able to exhaust your subject if it's a good one. Selection is the key: pick a topic that is defined enough so that you can say something about it in detail (the history of women in the 19th century, or the history of the city in the 13th century, are good examples of bad topics in this sense). Consider your topic in relation to the length of the paper you are going to write, and don't worry if the topic you end up with is not quite what you had in mind when you began. The questions you ask may not be resolved in any ultimate sense; your conclusions may be fairly tentative. Historians must often use language that can seem maddeningly evasive--"on the whole," "nevertheless," "for the most part," and so on. That is not to say that you should avoid taking positions but rather that all positions are provisional, and it is appropriate to recognize this and be fairly upfront about it. If you have done things correctly, you will find that not all your research can be used. Do not regard this as a mistake; it is a normal part of the process. Trying to stuff everything you've found into a paper can lead to real problems. It should be apparent by now that the rules in this game are not hard and fast (every third word seems to be a qualifier). Many of the considerations outlined here are practical rather than theoretical. You have enormous latitude within which to maneuver--perhaps in your minds too much latitude. Remember that this is a process. Persevere and you will see your topic gradually take shape around your interests, your sources, and your understanding. As you proceed with the writing of your paper, it may help to check your work against the criteria for a good thesis, listed on pages 2-3 of your syllabus. |