requirements

The requirements for the course are as follows: (1) Seminar Participation (15%); 2) Blog comments (15%); (3) Blog posts (30%); and (4) Final Essay (40%); (5) a self-evaluation (one-page, typed, single-spaced) assessing your performance in the course (not graded but required).

blog posts & blog comments

Each week you are expected to make a three-paragraph (or so) entry in your blog of the reading for that week and one short response to another’s post. These must be posted on your blog the day before class. These may take many different forms, but they should all address the problem or fulfill the assignment. Because this is a research seminar, a post should include a “spin off” into your own thinking about the possibilities of a document. These will, to be frank, drive you nuts, but they will hone your writing skills and prove invaluable when the time comes for seminar discussion and framing your research paper.

seminar participation

Seminar participation means lively and engaged discussion of the readings. You cannot hope to derive the most from the course if you sit on the sidelines and listen to the play-by-play.

research paper

The overarching goal for the major project is the creation of a reasonably sophisticated historical argument (25–30 pages excluding bibliography and notes) based on research in both primary and secondary sources. The essay should also be situated in the pertinent historical debate. In addition, the essay should exhibit clear and error-free prose and include a bibliography and notes (footnotes or endnotes) following the Turabian or the Chicago style. Ideally, the paper should make use of the sort of documents that we have encountered in the course, but I’m aware that some of you have topics already in mind that use different source materials and may focus on debates in cultural or intellectual history.

A first draft is not the first version of the essay but the best of successive versions of the essay that you can manage working alone or with the help of another reader. This means that by the first draft, the essay should have gone through at least two rounds of editing or revision. It should be in the best form possible with respect to organization, argument, grammar and mechanics, inclusion of quotations, and format. The first draft should also include a title, page numbers, and footnotes. (Use placeholders for the bibliography, illustration, charts, graphs, and tables.) It is my custom to line-edit the first draft. We then meet in individual conferences to go over the essay and strategize about what needs to be done.

The final draft is, again, the product of multiple revisions. The last revisions also clean up all the missteps in mechanics and grammar and strengthens the argument, taking into account both the instructor’s comments and the conference discussion. The final draft incorporates the bibliography, illustrations, charts, and graphs in their final format.

It’s extremely important to get an early start on your research paper. Let me say that again: start early. A good research paper is the result of long hours and hard work. You can expect to spend at least eight hours each week on your work and more in the research phase. This is not said to spook you but to furnish a clear-sighted estimate of what is necessary.