Advanced U.S. History - Research Project

This year, you will be working on a research project on a topic of your choosing about something in American history. For this paper, you must analyze primary and secondary sources. The end result of this project will be a 8 - 12 page, thesis-driven research paper.

q Everything you turn in to me MUST be typed. I will not accept work that is not typed.

q Please keep everything that you turn in and that I return to you. As you turn in new materials, please staple each new addition on top of your older papers so that I can check to see whether you’re paying attention to the comments I make.

q If you neglect to do so, your work will go down one letter grade.

You will be working on the project in stages according to the following schedule:

Assignment	Due Date
Topic Selection (double HW grade) *	Wednesday, Nov. 10
Preliminary Bibliography (quintuple HW grade)*	Monday, Nov. 22
Discussion on Your Topic (quintuple HW grade) *	Monday, Dec. 6
First Thesis Statement (quintuple HW grade) *	Monday, Dec. 13
Outline (Test Grade) **	Monday, Jan. 24
Revised Outline Due (Quiz Grade) **	Monday, Feb. 7
First Draft (Test grade)**	Monday, Feb. 28
Work-In-Progress Reports (Quiz Grade)	Week of March 28
Final Draft (Double test grade)**	Thursday, March 31

For the assignments marked *, you can earn up to 5 points extra credit: two points per day that you hand it in early.

For the assignments marked **, you can earn up to 10 points extra credit: two points per day that you hand it in early.

Topic Selection– Wednesday, Nov. 10

Choose your topic from the topic list or your own research. You may want to choose an area from the suggested list or some other area that has always interested you. Explain your topic choice in a few sentences. If you already know, you should try to suggest how you will narrow down your research. I will return this to you as soon as possible with either an OK or a request that you think of a different topic. If you haven’t already, I will ask you to narrow your subject down and resubmit it. For example, it is too broad to say that you’re writing a paper on the Civil War, but you could say that you are writing a paper on the presidential campaign of 1864 or the siege of Petersburg.

Preliminary Bibliography – Monday, Nov. 22 (quintuple HW grade)

q This bibliography should include all the sources you have gathered thus far and should be in correct MLA format.

q Please summarize what you have found in each source that you think will be of help to you.

q On this list, make two separate sections, one for primary sources, the other for secondary sources.

q You should alphabetize within each list.

q You must have at least one primary source and at least three secondary sources.

q In searching for sources, I recommend that you look at the bibliography at the end of the appropriate chapter in your textbook. You may need to access the NC State or another college library for this project.

q The Internet is not a sufficient source for a high quality research paper.

q Only one of your sources for your preliminary bibliography may be a website. There are lots of primary documents on the web, but the quality of some of the secondary sources are quite suspect. The more primary documents you make use of, the better job you will do as a historian.

Discussion of Your Topic – Monday, Dec. 6 (quintuple HW grade)

q Write a page describing the focus and scope of your topic.

q In other words, based on the reading of both primary and secondary sources, what will you be focusing on in this paper?

q You will want to narrow your topic by event, time period, or perspective. Or you might have a particular question that your thesis statement will eventually answer.

q Please let me know all that you have done to this point and what more you need to do.

q I suggest you start the paragraph with “In this paper I will…” Also, for each topic that you plan to cover, please indicate what sources you will be using to find that information.

First Thesis Statement – Monday, Dec. 13 (quintuple HW grade)

Develop a thesis statement based on your research. I will return it with comments so that you can revise it if need be. You may be required to turn in a second draft of your thesis statement. Remember, your thesis may change as you do more research, but your goal is to try to nail down your argument as early as possible. This can be best accomplished by reading EARLY ON.

A good thesis statement states something that can be argued on both sides with you taking a position. You are stating what you will prove in your paper. Don’t write something namby-pamby like “The twenties were an important decade in American history.” Blech! An acceptable statement would be “While certainly a decade of exciting new trends in the culture, the twenties were also marked by tensions beneath the surface for those who resisted these cultural changes and desired a return to a more traditional religious America.”

Outline – Monday, Jan. 24 (Test grade)**

q This outline should be a guide for your paper and it should include all the sections needed to support your thesis.

q Include your thesis statement at the top and then describe all the sections and major, as well as minor, points you will be making along the way to support your thesis.

q I have put a link on the Lesson Units section of the web site to explain how to use Microsoft Word to make an outline.

q The more detailed your outline is the better. A good outline is the most important step in writing your paper.

q Your grade will reflect the amount of detail and thought that you have put into organizing the outline. I expect you to put time and care into this step.

q Typically, the outline is about as long as the final paper will be, if not longer. It reflects the amount of effort you have put into researching and organizing your topic and will be graded accordingly.

q Don’t lose this when I return it. I expect it to be turned in with the first draft.

q I will be checking to see that you make the changes I recommended.

q Failure to do so without any explanation or without discussing it with me will reflect poorly on your efforts.

Revised Outline – Monday, Feb. 7 (Quiz grade) **

q Assuming that there were changes I asked you to make in your first outline, this will be your opportunity to make those changes.

q If your first outline was near-perfect, you don’t need to do this and will automatically receive a 100.

q Please highlight the changes that you made from your first outline.

q Make sure to turn in the first outline with this one. Failure to do so means that your grade will go down an automatic 15 points.

First Draft – Monday, Feb. 28 **(Test grade)

q This should be a complete draft including an introduction and a conclusion.

q The paper should be no more than twelve typed, double-spaced pages.

q The paper should be typed and double-spaced in 12 pt. Times New Roman font with reasonable margins ( no more than 1 inch all around) .

q Please number your pages.

q Also, include footnotes and a bibliography.

q I will read this draft and return it to you with comments.

q Make sure to staple the returned outline (with my comments on it) behind your first draft when you turn it in.

q You will lose 15 points from your grade if you don’t have that outline.

Work-In-Progress Reports – Week of March 28 (Quiz Grade)

q Prepare a report to your classmates on your research topic.

q Introduce them to your thesis and how you’ve proven it.

q Tell them the most interesting things you have discovered and what you have found particularly interesting.

q This should last about 5 – 8 minutes.

q We hope that we will not only learn about your paper, but also about some area of history that we didn’t know much about.

q This should be an informal presentation based upon your paper. I do not want you to read from your paper, but to teach the class about your subject.

Final Draft – Thursday, March 31 **(Double test grade)

q With your final draft submit a final bibliography, footnotes, and your rough drafts (the copies I commented on – don’t you dare lose it).

q Your will lose 15 points if you are missing the rough draft.

You will lose 10 points per day that any of these assignments are late. If you are absent the day the outlines, first or final drafts are due, I expect you to make arrangements to get the work to me that day by first period.

Topic Ideas

Please, please feel free to meet with me for topic ideas. We have covered only half the course at this point so I know that you aren’t familiar with some of these eras. Perhaps I can point you to a topic that you would find interesting. If a certain topic interests you, but you don’t have an idea of how to narrow it down, I’d be more than happy to talk to you. That’s my job. Your job is to do all the work.

Political History	Social History
A specific election campaign, e.g. 1800, 1824, 1840, 1860, 1864, 1876, 1896, 1912, 1948, 1960, or 1968	Issues involving women’s rights
The history of a third party, e.g. Populists or Dixiecrats	Issues involving Black History
A particular politician’s tactics in achieving power or working with Congress, e.g. LBJ or Clinton	Treatment of Native Americans
Choose a president and evaluate the successes and/or failures of his presidency	The labor movement
Foreign Policy	Immigration to the U.S. in a particular period or from a particular region
The history of the negotiating of a particular treaty, e.g. Versailles,	Cultural History
American diplomatic relations with a specific country, e.g. Mexico, France, or Israel	A particular artist or writer and his/her relationship to history
A study of a particular Sect. of State, e.g. JQA, John Hays, or Henry Kissinger	The Beat Generation
Diplomacy during WWII	The Roaring 20s
Aspects of the Cold War	The Harlem Renaissance
Legal History	The effect of TV or rock ‘n roll on history
The history of a particular amendment, e.g. 14^th, 18^th, or 19th	Journalism during a particular period
A study of a particular Supreme Court case, e.g. Dred Scott, Brown v. BOE, Bakke, or a more modern case	Pop culture during the 1950s, 60s, or 70s
History of a particular law, e.g. Clean Air Act or Civil Rights Act	Religious History
Impeachment of Samuel Chase, Andrew Johnson, or Bill Clinton	History of a particular religion or religious culture
History of civil rights	Issues involving the First Amendment
Civil liberties during wartime, e.g. Civil War, WWI, or WWII	Various religious sects in American history
Anti-communism during the Cold War	The Puritans , or the First or Second Great Awakening
Military History	Clashes between religion and secularism in history
A particular battle or military campaign	A particular religious leader
The impact of a new weapon	Science and Technology
The Homefront during wartime	The importance of a particular invention, e.g. telegraph, car, or computer
Women in wartime	The space race
Prisoner of War camps	An important inventor or scientist and his/her impact on history
Medicine during wartime	Historiography
A particular military leader	Pick an event, person, or period in American history and then evaluate how historians over the years have changed their attitudes towards that event, person, period. Analyze how biases towards a moment in history change with the times, e.g. the Civil War, the Puritans, Andrew Jackson, Reconstruction, woman’s movement, etc.