History 498

Fall 2010

Devine

Secondary Source Assignment

INSTRUCTIONS

This assignment counts for 25% of your grade. It is due Wednesday, November 24th by 11:59 pm. You may email your essay to me as an attachment (the preferred method), turn it in to the History Department office (Sierra Tower 610) during business hours, or hand it to me in person. Late essays will be penalized, so please turn your assignment in on time.

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You must also submit an annotated bibliography of your sources in class on November 8. This bibliography will count toward your Class Participation grade. An annotated bibliography is a list of citations to books, articles, and articles in edited collections. Each citation is followed by a brief (usually about 150 words) descriptive and evaluative paragraph – the “annotation.” The purpose of the annotation is to inform the reader of the relevance, accuracy, and quality of the sources cited. For our purposes, your annotation should also explain how the source will help you answer your research question.

Click HERE for a sample annotated bibliography. You should pattern your bibliography on this sample.

WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO?

This assignment allows you to become an “expert” on some aspect of the Vietnamese conflict by reading widely in the secondary literature that addresses your topic (mostly journal articles and some book chapters). The paper should pose a research question. You will then report on how historians have answered your question, assess the arguments upon which they base their answer(s), and draw some conclusions of your own.

You should pose a question that has generated scholarly interest and, optimally, one that historians have answered in different ways or with different emphases. You might also pose a question whose answer (or answers) varies depending on whose perspective you are considering (i.e. Soviet, Chinese, American, French, Viet Cong, DRV).

In answering your question, you should introduce a wide variety of perspectives. You should not base your entire paper on one or two books or articles. Rather, draw on various secondary sources that differ in emphasis and perspective. There is no set minimum or maximum number of sources, but, obviously, the more sources you examine the more perspectives you will be able to take into account and the more well-informed your paper will be. (Short articles or book chapters that present a clear and defensible thesis will be your friends in this assignment.) Your goal is to answer your research question as thoroughly as possible within the word length. Your grade will be based on how persuasive, thorough, and well-informed your answer is.

HOW LONG SHOULD THE PAPER BE?

Papers MUST be 2500 words and no more than 3000 words. This is approximately 8 pages. If you use MS Word 2003, you can check number of words by pulling down the FILE menu, selecting PROPERTIES, and then clicking on the STATISTICS tab.

HOW SHOULD I FORMAT THE PAPER?

• Typed, double-spaced, 12-point font with one-inch margins all around. Margins can be set by using the FILE menu in MS Word and choosing “Page set up.”

• Please number your pages (use the INSERT menu on MS Word and choose “Page numbers…”)

• Give your essay a title that indicates what the paper is about. (Something more revealing than “Semester Project”) Clever titles will be duly noted.

Don’t forget to put your name at the top of page 1 of the essay before you email it. (People actually forget to do this.)

HOW DO I CITE?

You should use footnotes that comply with Chicago style formatting. Click HERE for footnote samples of articles, books, and book chapters. All direct quotes MUST be in quotation marks and must be cited. Paraphrases of ideas drawn from the book MUST also be cited.