History 579
Devine
Spring 2011
First
Analytical Essay Assignment
INSTRUCTIONS
Your first
essay is due Saturday March 5th 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.
I prefer you
email me the paper since this is the best way to
ensure that it does not get lost. When you email me, you should also send a
copy to yourself on the “cc” line. If you receive the email, it’s likely I did
as well. I will send you a confirmation email when I receive your paper.
HOW LONG SHOULD THE PAPER BE?
Papers MUST be 1500 words and no more than
1900 words.
HOW SHOULD I FORMAT THE PAPER?
•
Typed, double-spaced, 12-point font with one-inch margins all around.
•
Please number your pages by using the “insert page number” feature on your word
processor.
•
Give your essay a title that indicates what the paper is about. (Something more
revealing than “Essay #1” or “Tarzan”) Clever titles will be duly noted.
•
Base your essay entirely on
the assigned course reading. You do not have to (nor should you) draw on any
outside sources.
HOW DO I CITE?
If you are
quoting directly from a source, cite the author and page number
in parentheses within the body of the text, i.e. (Burroughs, 47). All direct
quotes MUST be in quotation marks and must be cited. Paraphrases of ideas drawn
from the book MUST also be cited.
HOW WILL I BE GRADED?
You will be
graded on:
1) focus (do you have
a thesis statement and does it answer the question asked?)
2) evidence (do you back
up your argument with specific information from the reading?)
3) coherence (is your argument consistent and
understandable throughout the piece?)
4) scope (does your paper deal with the
question in appropriate depth and breadth?)
THE ASSIGNMENT
Answer ONE of the following questions:
1.
Between
the1890s and the 1920s, the
3.
How
does the popularity of both Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan of the Apes (1914) and the films
of Douglas Fairbanks reflect what the historian John Higham has called “the
reorientation of American culture” that first began in the 1890s?