WRITING A SHORT RESEARCH PAPER FOR HISTORY

I. Choosing a topic: This is often the hardest part of writing a research paper. The topics for any period of time are enormous. The most important thing is to understand the period of time covered by the course and to choose a topic within that time-frame. Secondly, try to think of a topic on a subject in which you are interested. Nothing is worse than spending time researching a topic you find boring. Where do you go to find topics? Obviously, the first place to look is in the materials you are assigned for class. Almost every text and monograph assigned will have a “Suggestions for Further Reading” section or a bibliography either at the end of a chapter or at the end of the book. Frequently, these are arranged by topics. Think about what kinds of things interest you, e.g., music, athletics, religion, magic, art, politics, warfare, technology, science, common people’s lives, famous people’s lives, families, business, trade, cultural exchanges, philosophy, fashion, revolts and revolutions, country life, city life, trade, and so on. Once you’ve figured out an area of interest, narrow it down by looking for that topic in the context of the period you are studying. A place to start to get general information about your topic is a good general encyclopedia or a more specific encyclopedia for the period or the topic.

Encyclopedias and topical dictionaries will give you a start to figure out what people were thinking about and doing during that time. These articles will give you a broad overview of the important historical issues and many will also include reading lists or bibliographies. When you have found a broad area and a couple of books and articles, look at their bibliographies for further works. Make sure that you’ve chosen books, articles and other sources that are as up-to-date as possible since those will include older standard works and more recent ones as well.

II. Narrowing down your topic: Often the next hardest part, after choosing a topic, is narrowing it down so you can actually write a short research paper on it. Students often pick topics that are so broad as to make reasonable research on that topic virtually impossible. For instance, a topic on “Greek Art” would be hopelessly large and vague. A much more reasonable topic might be “The Representation of Violence in Hellenistic Art.” Still, that is pretty broad, but it is much more workable. Once you have found a topic or area of interest, you must ask a question about what you want to know that you don’t. Almost every good historical work begins with a question, theme or problem. The question needs to be sufficiently focused (and interesting) that it can be answered in a reasonable amount of space. For instance, asking “Why did the Roman Empire fall?” probably would not be a good one for a short research paper. It’s too broad. Similarly, “Who signed the Magna Carta?” is too narrow. For help on defining a thesis see:

Writing Center, Princeton University, Developing a Central Idea, or Thesis

http://web.princeton.edu/sites/writing/Writing_Center/WCWritingRes.htm

Jennifer Helton (Canada College), How to Write a Thesis Statement

http://www.smccd.net/accounts/helton/howtothesis.htm

University of North Carolina Writing Center, Constructing Thesis Statements

http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/thesis.html

University of Pennsylvania, The Thesis Statement

http://www.english.upenn.edu/Grad/Teachweb/scthesis.html

III. Doing your Research: Once you have posed your question or decided on a theme, you will need to gather materials that will help answer it. Often, you will find a number of books on the same general topic that will help. Do not assume, because there are more than a few books on the same topic, that they all say the same thing. They may all agree on the “facts,” but most assuredly, they will disagree about the interpretation of those facts. Your job will be to understand those different interpretations and to choose which one(s) most closely fits the sources that the author uses and the ways those sources are put together. Who argues the best? How and why are you convinced? You will develop the question and/or theme in your paper; you will introduce that theme, usually in your first paragraph; you will develop that theme through the thoughtful use of the materials you have chosen to support your assertions, and you will draw significant conclusions from your work that will help answer the initial question you have asked.

You will gather sources from many different places. A good general introduction to writing research papers in history is: Jules R. Benjamin, A Student’s Guide to History, 8^thed. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000. [See below for some web site suggestions]. Among other things, the author lists the most important basic reference sources to help you get started on finding out about your topic. A reference librarian will be very helpful in steering you toward bibliographies and other sources where you may find material on your topic. In addition, JSTOR and other resources on Galileo or other on-line bibliographies will be crucial to your paper. Often, as many students have discovered, journal articles will be far more useful than books for your research paper. Why? First, they usually represent the best and most recent scholarship on the topic. Secondly, they are more focused than an entire book that may cover your topic along with a number of others. So, use the journals. Use the books too. For your final paper, do not use general encyclopedias, popular (as opposed to scholarly) books and magazines or any work assigned in class. Some material from web sites may be used (one site per research paper), but remember that anyone can put up anything he/she wants on the web. It may or may not be accurate. If you use a web site, be prepared to defend its use in your paper. [See below for suggestions on website use]. How many sources should you use in your paper? That question is not easy to answer. Usually, a short six to ten page paper will have three or four books and as many articles. Use whatever it takes. That means, by the way, it is very difficult to start on the paper a night or two before it is due.

IV. Format and mechanics:

The History Department uses Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, as the standard format for history papers. Please follow it in writing your paper. Also see the Chicago Manual of Style. Below I’ll give you a few examples to help you in your citation of the works you’ve used in your papers.

Here’s how you should organize your paper.

A. ORGANIZATION (from Emil Pocock, at Eastern Connecticut State University http://www.easternct.edu/personal/faculty/pocock/papers.htm)

Keep your organization clear and simple.

1. Introduction (one to three paragraphs)

· Summarize your answer to the question asked or introduce the specific problem or issue your paper will discuss. This could be done more interestingly by citing a specific incident, problem, or situation that requires explanation and analysis. [Make sure your thesis statement is clear and concise.]

· Provide the necessary background to put the topic of your paper into a specific historical context.

· State the major points or arguments you will use to support your answer. If the length of your assigned paper is limited, pick only the three or four most important and persuasive points, even though there may be others you could discuss.

· Include a one-paragraph review of what has already been written on your topic (historiography), if required or appropriate.

2. Body of the paper (several pages)

· Have in mind a specific organizing principle, ideally suggested by the summary made in the introduction. This could be chronological, most important to least important, geographical (north to south, country-state-city, etc), topical, or several other standard organizing schemes. Your reader will expect you to discuss each point in the same order mentioned in the introduction.

3. Conclusion (one paragraph)

B. Paper and margins: Use only good quality paper. Do not use onion skin, slick paper or the like. Do not encase your paper in a plastic binder. Simply staple it in the top left corner. The margins you use should be 1 ½ inches on the top and left and 1inch on the right and bottom. Use a font size of 12 and double space your work. Please number your pages. Remember; do not count the title page as part of your paper. While you should number your bibliography or “works cited” page, it does not count toward the length of your research paper.

C. Footnotes, endnotes, interior citations: First, if you use footnotes, and most word processing programs make this simple, remember to number them consecutively throughout the paper. Be sure to footnote every reference that is not your own creative endeavor (see the History Department website for a definition of plagiarism). This means your papers probably will be full of footnotes. When in doubt, footnote. Secondly, if you use end notes, you will follow the same procedure. Thirdly, while most historians do not like interior citations, you may use them if you must. You will then need a “works cited” page at the end with complete information on the works used.

There are six basic elements to a footnote or end note. 1. Author (give first middle and last name in that order); 2. Title (give full title found on the title page of the book); 3. Place of Publication; 4. Publisher’s name; 5. Date of Publication of the work you used; 6. page number(s). An example: Barbara H. Rosenwein, Rhinoceros Bound: Cluny in the Tenth Century (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982), 35. An example of a journal article: Henry Ansgar Kelly, “Bishop, Prioress, and Bawd in the Stews of Southwark,” Speculum 75 (April 2000): 378 (Note: in the bibliography you would cite the entire article’s page numbers 342-388). You will also run into articles collected in edited volumes. An example: Beatrice Gottlieb, “The Problem of Feminism in the Fifteenth Century,” in Women of the Medieval World, ed. Julius Kirshner and Suzanne Fonay Wemple (New York: Basil Blackwell Inc., 1985), 358. (Note: you would cite the complete page numbers in the bibliography, 337-364). Sometimes you will find a web site to cite. Here’s a way: William J. Mitchell, City of Bits: Space, Place, and the Infobahn [book on-line] (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995, accessed 3 March 2003); available from http://www-mitpress.mit.edu:80/City_of_Bits/Pulling_Glass/index.html; Internet. If it is just a website, you will need to include all of the information you can including author, title, URL, date accessed, and so on. Remember, you may have to explain to me why this site is better than any book or journal article you might have chosen. Use web sites with care. Here’s a site to help you cite web pages: http://cas.memphis.edu/%7Emcrouse/elcite.html . Here’s a site to help you evaluate whether a web site is valuable: http://www.uwec.edu/Library/Guides/tencs.html .

Interior citations: These follow the formula of (author’s last name and page number[s]). Examples from above in this form: ….in her opinion (Rosenwein 1982, 35). In your works cited page, you would give the complete information. Note: you do not have to give the title in the interior citation. Another example: …(Kelly 2000, 378). Another example: …(Gottleib 1985, 358).

You will encounter many variations on the simple ones I have listed above. Please consult Turabian (or a good substitute) when in doubt. Remember, too, that subsequent citations of a work fully cited the first time, may be done with a short title. An example: Rosenwein, Rhinoceros Bound, 132. Another example: Kelly, “Bishop, Prioress, and Bawd,” 381. Another example: Gottleib, “Problem of Feminism,” 361.

D. Quotations in your paper: Occasionally, when you are writing your paper, you will decide that an author has worded something so well or so brilliantly that your paraphrase of the author could not possibly be done any better or more succinctly or more clearly, then you might want to use a quotation from that author in your paper. Resist that temptation. If you cannot, then try to be extremely brief. Quotations (not quotes) of less than two lines should be incorporated, with quotation marks, into your text. If the quotation is more than two or three lines long (and that would be rare in a short research paper), then you should single-space and indent the quotation. You would not need to use quotation marks, in that case, but you would give a reference to it in a footnote, end note or interior citation.

E. Paraphrasing: Most of the work you cite from other scholars will be in the form of paraphrasing what that author said. In that case, you do need to cite it in your footnote, end note or interior citation. Do not forget to do this. Forgetting constitutes plagiarism. What you do not need to cite is “common knowledge.” Dante died in 1321. I read that in a book written by someone else, but it is common knowledge, and therefore, you need not cite it. “Dante stole everything he wrote from a little known author, Carlos Coloradus,” is an idea of a particular author and therefore, does need to be cited.

F. Proofreading: You will be responsible for proofreading your paper to make sure it contains no egregious grammatical goofs (“eggs”). No matter what you have to say, if you say it poorly, no one will want to read it. Let your paper sit for a day after it is finished, then go back and read it again. Often you will be able to find errors you missed earlier. If you cannot spot your own errors, have a friend read through it for you. A good reference work to help you find most common errors and to help develop your style is the classic: William Strunk, Jr., Charles Osgood, Roger Angell, The Elements of Style, 4^th ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2000. [An on-line version is available at: http://www.bartleby.com/141/index.html . You should always have a good grammar handbook and dictionary handy.

G. Timing: It is important that you know when the paper is due and that you get it in on time. Late papers will not be accepted.

Websites for additional information on how to write research papers:

http://academic.bowdoin.edu/WritingGuides/

http://www.brown.edu/Student_Services/Writing_Center/lodewick.htm

http://personal2.stthomas.edu/gwschlabach/courses/10commnd.htm

http://www.bu.edu/history/writing_guide.html

http://www.library.cornell.edu/olinuris/ref/research/skill1.htm

http://www.wm.edu/hwrc/worksheets/basics.html

http://www.sou.edu/history/carney/writing.htm

http://www.fas.harvard.edu/%7Eexpos/sources/

http://www.umass.edu/history/links_writing.html

Website Guide to Historical Research:

http://www.lib.washington.edu/subject/History/tm/guide.html

[March2005 version]