Papers & Assignments
Research Paper
Due on or before Monday, May 9
Download these instructions as a PDF*
*(the PDF has the original due date of May 2, but you can have up to the 9th to submit the paper)
Throughout this course we have considered many “case studies” in how to conduct and assess social history. We’ve looked at social history through the lens of work and workers, the working class and labor upheaval. We’ve considered social history as an act of recovery and magnification of women’s voices from documents written by others. And we’ve explored social history as the history of immigration, cultural encounter, and nation-building by people from around the globe across four centuries.
For your final project, please choose a topic that interests you, and explore it from a social history perspective. Many rich potential topics are suggested in the weekly website posts about presentation topics and any of those could be profitably turned into a research paper. You could also design a research topic around the Digital Worcester website, for example going deeper into one family’s story, or using multiple stories to construct a collective portrait (of, say, Worcester factory workers, single mothers, Italian children, the Temporary Home’s clients in the 1920s, etc). Remember that social history is “folk history,” and often seeks to challenge or undermine the chronology of political history, the assumptions of triumphant nationalism, or the dominant narratives of history written by and for an elite literate class. One productive research strategy might be to take a well-accepted account (or even a “myth”) of the American past, and turn it on its head through evidence that goes the other direction or by highlighting the experience of “underdogs” or those who were the least powerful/most vulnerable in history.
The evidence in your paper can be either secondary sources (i.e. the reliable peer-reviewed scholarship of professional historians) or primary sources (i.e. the raw, “original” material of the past), or some combination of the two. See below for a more detailed discussion of sources.
Sources: Primary sources are from the time period you’re writing about. Examples are census records, radio programs, newspaper articles, government publications, photographs, diaries.
Secondary sources have been created later, by historians or other scholars. They might include books, scholarly journal articles, or documentary films. Wikipedia entries are not a reliable secondary source and should not be cited in your papers, although they may be helpful in the initial exploration of a topic.
Writing: Paper should be 6-8 pages long (8-10 for Honors students), double-spaced. Title your paper. Number your pages.
Citing your sources: you may use either Chicago Style or MLA, whichever you are comfortable with. Be consistent within your style. Another student should be able to retrace your steps and find all of your sources. Be especially careful in citing online sources:
- just the url/web address is NOT enough
- make sure you’ve opened it in a new window (it should not start with https://community.worcester.edu/webapps/portal/frameset)
Take My Advice: Unlike high school papers, college papers are never written start to finish in one sitting. Your first draft should NEVER be what you turn in. A first draft is your opportunity to get all your thoughts down in one place. Some (maybe even most) of the stuff in a first draft will be cut out, rearranged, and re-written for your final version. It’s not unusual to have to write several drafts or to revise a LOT before you have one that is ready to turn in. This is NOT a one-night process. You may benefit from using the services of the Writing Center (Sullivan 306) at any stage of the process.
I recommend writing your introduction LAST, since you won’t know exactly what’s being introduced until the rest of the paper is written.
Try reading your paper out loud to make sure it “sounds” right. Sometimes that will help you catch rough spots, missed words, or grammatical errors.
Use quotation marks AND CITATIONS for all quotes from your sources. If a quote is longer than 2 lines, put it in a block quote. Don’t use a quote longer than 5 or 6 lines unless it’s all really critical to your argument. When you’re summarizing someone else’s work, even if you’re not directly quoting it, cite your source.
Before you turn in your paper, refer back to the stated requirements of the assignment and make sure you’ve got them all.
Grading Rubric:
A: Clearly states what the paper will be about on the first page. Offers your own original argument, rather than just agreeing with someone else. Demonstrates that you conducted research, by using specific references from the sources. Has a vivid and clear conclusion. Fulfills all the stated requirements of the assignment.
B: Fulfills almost all the stated requirements of the assignment, but may contain some minor writing errors, unclear passages, or structural problems. Generally sticks to a single argument.
C: Argument is not original, is convoluted or hard to follow; or wanders from point to point. Sources are incomplete or unreliable. Partially fulfills the stated requirements of the assignment.
D: Paper is submitted on time, but is poorly written, incomplete, or lacks enough sources. Fulfills only one or two of the stated requirements of the assignment.
F: Paper is submitted on time but fulfills none of the stated requirements, or paper has been plagiarized (i.e. is not your own work, or is cut & pasted from the internet, or has no citations).
All late work is docked one letter grade per CALENDAR day until it is turned in.
Response Papers
How Many: Three.
1 = Friday 1/28, for everyone
2 = on any other presentation Friday you choose, some week when you’re not presenting
3 = on your presentation day
Length: 2-3 pages, double-spaced.
Formality and Style: Fine to use the word “I” to refer to yourself. Please cite (footnote) any direct quotation, but don’t make a separate Works Cited page.
Title: Give it a title, rather than “Response Paper #1.” Don’t make a separate title page (wastes paper).
Grading: Each one is graded on a 5-point scale, and is 5% of your final grade.
Content if it’s a response paper to the readings: somewhere between a mini-critical essay and an editorial. This isn’t an “I liked it/I hated it” book report. It’s an opportunity for you to offer COMMENTARY or DISCUSSION about something in our week’s reading. Or to CONNECT the reading to something we discussed in class, or to LINK two readings together with a COMPARISON or UNIFYING THEME. It’s an opportunity to raise (and perhaps make a stab at answering) CRITICAL QUESTIONS. I’m looking to see you ENGAGE with the readings and their ideas.
Content if it’s the paper that accompanies your Friday presentation: you can AMPLIFY something you plan to talk about in your presentation. You can HIGHLIGHT something fascinating that you came across, but didn’t have time to include in the presentation. You can TRACE your research steps, explaining how you approached making the presentation and what you learned as you did so. You should provide a BIBLIOGRAPHY of the material that goes into your presentation, although it doesn’t have to be a separate attached page.
