After selecting a topic, you will select at least three sources to help you write about your topic. Your research needs to be academic in nature.  Hence, Encyclopedia articles, Wikipedia (do not get me started), and blog posts are typically not sufficient sources for this research project. You should try to get articles written by actual historians (use Galileo).  If you use a primary source, you will use the provided worksheet as a guide to examine the historical context and purpose of a primary source document or artwork. The results of that analysis of your primary and other sources will then be crafted into a 3-5 page research paper. That means 3-5 pages of text!  That 3-5 pages does not include the title page, abstract, or references pages.  Primary sources may be selected from those included in the textbook or from online repositories in consultation with the instructor. Fordham University maintains the Internet History Sourcebooks Project, and many public domain primary sources can be found at their website http://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/index.asp  In keeping with the chronological scope of the course, your topic should be after 1450 and relatable to the history we are exploring in this class. 

This paper is intended to let students hear and interact with some of the voices from the past and to give students a taste for historical investigation. Choose a topic and sources to explore in-depth. Before students begin their analysis, they should read the source  (whether primary or secondary) several times (at least 3 times) in order to gain an overview of its content and a sense of its purpose. Make note of any difficulties encountered such as unknown words or concepts. Next, do some basic research about the source, using the Primary Source Worksheet as a guide for primary sources. The questions on the Primary Source Worksheet are not intended to be exhaustive, but rather introductory. Students should pose questions of the source themselves. What would someone want to know about the topic you are researching? Ask that question and answer it.  That is what a good junior historian should do! Keep asking questions until you understand the person, place, thing, event, etc.  Once students have completed the worksheet, they should begin to think about writing the paper.

Consider the best way to present a summary of the sources background and content along with the significance of the source. Students should not simply present the results of the worksheet as the paper. Rather, they should craft the information discovered, the questions still remaining, etc. into a paper that discusses the way in which the sources have been used. A good guide to historical writing can be found at http://www.wku.edu/~eric.reed/Writing_A_History_Essay.pdf.

1.    150-250 words of contextual/background information on the source (the information from the Basic section of the worksheet in addition to the author and title of the source
2.    300-450 words of analysis information (the information from the Analytical section of the worksheet plus your own questions). Or information from your articles, books, or other sources. 
3.    Block quotations, those exceeding 40 words, are not allowed, and quotations