Term Paper on "Early Civilization"

Quoted Instructions for "Early Civilization" Assignment:

Fax has been uploaded to the fax directory for this order - Ross@*****.com

Egyptian, and Hebrew civilizations and the extent to which these beliefs reflect geography and people’s attitudes toward nature and justice.

Use only the sources provided (will be faxed)

Paper should be more of an analysis

Thinking and writing historically

1. There is no getting around it: good writing requires an appropriate investment of time. Only you know how much time you need to write a good paper. But I can bet you dollars to doughnuts that it entails starting earlier than the night before the paper is due. The writing of multiple drafts (at least two: rough and final) is important because it allows you the opportunity to correct your mistakes and to refine your thinking. You will often be surprised with what you find when you go back and look at a paper that you wrote a few days earlier.

2. Put your thesis up front, clear as day in your first paragraph. The thesis is a clear declaration of your argument. Give a preview about how you will structure your paper and answer your question. DON’T say, “My thesis is that the French Revolution created modern nationalism.” DO say, “The French Revolution created modern nationalism.” DON’T write, “I am going to analyze the French Revolution.” Be specific: “The French Revolution created modern political culture.”

3. Always think critically about sources. Historians use novels, political speeches, paintings, music, memoirs, architecture, etc., but ask different questions than a novelist, a politician, a painter, a musician, a memoirist, or an architect would. Try to place yourself both inside a source (asking questions such as, “What was this author’s motivation and bias?”) and outside it (asking questions such as, “How does this source increase my understanding of this author’s era, even in ways that this author would not have consciously seen?”).

4. Tolerate, even appreciate ambiguity, but prioritize when necessary. Rare is the issue that has only one side. When analyzing sources, developing arguments, and thinking historically, look for multiple explanations and competing perspectives. But don’t use this as a cop-out. One skill that you need to develop if you want to become adept at thinking and writing historically is learning how to prioritize information. In other words, ask yourself when reading and writing: Are all the angles on this issue equally important? Chances are the answer is “no.” Your analysis should reflect this.

5. Make sure that you distinguish between your opinions and those of your sources. Avoid, as much as is possible, imposing your own views and prejudices on your documents. Feel free to include your perspective – where relevant! – but your first task should always be to make sense of the people, events, and ideas of the period under investigation within their own terms and contexts. Otherwise, you risk reading out of another’s experience only the information that confirms your preexisting opinions. History can easily be abused in this manner.

6. Analyze, don’t moralize. Try to refrain from passing judgment on the authors of primary sources. In other words, seek to explain behavior and attitudes by exploring and analyzing their historical roots, not simply by categorizing them as “evil” or “immoral.” “Was the Holocaust bad?” and “Why did the Holocaust happen?” are two very different questions. Belaboring the first question does not answer the second and does nothing to help us prevent the Holocaust from happening again.

7. Don’t overly rely on quotes. Quotes are evidence, and the well-chosen quote can help you summarize a scene or make a point. But it shouldn’t make the point for you. Always make sure you explain the context of a quote and analyze the quote’s significance. A paper should be more than a string of quotes tied together with a few transitions.

8. Learn to recognize plagiarism and avoid it. There are several varieties of plagiarism, but they all share one thing in common: the unacknowledged use of someone else’s words or ideas. In short, plagiarism is theft and deceit. The most direct form of plagiarism is copying passages directly from another source and failing to cite that source. It does not matter whether the source is a book, a textbook, an article, or the internet. If you quote a source, use quotation marks and attach bibliographical information (including page numbers) in a parenthetical note, footnote, or endnote. Somewhat less obvious – but equally naughty – forms of plagiarism include a) paraphrasing another source without attribution and b) using a direct quote, attaching a footnote, but failing to use quotation marks (this suggests to the reader that the ***** paraphrased when in actuality he/she directly quoted). If you have questions about plagiarism and how to avoid it, see the appropriate section in the Student Handbook or come and talk to me. The lesson here is NOT that you shouldn’t use quotes or read other scholars’ works to help you think about a topic. Please do. The lesson is that if you do consult other works, paraphrase, or use direct quotes, you MUST acknowledge your debt to the original *****. If you have any doubts, ask questions and/or play it safe by going out of your way to acknowledge intellectual influences. When it comes to plagiarism, ignorance or sloppiness is not an excuse. We all know it’s wrong to steal and understand that you can’t walk out of a store without paying, later explaining that you simply forgot.

II. Writing well (aka, how to avoid getting on Prof. Law’s bad side)

9. Use past tense when speaking and writing about events from the past. Napoleon’s invasion of Russia was almost two hundred years ago. Don’t refer to it as an on-going action. You can refer to an author’s ideas from a book in the present tense (“In The Communist Manifesto, Marx repeatedly describes the bourgeoisie as a product of the French Revolution.”), but you must refer to the author him/herself in the past tense (“Marx benefited from his relationship with Friedrich Engels, the pampered son of an industrialist.”).

10. Where possible, avoid gendered language and the ambiguity and sexism introduced by the word “man.” Do you mean “males” or “humans”?

11. Avoid filler. Padding a paper with unnecessary words and data obscures the real point of your writing.

12. Proofread for style and readability. Read difficult sentences out loud or give to a friend. Make sure you are really saying what you think you are saying.

13. Use the dictionary, but don’t quote the dictionary. It’s a cop-out and doesn’t take the place of real thought. “Webster’s Dictionary defines ‘modernization’ as the act of becoming modern” doesn’t add a lot to your discussion.

14. Don’t use words you don’t understand. When in doubt, look a word up in the dictionary and see if it is appropriate.

15. Don’t use punctuation you don’t understand. Semicolons, colons, and commas are not interchangeable. They have distinct uses and meanings. Understand the difference between a dash (separating clauses or phrases) and a hyphen (separating elements of a word).

16. The use of commas is governed by very definite laws of grammar. They aren’t like fertilizer that should just be spread willy-nilly all over your paper. DO put commas at both the beginning and end of appositions (“Emmeline Pankhurst, the leader of the Women’s Social and Political Union, believed that radical action would be necessary to win women the right to vote.”) DON’T use commas to separate dependent clauses or elements of compound verbs. The sentence “Hitler brazenly believed that propaganda must make use of the ‘big lie’, and deftly mixed truth with deception” commits the same grammatical sin as “***** walks, and chews gum.” Never use commas to separate the subject from the verb. And beware the comma splice.

17. Be careful when using pronouns. Make sure you are referring back to the right head word. And words such as “country,” “Empire,” and “nation” are all singular and therefore require the pronoun “it” (not “they”).

18. Run-on sentences and sentence fragments are bad news. On a similar note, the word “however” is not a conjunction. Thus the sentence “Kansas is clearly the best team in the land, however there is always the chance they could choke in the tournament again” is a run-on.

19. Use apostrophes correctly. In particular, remember that they can’t be used to make a word plural. The sentence “map’s are helpful” is right out. The one exception (and it’s still optional) is with numbers, letters, and symbols. Thus: 1900s or 1900’s, A’s or As, etc.

20. Know how to use block quotes. First of all, ask yourself: do I really need a quote this long? Short papers shouldn’t rely on long quotes. If you determine that the quote really is necessary and if the material quoted is at least five lines long, then it should be indented five spaces on the left and right and single-spaced. Do not use quotation marks on block quotes. The blocking and footnote or parenthetical note indicates that the material is a quote.

21. Don’t depend on computer spell-checkers to much. Their good at finding misspelled words, but won’t point out the incorrect use of words that sound or are spelled similarly. Its always a good idea too proofread! No the difference between its and it’s; their, there, they’re; your, you’re; then, than; to, too; adapt, adopt; Calvary, cavalry; affect, effect; weekend, weakened (I have actually seen this one more than once!); capital, capitol; principle, principal; allude, elude; accept, except; etc. I am merciless when it comes to this stuff. Why? Because rampant misspelling leads the reader to believe that the ***** didn’t care much about the act of writing. It seriously damages your credibility. In other words, these mistakes will hurt your grade. And the past tense of the verb “to lead” is “led.” If I see that mistake on yore paper, I will use so much read ink that it will look like I opened up an artery. And you wouldn’t want me doing that, wood you. Wood you?

22. Use language appropriate to a formal presentation. For instance, DON’T write: “If you really want to understand modern Germany, you have to examine the role of the Protestant Reformation.” DO write: “To understand modern Germany, one must examine the role of the Protestant Reformation.” Written approximations of colloquialisms such as “should of” should always by avoided in papers.

23. Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style is an excellent – and brief – book about writing. It repeats and elaborates on many of the points made above. I try to reread it every so often to help me focus on becoming a better *****.

*****