AMH 2020 – Spring 2017
Analytical Paper Assignment
15% of your final grade
Due Date: February 28, 2017 – submit to Canvas by 12:00 p.m.
For this assignment you have two options, Option A or Option B. Select which option you prefer and follow the instructions for it. You will need to tell me which option you are going to do, the theme you are you using (if Option B), and have the readings you plan to use in your paper approved by me by February 9th.Failure to submit your option, theme, and readings by February 9th will result in a lowered grade for the paper.
Below the instructions for Option A and Option B are general instructions on how to format your paper. A student who submits a paper that does not fulfill the assignment as specified under the “General Instructions” may be asked to rewrite his or her paper with assistance from the USF Writing Studio or INTO tutoring center before the paper will be graded.
Option A:
The concept of freedom has come up throughout our readings and discussions. Choose 2 documents from the assigned document readings this semester (choose only those from the syllabus) and compare and contrast the ideas of freedom to answer the question:
How have people in the United States understood “freedom” in the period since the
Civil War up to the present day?
Other questions that might be useful to consider when answering the above question could include: How did the documents reflect different views and understandings of freedom? How were they similar? How were they different? What factors shaped these similar or different ideas about freedom? What were the changing meanings of freedom over time in the U.S?
Option B:
Select a theme from U.S. history since the Civil War that interests you, and then choose 2 documents from the assigned document readings this semester (choose only from the syllabus) and compare and contrast the documents using your theme. It’s up to you what theme you use, but you do need to have it approved by me byFebruary 9th.
Using your selected theme, questions that might be useful to consider could include: How did the documents reflect different views and understandings of your theme? How were they similar? How were they different? What factors seemed to shape these different or similar understandings and ideas? What were the changing meanings of your theme over time in the U.S?
General Instructions for Formatting Your Paper:
To write a successful paper you will do the following things:
- Answer the prompt question in a 500-750 word essay.
- Make a clear argument about how the documents illustrated understandings about the theme you select (freedom if you are doing Option A).
- Havefive paragraphs:
- 1) An introduction that presents your argument;
- 2) – 4) Paragraphs discussing the documents;
- 5) A conclusion
- Be based on the material covered in class lectures, textbook, and the two documents you choose, and be historically accurate.
- Havetwo quotes from the documents in your paper
- You will introduce each quote. Explain who said the quote, and why it is useful to your argument (see below for an example of how to quote properly)
- You willnot use block quotes. Each quotationwill beless than 2 lines.
- Be formatted correctly
- 12-point Times New Roman font
- 1-inch margins
- Double-spaced
- Include citations where applicable.
- Chicago Manual of Style, MLA, etc.
- Be well-written using a formal style suitable for academic writing, and be free of grammatical, spelling, punctuation, and capitalization errors.
- Have submitted your choice of Option, Theme, and primary documents to Canvas for approval on February 9, 2017 by 12:00 p.m. (under Assignments – Paper #2 – Option, Theme, Documents)
- Have submittedyour final draft of Paper #2 to Canvas on Thursday, February 28, 2017 by 12:00 p.m. (under Assignments – Paper #2)
Notes:
Your essay should be based on material covered in class and on the documents you were assigned. I do not want to know what Google says about freedom/the theme you select. I do not want to know what Wikipedia says about any of these documents. I want to know what you think. And I want to know what you have learned from our discussion of the documents in class. All the information you need to write this essay can be found in the primary source documents, in the text book, powerpoints, and in your class notes. (You do not need to cite my classroom lectures. Consider these to be common knowledge shared by the class.)
I also want your essays to be unique. If you choose to talk to your fellow students about what you want to write, that is fine. But if two students turn in a paper that reads the same (outside of direct quotations), you will fail. Write your own paper.
Your papers will be checked for plagiarism. The University of South Florida has an account with TurnItIn, an automated plagiarism detection service that allows instructors and students to submit student assignments to be checked for plagiarism. Assignments are compared automatically with a huge database of journal articles, web articles, and previously submitted papers. The instructor receives a report showing exactly how a student’s paper was plagiarized. As per university policy, if you are found to have plagiarized an assignment, you will receive a grade of FF (academic dishonesty) for the course.
Late papers will lose 1/3 of a letter grade per 24 hours (i.e. A- becomes B+, C+ becomes C). Please include a word count on your paper. Papers that are either too long or too short will be penalized.
Quote Example:
You MUST quote the documents properly. Explain which document you are quoting by referencing the author and the title of the document before the quotation, and providing the page number the quote came from. Here is an example of a good and a bad quotation style:
- GOOD: In Progress and Poverty, Henry George states, “Equality of political rights will not compensate for the denial of the equal right to the bounty of nature. Political liberty, when the equal right to land is denied, becomes…merely the liberty to compete for employment at starvation wages.” Henry George defines freedom as the right to own land. He argues that only land ownership will fix the problem of “the unjust and unequal distribution of wealth.”[1]
- BAD: Freedom is also about land. “Equality of political rights will not compensate for the denial of the equal right to the bounty of nature.” Land is very important.
The BAD example is very confusing. Who are you quoting? Are these your words or do they come from a primary document? What does this quote mean? Quotation marks are not enough. Introduce where the quote came from, who wrote or said it (if you know), and try to explain what it means in your own words. If you use any phrase from the book that is more than 3 words long, you must put it in quotation marks and cite it properly.You may use Chicago Style, MLA Style, etc. formatting for citations.
[1] Henry George, Progress and Poverty (1879), pg.38-39.
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