2020 Writing Guidelines

HIST 2020, Dr. Caffrey
Writing Guidelines

Keep copies of your papers on a disk or on your computer to make any corrections easy after the paper is graded.
Do not use your name on the Research Paper. Use your 4-digit number.
You should use your name on all other papers except the Research Paper.
The Research Paper and the Internet/Library Papers have to be submitted to turnitin.com before handing in a paper copy.

Papers

1. Should be typed and double-spaced.

2. Should have a Title Page: The title should be above the middle of the page. Below it, either centered or to the side, should be your name for the Internet/Libarary Papers or your four-digit class number for the Research Paper (DO NOT PUT YOUR NAME ON THE RESEARCH PAPER--I GRADE THESE BLIND), the class name (HIST 2020), and the date.

3. Should use historical footnotes or endnotes and bibliography at the end--see Historical Notation section below for models of the most common usages. For more complex notations, see Kate Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, in the Reference Room in the Library, or see me. Not using correct historical notation will result in a grade reduction, e.g., from an A to a B.

4. Should have a mix of primary and secondary sources--the rule of thumb is to think in terms of as many sources as there are pages in the paper, e.g., if the paper is five pages, try to find five sources (more are always okay in a history paper).

5. Should be about a topic within the time frame of our class—1877 to the present, in the United States.

6. Quotes over four typed lines must be indented and single-spaced. No quotation marks are necessary with a quote that is set out like this, but you need a footnote number at the end of the quote.

7. Internet material quoted or cited from must be printed out and handed in with the paper. For material from books, the pages cited must be xeroxed and handed in.

8. Each paper should not have more than three errors in grammar and spelling. Use your spell check and get at least one other person to read your paper before you hand it in, in order to catch errors. More than three errors will be a grade reduction in the paper, e.g. from A to B. You will have to fix it and turn in both the new copy and the old one for a revised grade.

10. A good history paper asks a question of history and then sets out to answer it. It should be something you are interested in. ANYTHING can make a good topic for a history paper!

Plagiarism

Plagiarism--using someone's exact words OR their ideas OR information they have gathered without giving them credit--as if they were yours alone. The reason for footnotes or endnotes is to prevent plagiarism. Therefore, you must put a footnote or endnote number in the paper:

<>           a. If you quote someone's exact words--the note number comes right after the quotation marks end, or in set out quotes, after the last period.

   b. The note number comes at the end of a paragraph after the last period if the paragraph contains information someone else gathered that is not generally known, e.g. specific information on somebody's life, or about a historical event that you and your friends have never heard before. Something like, e.g., the Civil War was between the North and the South, is generally known information--it doesn't need a footnote or endnote. But to say Ruth Benedict was born in 1887 and grew up in the state of New York, is not something generally known, and therefore has to have a footnote or endnote at the end of the information or of the paragraph.   If you use more than one source in a paragraph you have to have a footnote at the end of the information from each source.

                 You are expected to paraphrase (put in your own words) most factual information and use a footnote after. A common error people make is to quote factual information when it should be paraphrased. In history, the rule of thumb is use quotes from people IN THE TIME PERIOD in preference to those of people today. Use a quote to give your ideas more impact. Paraphrase the words of historians or writers of today most of the time.

It is not enough to change one or two words from the original--there has to be significant change from the original to be a paraphrase.

c. If you use someone else's idea, you have to give them credit with a footnote or endnote: e.g., Someone compares the election of Rutherford B. Hayes to that of George W. Bush and you use their ideas in your paper--you have to use a footnote or endnote.

Plagiarism in your paper will result in an F.

Students must join the class list on turnitin.com by the date specified on the syllabus.

Historical Notation and Models

Footnotes or Endnotes

1. Do not use parentheses in your paper for notes, e.g. DO NOT USE (Ulrich, 1999) or any variation of this.

2. USE superscript numbers starting with 1 in your text when you want to put in a note. The numbers do not repeat. They go 1,2, 3, 4, 5, etc., even if you are using the same source over again. Any word processing program will have a footnote (and usually endnote) command to put these in automatically for you, and, if you change your mind, the computer will automatically renumber them for you.

3. Decide whether you want footnotes (at the bottom of each page) or endnotes (all notes at the end of the paper) and tell your computer--it will automatically do that for you.

Internet Footnotes/Endnotes/Bibliography

1. For Internet Footnotes or Endnotes, use this form: Author, "Title of Article on Internet in quotes," Name of Internet Site, the Internet Address and then (the the word accessed and the date you looked up the Internet site) in parentheses and a period at the end.

In a footnote the author's name goes First Name Last Name. Use commas until the period at the end. Don't use commas or any punctuation in a footnote before a bracket.

     Footnote Example:

   ¹John Smith, "Life in Virginia," Do History, http://www.dohistory.org (accessed September 5, 2007).

2. If there is no author, start with the Title.

²"Andrew Carnegie," Business Leaders of the 19th Century, http://www.pittsburgh.edu (accessed October 10, 2006).

3. For the Bibliography page at the end of the paper, go in alphabetical order, no numbers in front, last name, first name. Do not indent the first line, but all the other lines should be indented 5 spaces (use the Tab button). Single space citations, double-space between them. Use periods instead of commas.

                   Example:

                   Smith, John. "Life in Virginia." Do History. http://www.dohistory.org
                      (accessed September 5, 2007).

4. Using books from the Internet: Footnote = same format as Non-Internet citation, except no page number at end, instead web address and (accessed Date).

                     3
Thomas Dale, The Flapper (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), http://www.bibliophilia.org/flapper.html (accessed September 21, 2007).

      Bibliography form: Same as Non-Internet Bibliography citation with web addresss and (accessed Date) added.

                        Dale, Thomas. The Flapper. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. http://www.bibliophilia.org/flapper.html
                               (accessed September 21, 2007).

5. Using articles from scholarly journals from the Internet: Footnote = Same as Non-Internet citation, except no page number, with web address and (accessed Date) added.

                       4
                          Michael Spelt, "The Great Influenza Epidemic," Journal of American History 56, no. 5 (2002), http: www.jah.org/56/2002.html (accessed
January 12, 2008).

        Bibliography form: Same as Non-Internet Bibliography citation, except no page numbers, with web address and (accessed Date) added.

                          Spelt, Michael. "The Great Influenza Epidemic." Journal of American History 56, no. 5 (2002), http://www.jah.org/56/2002.html (accessed
                                  January 12, 2008).

Non-Internet Footnotes/Endnotes

1. For a book with one author, use the form below. Note the Book Title should be in Italics, with no punctuation before the parenthesis. Footnotes use First Name Last Name.

Note: ⁴John Smith, Adventures of John Smith (New York: Arno Press, 1976), 51.

2. The second time and forever after you cite a book or anything else, you can use the short form--but you have to use the long form with each new source.

Book Example: ⁵Smith, 34.

3. A book with two or more authors:

Example: ⁶John Smith and James Jones, [the rest of the full citation is the same as for one author.] Short form: Smith and Jones, 51-55.

⁷John Smith, James Jones, Mary Poppins, the rest is the same as above. Short form: Smith, Jones, Poppins, 54.

4. A journal article:

Example: ⁸Jack Jones, "Memphis During the Yellow Fever," Tennessee Historical Quarterly 125, no. 3 (Spring 1994), 37.

5. A popular magazine like People:

Example: ⁹Bill Bolton, "Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings," People, January 24, 1999, pp. 57, 59.
[If no author, just start with article title.]

6. A newspaper:

Example: ¹⁰Bill Baker, "President Lincoln Killed," New York Times 15 April 1865, sec. A.
[If no author, just start with article title.]

Bibliography

1. You should have a Bibliography page at the end of your paper with all the sources you put in your endnotes or footnotes and also anything else you looked at that has good information but that you didn't use.

2. The Bibliography has a different form than the footnotes or endnotes.

3. No numbers are used on this page--the word Bibliography should be centered at the top.

4. Sources should be in alphabetical order.

5. Watch punctuation: Periods go where some commas went in footnotes. Parentheses for books is gone.

5. Examples:

Baker, Bill. "President Lincoln Killed." New York Times, 15 April 1865, sec. A.

    Bolton, Bill. "Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings." People, January 24, 1999,
             pp. 57, 59-61.
           [All page numbers of the article go here, not just the pages used, as in footnotes or endnotes.]

     Jones, Jack. "Memphis During the Yellow Fever." Tennessee Historical Quarterly
            125, no. 3 (Spring 1994): 33-44.
           [All page numbers of the article here, not just the ones used.]

Smith, John. Adventures of John Smith. New York: Arno Press, 1976.

Smith, John. "Life in Virginia." Do History. http://www.dohistory.org
(accessed September 5, 2007).