HIST
4680/6680, 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 has 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,
double-spaced either centered or to the side, 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 4680 or 6680), 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.
There are also websites that explain Turabian notation. 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
ten
pages, try to find ten sources (more are always okay in a history
paper).
5.
Should be about
a topic within the time frame of our class—1877-1920, 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.
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.
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.
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, "
5. A popular magazine like People:
Example: 9Bill
[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. "
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.
Smith,
John.
"Life in
(accessed September 5,
2007).