Research Paper


Keep a copy of your paper on a disk or on your computer to make any corrections easy after the paper is graded.
The Research Paper has to be submitted to turnitin.com before handing in a paper copy.  Copies of sources must be handed in with the paper copy.


1.  The paper 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 4-digit number (DO NOT PUT YOUR NAME ON THE PAPER--I GRADE THESE BLIND), the class name (HIST 4851 (or 6851): History of Women in America), and the date.

3.  Should use historical footnotes or endnotes with a Bibliography page at end--see Historical Notation below for most common usages; for more complex notations, see Kate Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (in Reference Room in Library).  Failure to use historical notation means a grade reduction, e.g., from A to 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.

5.  Should be about a topic concerning American women's history.

6.  Quotes over four typed lines must be indented and single-spaced on both sides.  (There shouldn't be that many.)  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.  Get at least one other person to read your paper before you hand it in, in order to catch errors.  More than three errors means a grade reduction.

9.  You will post your paper on Turnitin.com and hand in one copy of your paper, with sources attached.  When the paper is returned to you, fix errors and return a clean copy for me to keep.  This is your chance to avoid grade reductions for notation or errors.

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 is 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 (no space); or in set out quotes, after the last period.  Periods and commas are always inside the last quotation marks--e.g.,  "Do it like this." OR  "Like this," she said.
                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 (put in your own words) the words of historians or writers of today most of the time.

           b.  The note number comes at the end of a paraphrased paragraph 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.


 

Historical Notation and Models

Footnotes or Endnotes

1.  Do not use parentheses in text 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.  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 Citations

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 date you accessed the Internet site in parentheses e.g., (accessed June 5, 2009).  Use a period at the end.
Authors' names go First Name Last Name.  Be careful to use commas and periods correctly.
                       
     Example:
       1John Smith, "Life in Virginia," Do History,  http://www.dohistory.org (accessed September 5, 2009).
 

2.  If there is no author, start with the Title and go from there:

                      2"Carrie Chapman Catt," About Women's History, http://www.about.com (accessed November 3, 2009).


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 entries, leave a space between them.

     Example:

Smith, John.  "Life in Virginia."  Do History.  http://www.dohistory.org 
       (accessed September 5, 2009).

                           Non-Internet Footnotes/Endnotes

1.  For a book with one author, use:

     Note:    5John Smith, Adventures of John Smith (New York:  Arno Press, 1976), 51.
 

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

      Book Example:       6Smith, 34.
 

3.  A book with two or more authors:

      Example:   7John Smith and James Jones, [the rest of the full citation is the same as for one author.]
Short form:  Smith and Jones, 51-55.

                   8John Smith, James Jones, Mary Poppins, the rest is the same as above.
Short form:   Smith, Jones, Poppins, 54.
 

4.  A journal article:

     Example:  9Jack Jones, "Memphis During the Yellow Fever," Tennessee Historical Quarterly 125, no. 2
(Spring 1994), 37.
 

5.  A popular magazine like People:

     Example:  10Bill 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:  11Bill Baker, "President Lincoln Killed," New York Times 15 April 1865, sec. A.
            [If no author, just start with article title.]

7.   An encyclopedia:

      Example:   12John Myers, "The Ku Klux Klan," in Encyclopedia Brittanica, Vol. 8 (New York:
Bolton Press, 2003), 186.

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 top.

4.  Sources should be in alphabetical order, Last Name, First Name.  In sources with more than one author, the first author is Last Name, First Name, the others go First Name Last Name after.

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. 2 (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, 2009).