HIST 2010: Secondary Source Essay Assignment
For this assignment, you will select and compare two items of scholarship that address a specific historical question of your own choosing, making the case for what you believe to be the strongest interpretation. The guidelines for selecting items are as follows:
The items must both address a topic related to U.S history up to and including the end of the Civil war (Pre-1866). Both works must address the same topic or issue.
The items must be scholarly works produced by a reputable publisher. You must use at least one article from one of the databases offered through the APSU library, http://libguides.apsu.edu/history_us (recommended databases include Jstor and U.S History in Context) The second item may also be an article-length item (10 or more pages) or a book. Note that book reviews or other summaries, encyclopedia or Wikipedia articles, primary sources (letters, diaries, memoirs, newspaper articles, etc.), and textbooks are not appropriate for this assignment except as background reading. As with the primary source essay, you are strongly encouraged to discuss your paper with your classmates and the professor, but your work must be your own.
The two sources you use must both seek to answer the same question about an historical event or trend but provide distinct (though not necessarily opposing) answers to that question. Examples of such a question might be:
• What allowed the Europeans to occupy the Americas?
• Why did the Salem Witch Trials take place as they did?
• Why was America victorious in the Revolution?
• Why did slavery persist for as long as it did?
• Why did the North win the Civil War?
The “Debating the Past” segments found in many chapters of The Unfinished Nation may provide you with topic ideas as well as examples of different historical interpretations.
Your essay (5-7 pages of text double-spaced not counting notes or title page) MUST discuss the following points (please note that apart from the first item on this list it is not necessary to write out your essay in precisely this order, but all of the following requirements must be met):
1) Write an introduction that provides a short description of the subject of your essay, identifies the question that the two sources seek to answer and outlines the different viewpoints of the authors, and, most importantly, briefly indicates which source you find more convincing and why. The overall goal is to make the case for the historical interpretation you think is strongest (this may be the viewpoint of one of the two authors, or a combination of the two).
2) Summarize the items, indicating the most essential information provided. Describe the types of sources, both primary and secondary, that the authors use, and how this might affect their work (this means reading the footnotes and/or bibliography). Be sure to provide specific examples.
3) Discuss the thesis for each piece- what are the questions that the author asks? How does he/she answer those questions? How does the author seek to convince the reader that their answer is correct? (Again, your answer to this question should be summarized briefly in your introduction, then explored in greater depth in the body of your essay)
4) Compare the two pieces- where do they agree? Where do they disagree?
5) Which of the two pieces do you find to be more convincing? Why? (Again, your answer to this question should be summarized briefly in your introduction, then explored in greater depth in the body of your essay)

Writing Format:
As with any scholarly writing project, you are expected to use good writing style as well as uphold standards of academic integrity. To aid you in fulfilling both requirements, be sure to refer to the Chicago Manual of Style Guidelines, available through the library web page:
https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide-1.html
It is especially important that you use these rules when citing material in your essay. Every paragraph should have at least one citation showing where the information contained in that paragraph came from. Any quote or other material reproduced in your essay from another source should be followed with a footnote or endnote that provides the information necessary to track down that source material, and every paragraph should contain at least one citation indicating the source(s) of the information discussed. This means that the first time you cite a source, you should include not only the title of the work, but the author, publisher, date of publication, and specific page number or numbers as applicable. If you cite the same source later on in the paper, an abbreviated notation is sufficient. Notes should take the form of a raised numeral- if you do not know how to place a footnote in your paper, use the “help” feature in your word processing program to find the directions.
Example: If you wanted to cite information from the textbook, you would use this format for the first such use:
1. Alan Brinkley, Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the American People (New York: McGraw Hill, 2010), 209.
For a citation from the same source at a later point in the essay, an abbreviation is preferred:
2. Brinkley, Unfinished Nation, 211
For articles, use this format:
3. Susan Peck MacDonald, “The Erasure of Language,” College Composition and Communication 58, no. 4 (2007): 619.
For a citation from the same source at a later point in the essay, an abbreviation is preferred:
4. MacDonald, “The Erasure of Language,” 621.
A footnote or endnote should appear as a raised numeral at the end of the sentence, with the information pertaining to that note appearing either at the bottom of the page or at the end of the paper. Numbers used for notation should not be repeated. Consult the “help” guide for your word processing program if you are uncertain how to create a note in your paper.
Points of Style: Certain usages are inappropriate for an academic paper- once you have finished your final draft, go through it to make sure you have not committed any of the following errors:
1) Make sure you follow proper grammar and spelling- hitting “spell check” is not enough (though you should do that as well)!
2) Unless it is part of a quote, avoid using the First Person (e.g., “I”, “My”).
3) Unless it is part of a quote, avoid using contractions (e.g. “can’t”, “isn’t”)
4) When using footnotes or endnotes, place the number at the end of the sentence.
5) Footnote/Endnote numbers should be placed at the end of any sentence containing a direct quote. Each paragraph should have at least one citation that indicates the source(s) of the information contained therein.
6) Use quotes sparingly. It is not necessary to use a quote for a basic statement of fact (e.g The battle of Pearl Harbor “took place on Dec. 7, 1941”) but should only be used to illustrate an important point or concept or a unique phrase (e.g President Roosevelt referred to the Pearl Harbor attack as “a day that will live in infamy.”) Or to highlight an idea that you intend to analyze in depth.
7) If a quote runs longer than four lines of text, it should be a block quote- single-spaced and indented on both sides.
8) If describing events in the past, always use past tense.
9) Please number your pages. Notes, bibliographies and title pages do not count towards the page total.
Proofreading: Do not simply hit spell check and think you are done. Make sure you read your paper through to make sure it makes sense (reading it aloud is a useful method for detecting errors). Time permitting, have a friend read it over to check that everything is in order, let the professor read it over, or contact the writing center prior to the deadline.
The Writing Center is offering online support for students this semester. Details can be found here:
https://www.apsu.edu/writingcenter/

Essay 2 evaluation checklist
Completed and submitted essay on time: 40/40 points
1) Introduction
a. Have I selected a topic relevant to U.S history prior to the end of the civil war? /2 points
b. Have I provided a brief description of my topic? /2 points
c. Have I indicated why this topic is important or controversial in U.S. history? /2 points
d. Have I briefly described the two works of history and the arguments of their authors that I will compare in this essay? /3 points
e. Have I briefly discussed my own opinion is about the subject? /3 points
2) Author 1
a. Have I chosen a scholarly work- one that is at least ten pages long, with citations of the sources used and published by a reputable entity (University, Academic Press, etc.)? /3 points
b. Have I described the most important facts and arguments made by the author about the subject at hand? /4 points
c. Have I discussed the evidence presented by this author in support of their argument? /3 points
d. Have I included a quote from this work that well illustrates either of the two previous items on this list? /2 points
3) Author 2
a. Have I chosen a scholarly work- one that is at least ten pages long, with citations of the sources used and published by a reputable entity (University, Academic Press, etc.)? /3 points
b. Have I described the most important facts and arguments made by the author about the subject at hand? /4 points
c. Have I discussed the evidence presented by this author in support of their argument? /3 points
d. Have I included a quote from this work that well illustrates either of the two previous items on this list? (Please note- in your essay you may either address each author’s work in turn, or you may discuss each author side-by-side according to these questions) /2 points
4) Your opinion
a. Have I discussed the strengths and weaknesses of the work of each author and their points of agreement and disagreement? /4 points
b. Have I clearly stated my own opinion about the subject and the extent to which I agree or disagree with the two authors? /4 points
c. Have I clearly described how I arrived at my opinion about the subject? /4 points
5) Format
a. Have I thoroughly proofread my essay to make sure there are no spelling or grammar errors? /5 points
b. Have I made sure that there is at least one citation in each paragraph to show the source of the information discussed there, using footnotes or endnotes in Chicago Manual style? /4 points
c. Is my paper of the appropriate length (5-7 pages not counting notes, title page, or bibliography)? /3 points
Total Score: /100