Instructions for the Analysis of Primaries

Please ask if you have any questions. You can ask at any time in the process—but asking earlier is better than asking late.
Reminder: There are instructions for the 5 Good Habits for Evidence in the Evidence Matters folder.

Before You Start to Read and Write, Be Sure You Are Going in the Right Direction. 1

Proposing Your Own Topic and Identifying the Primary Sources You Will Use and Then Writing Your Analysis of Primaries. 3

These are the links available from these Instructions. 3

What Is an Analysis in This History Class?. 3

Format (a Very Simple Method) for Citing in This Course. 4

Tips for Using Microsoft Word (or an equivalent program) to Make Endnotes Accurately and Easily. 4

 

Before You Start to Read and Write, Be Sure You Are Going in the Right Direction

Everything required here is required for a job that pays well and for a personal decision that protects you and your family. If you doubt that, click here for real world examples. (This link leaves this webpage.)

1

This is an Analysis of Primaries for a history class. Don’t assume a prior writing assignment for an English class is what is needed since the goal of your assignment is your doing reading and writing that helps you learn history.

Click here for what does your history teacher means by the word analysis. (This link stays on this webpage.)

2

What are the two written sections of this Analysis and what do the rubrics measure to determine your grade?

The two written sections are:

1.       Your analysis of the approved topic and the approved 3 primaries

2.       Your reflection on what the history you have examined reveals about personal responsibility

What rubrics are used to determine your grade:

·         Your instructor’s rubric on evidence determines your grade for accurate and appropriate historical content and for the 5 Good Habits for Evidence. It is used to measure both of the written sections to determine your grade.

·         WCJC’s rubric on Personal Responsibility is used to guide you in how to make ethical choices as well as do the assignment and make a good grade. It’s not just your stating your opinion. It is a process for figuring out what a person in the situation covered by the primaries ought to do. If you look at the rubric, you will see by examining the grade columns from “Poor” to some useful tips for the process—and some actions that will result in a higher grade.

Where can you find the rubrics? They are provided near the bottom of this folder next to the pre-formatted file for the analysis and reflection.

Cautions:

·         The instructor’s rubric goes from left to right from low (“F) to high (“A”)—typical of Turnitin.
WCJC’s rubric goes from left to right from high (“Excellent”) to low (“Poor”).

·         Notice that whether you follow all of the 5 Good Habits for Evidence determines your grade on the content and that, if you don’t follow all of them, you do not earn any of the points for the Good Habits for Evidence part of this assignment.

3

Is your reflection on personal responsibility about your own view or about the history you examined?
A mixture.  Most of us go to the trouble to try to understand something because we have some empathy so in that sense it is personal. At the same time, you are analyzing and you must provide evidence and your opinion is not evidence.

With some of the topics and some of the primaries, you may find you are analyzing possible ethical choices (or lack of ethics)

·         Either of the individuals who wrote the primaries

·         Or of other individuals in the events or conditions covered in those primaries

4

Do I have to use endnotes for citation in the two sections of my written paper?
Yes, endnotes only. Caution: You may not use MLA or APA. The Chicago Manual of Style is the standard used for the discipline of history. Click here for a simple format to use for citations for this paper, or—if you have already done a paper using Chicago Manual of Style—you may use the exact format covered in that standard.

Caution: Create them automatically with software, such as Microsoft Word. Microsoft Word will keep you from errors. Your endnotes will also automatically be after the last word in your paper. Click here for tips on using Microsoft Word. (This link stays on this webpage.)

5

Do I have to cite page numbers from the textbook and from the primaries for both written sections?
Yes, you must cite evidence for both written sections. You cannot just say something is true.

6

Is there a required, preformatted file that I must write in for my proposal for this analysis and reflection?
Yes. It is immediately below this link.

If you cannot think of a proposal and the 3 primaries that match it, there is a Safe Topic with pre-selected Safe Primaries available. It is also below this link. All you add are the page numbers from the textbook that provide context for each of the 3 primaries. You could be working very quickly.

Tips:

·         Do not start to write until you have feedback on your proposal.

·         The earlier you submit your proposal to Turnitin, the earlier you get feedback. (The Course Schedule has a tip for making this go faster.)

6

Is there a required, preformatted file that I must write in for this analysis and reflection?
Yes. It is near the bottom of this folder.

Tips about basic format:

·         Do not add anything to the file that is not in the file, and use the heading in the file.

·         Do not change the pre-set margins (with the left one being wider because I write there in my feedback to you) and pre-set font and font size.

·         It must remain double-spaced as it is in the pre-formatted file.

Tips about order of the file:

·         At the top of page 1, you fill in the brief heading provided for your name and your approved topic.
Caution: do not use a heading required for other classes.
Then, you begin your Analysis of Primaries and complete it on page 1 (maximum of 330 words)

·         At the top of page 2, you begin your personal reflection on what the history you have examined reveals about personal responsibility and complete it on page 2 (maximum of 200 words)

·         About the middle or two-thirds down on page 2, your endnotes start. (In most cases, your endnotes will be complete before the end of page 2, but there is no penalty if they continue on page 3.)

6

Do I have to cite a page number for each fact and quotation?
Yes.

 

Disciplines vary, but history requires citations for both:

·         A quotation

·         A fact - You may not make statements of fact without a citation to a specific page from the required pages. (Don’t assume your version of common knowledge matches the textbook.)

 

Click here for the simple system you can use to cite any of the listed types of sources that you want to use with these written assignments in Turnitin. (This link stays on this webpage.)

 

Proposing Your Own Topic and Identifying the Primary Sources You Will Use and Then Writing Your Analysis of Primaries

1

You propose your own topic by completing a form in the folder for Planning the Analysis of Primaries and then submitting it through Turnitin.

Caution: You will not see that Turnitin assignment unless you have 30 points for the grade for your 5 Good Habits for Evidence personal responsibility form. The form you completed in Evidence Matters.

2

Once you get feedback from me, you can begin writing. (The earlier you submit the proposal, the earlier the feedback.)

The Course Schedule describes what you could do to expedite that.

3

When the Turnitin assignment for the analysis and refection becomes available on the date in the Course Schedule, go submit your file. Use Turnitin’s feedback to correct errors and strengthen your analysis.

Caution: You will not see that Turnitin assignment until your Proposal is approved and the full points are entered for its content.

Tip:  The Good Habits for Evidence points for the proposal are determined after your Analysis is graded.

 

These are the links available from these Instructions

What Is an Analysis in This History Class?

Sometimes it is clearest start with what an Analysis is not. An Analysis in this class is:

 

This is a history class and the goal to help you learn history. One of the hardest things for students to understand about history is that it what was true at the beginning of a time period can be amazingly different at the end of it—sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. History changes! If it didn’t, humans could never have a consequence on the present and future. What makes history change is something worth noticing if you want to survive your present and, perhaps what is more important, if you want to try to maintain what is good in your present.

 

What do you do when you write an Analysis for this history class? You:

1.     Choose a topic you want to examine. The formbelow this link will help you do that.
If you can’t choose a topic using that form, take a look right below that at the Safe Topic and see if that interests you or gives you an idea. If you choose to do the safe topic, you must provide the page numbers from the textbook that support what you plan to write.

2.     Read the textbook for that topic and those primaries.

3.     Work until you figure the topic out well enough that could explain it (to use a phrase I use elsewhere) to your smart cousin who wants to understand.

 

Format (a Very Simple Method) for Citing in This Course

Caution:  You may not use MLA or APA. The Chicago Manual of Style is the standard used for the discipline of history.

If you have previously written a paper using the Chicago Manual of Style (the ), tell me that and you may use the full formats covered in that standard.

In this course, when using a quotation or a fact, your endnote states a specific page from the required textbook (or primaries or other documents listed as resources to use for the topic you chose. If a primary source has no page numbers, click on File and the Print Preview to get an estimate of the page you want to cite.

Here are the three types of things you may want to cite for the Analysis for Primaries. The examples shown are from US History I but the format is the same for US History II.

What You Want to Cite

Example of What You Want to Cite

Example of What You Place in the Endnote

A page from one of the required primary sources that has a phrase in the proposal you submit for the Analysis of Primaries

To cite the primary 1660 to 1732 Laws about Slaves and Indentured Servants  (Laws-Servitude)

Laws-Servitude, p. 1

For the phrase to use for the other primaries possible for the Analysis, look at the right column of the form you use for the Proposal—the column named “Phrases When Citing.”

A page from our textbook

To cite page 42 from our textbook for a fact

Essentials, p. 42

A specific definition from one of the resources provided in the course

Definition servitude slavery indentured servant vassal subject and Related Terms

Definition-indentured servant

 

Tips for Using Microsoft Word (or an equivalent program) to Make Endnotes Accurately and Easily

Endnotes are done with software automatically. Do not try to key it yourself. The work will be huge instead of easy and you will make errors. If you need help, ask.

Here is how to insert an endnote:

1.       Place your cursor immediately after the last letter of the fact you want to cite

2.       Clicking—if you are using Microsoft Word—References and then on Insert Endnote.
Microsoft Word automatically creates your first endnote (such as 1) at that spot in your paper itself. It also automatically does this after the last word in your paper:

a.       Creates the short line that precedes endnotes

b.      Creates the matching number (such as 1) and puts your cursor next to it so you can type whatever format for your citation that your professor requires.