How to Write Your First Writing about History

What Do You Read Carefully and Write About?. 1

What Are Requirements for Citation for Your Paper?. 2

What Is Essential Background for Success with These Primaries?. 2

What Is the Rubric Used to Measure Your Content and Your Following the 5 Good Habits for Evidence and How Does It Work?. 3

How Does Grading on the Paper Work?. 3

What about the Other 2 Parts of This 3-Part Assignments?. 3

If You Want to Know Why We Use These Shortened Citations. 3

If You Quote (and You Do Not Have to) - Brain Trick for Quoting and Avoiding Quotation Humiliation. 3

 

What Do You Read Carefully and Write About?

What do you read?

In the textbook, use these pages:

·         187 on the Monroe Doctrine

·         468 on Theodore Roosevelt’s Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine

·         498 on Woodrow Wilson and his actions in the context of the Corollary

·         571-572 on Franklin D. Roosevelt’s good neighbor policy. Tip: The term was used first by Herbert Hoover, but it is more frequently associated with FDR.

Read, use, and cite each of the 3 primary sources in the folder under the next heading. Beneath each primary are search words to help you focus.

Use no other pages or sources–and certainly not your memory.

What do you write about?

Background of the question: Both the Monroe Doctrine and Theodore Roosevelt’s Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine are one of 100 Milestone Documents at Our Documents (URL: https://www.ourdocuments.gov/). Although not a milestone document, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s explanation of prior administrations and of his new approach shows another view.

What does a freshman college history student need to know about America’s policy toward its neighbors as revealed by these three documents?

FYI: You have to reveal that you understand this fully, including the context of the time the document was written. As a prof I admired greatly put it, “You have to understand everything. You do not have to write everything. To teach honorably, you must select carefully what you teach.”

Do you provide a heading?

No, you do not add a heading. You also do not type your name on your paper. On the back of your paper that you bring to class on the date in the Course Schedule, you print your name as it is on the roster, and your class time and—if your professor asks for it— your class days (such as Tuesday-Thursday)

Citation?

Covered under the heading below.

Length?

500 words maximum. Less is better.  – With the format below, it will be less than 1 page. Do not go over 1 printed page.

Format?

Use the preformatted file that includes the questions.

Do not change any of the settings:

·         Double-spaced.

·         11 point Calibri font.

·         Margins -1” on the left and .5” on the right

The pre-formatted file is an .rtf file (Rich Text Format). You may work in that file or you may save it to another file type that Turnitin accepts. Turnitin accepts these types of files:

·         A Microsoft Word document (.doc or .docx)

·         An Adobe file (.pdf)

·         An Open Office document (.odt)

General requirements?

Type in a word processor and run spell and grammar checking. Print it and proof it.
(To proof = to compare side by side paper and source to be sure page numbers and facts and names and quotations and everything is correct.)

Where do you submit it?

In Blackboard, in the Turnitin Assignment at the bottom of this section

What is the rubric used to grade this and all writing?

Click here for more on the rubric and how to use it to plan your work and when your work is graded.

 

What Are Requirements for Citation for Your Paper?

Do not use lengthy citation statements within parentheses () as is done with MLA. You are trying to teach history accurately to someone like yourself. You are not collecting research and quoting from it. You all have the same sources and so you do not want to get a lot of words get between you and your fellow students. Do these things for this writing assignment:

What You Want to Cite

Example of How You Would Cite

If the fact is from the textbook The Brief American Pageant

If your fact is from page 571 of the textbook, then immediately after your fact you write: (Pageant, p. 571)

If the fact is the Monroe Doctrine (1823)

If your fact is from this printable webpage, then notice the page number. If your fact is from the second page of the source, then immediately after your fact you write:
(Monroe, p. 2)

If the fact is from Theodore Roosevelt’s Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine

If your fact is from this printable webpage, then notice the page number. If your fact is from the second page of the source, then immediately after your fact you write:
(T. Roosevelt, p. 2)

If the fact is from Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s speech on the Good Neighbor policy

Since this is a multiple page webpage, click Print or an equivalent command and your computer will show you its approximate page number. If your fact is from the second page of that source, then immediately after your fact you write:
(F. Roosevelt, p. 2)

Click here If You Want to Know Why We Use These Shortened Citations (This link goes to the bottom of this webpage.)

What Is Essential Background for Success with These Primaries?

Let go of your biases and assumptions. Study the map as though you were alive then and your future was at stake. Use the link at the top of the folder and ground yourself in math.

Tip: If you never looked at the links about these links when you did your Course Plan, do it now. This link defines the words primary and secondary history or covers History Department’s requirements for all instructors. Save yourself from unnecessarily low grades by understanding these words and these realities.

What Is the Rubric Used to Measure Your Content and Your Following the 5 Good Habits for Evidence and How Does It Work?

What is a rubric? Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary defines a rubric as “a guide listing specific criteria for grading or scoring academic papers, projects, or tests.” Frequently, rubrics are in a table:

·         With rows for each criteria (such as this one with criteria for Reading FOR Evidence, Writing WITH Evidence, Following Directions for Evidence, and Mechanics)

·         With columns for each grade level (such as this one with columns for “F” through “A.”

Click here for an explanation of the rubric and how to use it as a grader or as someone graded. (This is also available in several parts of the course including in Evidence Quiz 4.)

How Does Grading on the Paper Work?

For this assignment, you look at the graded rubric  and the corresponding marks on your paper. You fill out the form at the bottom of the rubric identifying which of the 5 Good Habits for Evidence that you missed. After you do that, I enter the grade at My Grades. The point value is @ 50 points for content and @ 50 points for following all 5 Good Habits for Evidence

What about the Other 2 Parts of This 3-Part Assignments?

When you see your paper, you also receive the paper you will peer review.

If You Want to Know Why We Use These Shortened Citations

The reasons are:

1.       All of your written assignments are brief. If you used traditional MLA citation which is written inline (within your lines of text), you would use up your word count much faster.

2.       History’s standard, the Chicago Manual of Style, provides rigorous citation, but not inline. Instead, it uses endnotes or footnotes to provide citation.

In other words, citation is there but it is not in the way of communication of the history. The citation is not written within your lines of text because of how historians write about history.

·         They are helping people understand the past.

·         That is your job as well. Why? When you try to help someone understand history, you start to understand it yourself. If you want to understand something, try to teach it.

3.       In this class, you may place your citation in either endnotes or inline, but we make that citation as unobtrusive as possible by making it very brief.

If You Quote (and You Do Not Have to) - Brain Trick for Quoting and Avoiding Quotation Humiliation

Click here for additional tips.

The rules for showing what you have taken out (…) of the author’s words or put in ([ ]) are complex and for most of us they are not worth learning.

 

This brain trick lets you be accurate but avoid learning those rules:

  1. Choose 3 to 6 words to quote and change nothing (not an ing or an ed, not a comma, nothing) between the first and the last word.

  2. Put abefore the first word and a after the last word.

  3. Place those words with the “ ”within your sentence.

 

  1. If something sounds awkward about your sentences, then change your own words—the only words you have a right to change.

 

  1. Look at all of the words in the source. Be sure the meaning of the source remains in your quotation.

 

 

 

 

Copyright C. J. Bibus, Ed.D. 2003-2017

 

WCJC Department:

History – Dr. Bibus

Contact Information:

281.239.1577 or bibusc@wcjc.edu

Last Updated:

2017

WCJC Home:

http://www.wcjc.edu/