History 2133
Guidelines for the Analytical Source Essay

Basic Guidelines:

  1. Your Analytical Source Essay must be between 6 and 8 double-spaced pages in length.  For each page short of the minimum required for the final draft you will lose 1% of the course mark.
  2. It must be written in either Courier or Times Roman font with a 12-pt. pitch.
  3. For the rough drafts as you all know you are to turn in at least 6 pages of text, with a reduction of the credit received for the rough draft on a per page basis for each page short of this total.  For each page short of the minimum required for the rough draft you will lose 1% of the course mark.
  4. It must have proper footnotes using the rules of the Chicago Manual of Style as laid out in Kate Turabian's A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations.
  5. You must use ONLY the primary source assigned to you and no other primary sources.
  6. It must use primary and secondary sources, though its primary focus should be on the primary source assigned to you.

Specific Guidelines Your Analytical Source Essay must contain the following sections:

  1. a .5-.75-page introduction, which should give a brief overview of your paper and should chiefly be a summary of the content of your source(s).
  2. a 1-page description of the context to which the source relates, i.e. describe the events, phenomena, persons, etc. on which the source(s) chosen provides information.
  3. a 1-page discussion of the biases of your source, the audience(s) of the source(s), focusing on tone, assumptions made, style of presentation, arguments made, and the limitations of the medium.
  4. 2-3-page discussion of the questions that you would answer using this source, including specific examples illustrating how the source(s) can help answer these questions as well as specific indications of what other PRIMARY sources would be necessary to answer these questions and why they would be helpful.
  5. a 1-2-page discussion in which you indicate how the questions that you feel that your assigned primary source(s) address(es) connect to a larger discussion or discussions among historians (i.e. what historiography or historiographies does it relate to).
  6. a conclusion summing up your findings in brief.

ADDENDUM:

1. In light of what appears to have been confusion as to what a full page means I feel compelled to note in rather specific terms how you should define this concept for purposes of this course.  A full page means all of the page is filled with text and that the page has 1" (1-inch) margins all the way around the page.  On the first page you are allowed about 2.5" (2.5 inches) at the top of the page for your title and heading, but no more.  

2. For those wanting to make up for an informal writing missed you may do so by turning in a proper bibliography with your analytical source essay (pertaining of course to that paper).

3. You Must turn in the rough draft of your analytical source essay with your final draft.  If you do not, you will receive no credit, i.e. a zero, for your analytical source essay.

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