Scholarly secondary source.
• Your paper should briefly introduce your paper’s topic or question and provide a statement. In a
paper of this size, your introduction and thesis statement should appear on the first page, in the paper’s first
paragraph.
• Your paper should show that you reasoned through the evidence in a fair-minded way. In other words you
should state (paraphrase) what your evidence says and not what you wish it said or you think it should say.
You need to state the evidence fairly, even if you think it wrong or offensive.
• Your paper should use evidence to answer the historical question. You need to explain how the evidence
answers the question. The easiest way to figure this is to think through your evidence and argument using
one or more of the key concepts for this course.
• Your paper should develop and organize your thoughts clearly and logically. Use paragraphs and topic
sentences. Outlining is a necessary, but not required, step in writing a well-organized paper. Paragraph
organization and the use of topic sentences is essential.
• Your paper should draw a conclusion that addresses the paper’s chief topic or question and that states your
answer to the question or your contribution to the topic.
Format:
• Submission to Blackboard Learn: uploaded Word document
• Typewritten, double-spaced
• Length – Times New Roman, 12 pt., 500-750 minimum
• Citation – Chicago (Turabian), MLA, or parenthetical page citation
Prompt:
The source for this assignment is a scholarly secondary source. A scholarly source includes footnotes or endnotes
and is authored by an expert in the field. In your essay, explain the author’s main argument and how the author
draws on historical evidence to advance that argument. What do you think is an important limitation of this
secondary source? How does the history found in the secondary source seem to connect to a broader idea, theme,
debate, or issue in history? Support your explanation and evaluation with specific evidence from the scholarly work
under examination.
