HIST 2020: Primary Source Essay Assignment
A primary source is a written item related to a topic or event by time or by participation- this may include items such as letters, diaries, interviews, newspaper articles or even memoirs. For this assignment, you will select an item from the database listed below and write a short (2-3 pages of text, double-spaced) essay describing and analyzing the item you have chosen. You must select your material from the Social and Cultural History: Letters and Diaries Online database available through the APSU Library website, located at the following address:
http://libguides.apsu.edu/history_us
Be sure to select an item that discusses events related to United States history between 1866 and 1900. (Be careful! Many of the items were published well after the events they describe!)
Once selected, your essay should discuss the following points (It is recommended that you follow this order):
1) Summarize the item by describing the author and the experiences he or she discusses.
2) Provide its historical context- indicate what major historical events took place around the time the author discusses, paying particular attention to those events that were related to those described in the item. You should use at least one additional source of information, such as your course textbook, to supply this information.
3) Discuss the author’s viewpoint- what opinions he or she gives about his or her experiences, and what the basis for those opinions might be. For example, if the author is discussing the events of Reconstruction, try to imagine how he or she feels about the issues of economic rebuilding, race relations, the role of the government, etc. What sort of issues does the author feel are especially important, and why?
4) Consider how this item might be used by a historian to gain insight into and recreate the history of the times in which the document’s author lived. For example: what historical trends or issues might this item address? What does this item reveal about the history of the United States in the late 19th century? What does this document tell us about daily life in a particular time and place? What questions does it raise that a historian might try to answer with more research?
Discussion Board
All students are required to post at least one message to the discussion board about their paper prior to the due date. You should, at a minimum, share the subject of the document you plan to use and explain why you think it makes a good subject for your paper. You are encouraged to comment on the posts of your fellow classmates. Remember that more than one student may use the same document from the database, but your work on your essay is expected to be your own.
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://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/717/01/
You can see a demo paper that gives examples of Chicago style here:
http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/resdoc5e/pdf/Hacker-Bish-CMS.pdf
It is especially important that you use these rules when citing material in your essay. 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. 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.
Example: To cite a letter in a footnote or endnote, you would use this format for the first use:
1. Letter from Varina Anne Banks Howell Davis to Jefferson Finis Davis, 7 November 1865, in Jefferson Davis: Private Letters 1823-1889 (Strode, Hudson, ed. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1966), 200.
For a citation from the same source later in the essay, an abbreviation is preferred:
2. Howell Davis to Davis, 7 November 1865, 200. (In this case you may also replace the author’s name and the date with Ibid. if you are referring to the exact same source as the previous citation)
To cite a diary, you would use this format for the first use:
1. Mary Dodge Woodward, September 1884, in The Checkered Years: Excerpts from the Diary of Mary Dodge Woodward Wriiten while Living on a Bonanza Farm in Dakota territory during the Years 1884 to 1889 (Caldwell: Caxton Printers, 1937), 47.
For a citation from the same source later in the essay, an abbreviation is preferred:
2. Woodward, September 1884, 47 (In this case you may also replace the author’s name and the date with Ibid. if you are referring to the exact same source as the previous citation)
To cite information from a book, 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. (In this case you may also replace the author’s name and the title with Ibid. if you are referring to the exact same source as the previous citation)
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. (In this case you may also replace the author’s name and the title with Ibid. if you are referring to the exact same source as the previous citation)
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, or bring it by my office hours or the writing center prior to the deadline.
The Writing Center is located in Woodward library next to the coffee shop. Its hours this term are:
Mon-Thurs: 8am-9pm
Fri: 8am-6pm
Sat: 9:30 am- 5pm
Sun: 1pm- 9pm
Find out more here: http://www.apsu.edu/academic-support-center/writing

Submission: You must submit the paper through the D2L dropbox by the end of the due date listed in your syllabus. Hard copies or e-mailed copies are permitted. In addition, you are required to submit a copy to our online database. Students must indicate they have completed this step by including “Submitted to portfolio” on the cover page of their paper or in the header block on the first page.
Students should include their full name and the course number (e.g. HIST1220) in the file name and the subject line of the email.