HIST 204 – 2013
Final Exam (Take-home essay) Due by the end of the exam period, 5:00 PM on Tuesday 5/21.
This take-home final is yet another opportunity for you to think about a big historical question that draws from all the different issues we have been studying in lecture and in discussion since Spring Break.
You should consult your notes from lecture and from the readings to prepare your response in essay form. You, however, may not consult anyone else (besides me) as you complete this exam. Please do not share your thoughts, strategies, examples, etc for this exam with other members of the class. Doing so will be a violation of the honor code.
Please remember that I will be available next Monday (May 13th) from 10:00 – 1:20 to answer any questions that you might have about the exam. This big window of open office hours is taking the place of the final class meeting, which follows the Friday (discussion section) schedule. So I know that all of you have at least an hour in that window to come see me if you need to, because we would otherwise be meeting in discussion sections that day. This window from 10:00 – 1:20 will replace my regular Monday office hours (1:30 – 3:30). I will also be available via email at other times during exam week, if some question or concern arises later.
Please ponder this question and respond [total recommended essay length 6-8 pages]:
We have spent the whole semester examining major conflicts in American history. Of all the problems that Americans encountered from the 1930s – 1970s [which we have addressed], which ones were fixed most effectively and why? Which ones were not? Please identify the different strategies for problem-solving that emerged and evaluate them for their effectiveness.
Be sure to provide relevant examples from lectures and readings to support all your assertions. I recommend looking back at my comments on your midterm exam. Don’t make the same mistake twice!
One more thing: Take a few really deep breaths and relax when you sit down to work on this essay. I would like you to bring a higher level of formality to this paper than you did in the midterm, but formality does not mean puffed-up, incomprehensible prose! Write like you’re talking to me if that helps to strip away the anxiety that writing brings you. But then go back and polish your writing, checking your work for clear logic and expression on the sentence level, clear organization of the whole essay, and a simple argument that you develop bit-by-bit in every paragraph. When you read your sentences out loud to a friend, do they make good clear sense immediately? That’s the test you should use for this and every other bit of writing you do.
I also expect you to properly cite the reading materials to which you refer in your essay. This is your last chance to show me that you can go find information that is provided elsewhere [Library webpage – style/citation guides] and apply it to your work. Please find the Turabian citation guide; follow the format that Turabian provides for notes (N in the examples). You may choose to use either endnotes or footnotes for this paper. Parenthetical references are not appropriate for history papers, so don’t use them here. Citations are only needed for reading materials that you use, not lecture notes.
Take another look at the Guide to Writing History Papers that I have kept here (below) for your use. It should help prevent mistakes.
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Expectations for Writing History Essays
Amy Morsman – 2013
As an undergraduate, you will be creating written assignments in a number of different academic disciplines every semester. Though these disciplines often employ distinctive forms of writing, there are some very basic guidelines for writing that apply to all fields. I have highlighted several of those common-sense suggestions here, as well as some specific ones that you should use particularly for history papers.
Essay Focus:
First and foremost, your essay should clearly respond to the prompt or (if there is no prompt provided) to a particular question that you have created on your own. Your answer to that prompt or question should shape the entire essay – its argument, organization, and use of evidence.
Essay Argument/Thesis:
For a brief essay (3-5 pages), you should address the prompt or main question directly in the first paragraph, with a thesis statement that is easy to spot towards the end or at the beginning of that first paragraph.
The title of your essay – (and every essay needs a real title) – should reflect your argument/thesis. Each body paragraph should support your thesis, but each in its own distinctive way. This means that the topic sentence in each body paragraph should connect directly back to the thesis statement, working to advance some element of it in that paragraph. In other words, make your topic sentences argument-oriented, not fact-oriented. [Example: Having a topic sentence that says, “The American Civil War ended in April 1865” does not help to drive your thesis forward. You’re stating a fact, rather than signaling how the Civil War’s end is integral to your overall argument.]
Evidence:
Every essay needs evidence to support its thesis. That evidence can come from primary or secondary sources, depending upon the nature of the assignment. You can present your evidence in different ways: you can describe the evidence completely in your own words based upon your understanding of it; you can paraphrase sections of the source(s) you find important; or you can insert direct quotations of evidentiary material into your essay. Many students rely too much and too often on direct quotations; this kind of evidentiary display is like a crutch for some students, allowing them to hide behind the words written by someone else. It is far more preferable to use direct quotations sparingly, sharing only the most compelling, the juiciest quotations and leaving the rest for you to put in your own words. Paraphrasing evidentiary material instead of direct quoting shows your reader that you understand the information so well you can talk about it in your own way. You should still, however, provide citations for these paraphrased passages, because you did not create this material on your own.
When you do use direct quotations, be sure to introduce them appropriately and weave them into your own sentences, rather than block-quoting. Don’t just drop a quotation in. Prepare the reader for it, even if that only takes a few words or half a sentence to accomplish.
Punctuation goes on the inside of quotation marks, while footnote numbers go outside of quotation marks. [Example: Though Lincoln proclaimed in 1858 that “A house divided against itself cannot stand,”[1] two years passed before the country began to break apart.]
Quotations should never begin a paragraph, and they are most effective if placed after a sentence where you have made an important point or assertion.
Citations:
Be sure to give credit where credit is due. This means citing the sources that you have used as evidence in your essay. When in doubt, cite. Historians use footnotes or endnotes, and we follow the Turabian format for citing sources. Your classes in other disciplines will cite sources differently, but you are responsible for using the most appropriate citation format for your history essays. Just because ENAM uses parenthetical references does not mean that you can use them in your history paper. The library has helpful links on the citation guides webpage so that you can easily figure out just what a proper history citation looks like for footnotes/endnotes and for bibliographies.
Grammar and Clarity of Expression:
History is (most often) about people doing things, so you should write that way. Make the vast majority of your sentences about people taking action. That requires active verbs. That means that for history essays, you should avoid the passive voice. [Examples of active voice: Military officials threatened…Protestors argued about their various demands…etc.]
Also, history is about what people did IN THE PAST. This means that you should write about your historical actors in the past tense!
Drafting and Thinking:
Allow yourself the opportunity to write at least two drafts of your essay. You’d be surprised how much your own thinking evolves over the course of actually writing the first draft. Then take some time away from the essay. Take a break; work on other subjects; sleep on it, etc. Then come back with fresh eyes and a greater sense of objectivity about your own prose. READ YOUR ESSAY OUT LOUD AND DO SO SLOWLY, paying attention to every word. This is how you will catch the problems in your paper. You should write the way you speak, with precision and clarity. If you have written a long, convoluted sentence filled with words that sound sophisticated but really lack clarity, then you have done yourself and your essay a disservice. Write simply and clearly. Reading your essay out loud to yourself or preferably to someone else will be the test of just how clear and simple you are with your expression.
Saving your Hard Work:
You will likely spend hours on the construction of your essays, sometimes over the course of several days. That’s a lot of time for things to go hay-wire with your computer. So always back up your work! Send it to yourself in an email; save it to the server (often!) or to an external drive. Be certain that you can produce another copy of your essay for your professor even after you have submitted it to them.
Getting Help:
If any of these guidelines are unclear to you, do not wait to ask me about them. Come see me in person, and we’ll go over them more in-depth. Come see me also if you find yourself struggling with an essay assignment. It won’t help to struggle in silence when I and other college employees are here to provide assistance.