••• INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE FINAL PAPER •••

Your final paper represents the major assignment for this course.  It should offer original research and insight into your specific chosen topic while at the same time showing how your research connects to the historiographic debates that we will read in our common class discussions.

• The paper needs to be 15-20 pages long (double-spaced, 12-point font, one-inch margins).

• The paper needs to use cite primary and secondary sources according to the Chicago Manual of Style.  For details on this format, consult http://www.calstatela.edu/library/styleman.htm.  You can use either endnotes or footnotes.

• The body of the paper needs to provide extensive primary-sources analysis.  A partial list of such sources include government documents, private correspondence, media reports, films, artwork, and fiction, so long as they come from the time period under study.  Memoirs from former participants, even if published after the fact, also count as primary sources.  Statistical data published after the fact, if not already incorporated into a piece of scholarship, also count as primary sources.


• The paper’s general outline should look like this:

1. Introduction (one page)

2. Historiographic context (about one to two pages). This section should briefly summarize the most relevant historiographic debates that we encountered in our common class readings and should make clear how your paper relates to the views of these historians.  For instance, does your thesis complement, contradict, or complicate existing scholarly views?

3. Your own primary source analysis (about twelve to sixteen pages)

4. Conclusion (about a half-page).  Offer a summary and an interesting final thought or eloquent ending.

**You can vary from this outline model, but only if you have a compelling reason to do so.  Please talk with me if you would like to consider a different approach.