America Since 1865 -Paper Assignment
Assignment Length:5-6 pages (Double-spaced, Times New Roman, 12pt Font)
Details:
Your first paper assignment will ask you to read and analyze Hilda Polacheck's autobiography, I Came a Stranger, in the context of our course themes and the broader historical events and issues we have covered thus far in the semester.
You will need to choose one of the following options to address in your paper:
1. How does Hilda Polacheck understand what it means to be an American? What qualities, rights, or behaviors does she associate with this identity?Why? To best answer this question, you should avoid simply listing the moments that Polacheckproclaims as being truly "American" and instead seek to find and argue for connections between some of these varied expressions/experiences of national identity.
2. What does Hilda Polacheck's life reveal about the rolesof women in America during the late 19th and early 20th Century? Consider her observations about the social, economic, and/or politicalresponsibilities that women take on during her lifetime. Is this a period defined more by a sense ofpossibility or by ongoing constraints?
3. Urban areas played a pivotal role in shaping the identity and destiny of the country during Hilda Polacheck's lifetime.How does her autobiography portray the unique problems or opportunitiesthat cities presented for Americans in the "Progressive Era"?What strategies do the individuals and communities depicted in I Came a Stranger use to address these problems/opportunities? As with Option #1, successful papers will avoid simply listing all of the possible answers to these questions and instead choose a specific and well-explained focus for your argument.
The best papers will be those that dig deeply into the substance of Polacheck's memoir and connect your argument(based in a rigorous analysis of the book) with relevant information from our other course materials.Though Polacheck's narrative should be the centerpiece of your argument and analysis, you are welcome to incorporate ideas and links from other materials we have read or ideas we have covered in lecture. External research is allowed (under the parameters listedin Point #9 regarding citations), but is not necessary to be able to receive an "A" on the assignment.
Please take the time to read closely the material on the two following pages. I guarantee it will help your performance on the paper and make the process of writing and citing go more smoothly.
Some Expectations/Tips for Formal Academic Writing:
1. Your paper must have a well-defined thesis statement.Our goal is not simply to summarize the details of historical events but to craft an informed assessment of their significance.As much as possible - and in conjunction with thoughtful analysis of the autobiography - we want to hear your voice and your thoughts as a writer.One of the keys to developing a strong thesis statement will be sufficiently narrowing the scope of your argument.Avoid overly general statements and provide a sense of how you will justify your central claim.
2. Check with your TA about early benchmark deadlines so that you can get feedback on drafts of introductory paragraphs, thesis statements, or outlines.They will not be permitted to review complete drafts.
3. Emphasize clarity in your writing.While you should strive for sophisticated prose, the most important element of the process is the ability to convey your information and message to the reader with precision and concision.
4. Start with clear and direct topic sentences for each paragraph to make your transitions and arguments strong.
5. Avoid the passive voice.(i.e. "Johnson was fired by the meatpacking plant" is passive.Try instead, "The meatpacking plant fired Johnson.")
6. Do not use the first person when writing.Instead of saying "I believe ..." or "I argue/contend/really hope it is true that ..." just state your point.
7. Vary your sentence structure.If every sentence is starting the same way or looking the same length, make some adjustments to avoid a repetitive style.
8. Explain any and all quotations that you include in your text.You should never let a quote speak for itself without providing context or analysis, no matter how devastatingly brilliant it may appear to be.
9. Do not use contractions (i.e. didn't, couldn't, it's) or slang.
10. Do not use block quotes.Any quotation longer than three typewritten lines should be paraphrased or broken down between sentences instead.
11. Use the past tense when writing about events from the past.
12. Be sure to include page numbers on submitted work.
13. Proofread your paper thoroughly.Technical soundness will benefit your grade and in general is an important part of executing work that your reader will take seriously.
14. Before submitting, read a draft of your paper out loud.It helps to catch omissions, awkward transitions, and unclear phrasing that your reader might encounter.
15. Feel free to attend office hours and ask questions early and often.
Some Thoughts and Tips on Plagiarism and Citations:
I take the issue of academic integrity very seriously and the consequences for plagiarism will be severe, whether it is intentional or not. At a minimum, any submitted work that plagiarizes material will receive a zero score. It is therefore important that you take the necessary steps to ensure that your use of sources is appropriate.If you have questions or concerns, voice them to your T.A. or to me in advance of the due date.
We will be using Turnitin, a plagiarism prevention system. The ease of using the Internet has made it very easy for students to "cut and paste" material into papers that they are writing without proper citation. We will submit papers that you write in this class to Turnitin, a service that identifies "matched text," and we will interpret the results of the originality reports. In this class, you will also be given the opportunity to submit your own papers to Turnitin to check that all sources you have used are properly acknowledged and cited. Note that all submitted papers will be included as source documents in the Turnitin.com reference database solely for the purpose of detecting plagiarism of such papers.
For this assignment it will not be necessary to compile a bibliography or works cited section.This means, however, that you will need to be particularly diligent about providing complete citation information in your footnotes.Please use footnotes and not endnotes or in-text citations.Footnotes should be 10 point font and single spaced.
Things to remember about proper use of sources for this class:
1. Any time you are using direct quotes or paraphrasing ideas that are not your own, you should offer a citation to signal the source to your reader.
2. Direct quotes should always be marked by quotation marks.
3. Citations should adopt the Chicago Manual of Style format (linked here).
4. Course books should be cited as follows:
• Glenda Gilmore and Thomas Sugrue, These United States: A Nation in the Making 1890-Present (New York: W.W. Norton, 2016), page number(s).
• Hilda Satt Polacheck, I Came A Stranger: The Story of a Hull-House Girl (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1989), page number(s).
5. Subsequent citations of the same material can truncate the information following standard declension rules.
Format: Gilmore and Sugrue, These United States, page number.
Polacheck, I Came a Stranger, page number.
6. If citing lectures, use the following format:
Jeffrey D. Gonda, America Since 1865, "Lecture Title," Lecture Date.
7. Footnotes go at the end of sentences, not in the middle.
8. Punctuation goes inside of quotation marks while footnotes go outside.Example: "Citations are important."
9. Avoid citing internet sources that are not linked through the SU Library, its databases, or other reputable academic institutions (Smithsonian, New York Public Library, etc.).It is not appropriate to cite articles from Wikipedia.