Your essay should incorporate the feedback you received on your previous assignments.
You must critically analyze your chosen topic and your sources. The selected primary source should be used to support and nuance the main argument of the essay.
Your essay must include footnotes (no parenthetical in-text citations please), and a bibliography following Chicago Style guidelines. Failure to include footnotes will result in an automatic fail and is considered plagiarism.
Please see the essay rubric for more details on the project.
An Excellent Analytical Essay will:
Instructions:
- have a title page and bibliography in addition to 6-8 double spaced pages of content (1500-2000 words, exclusive of footnotes);
- be written in 12 point Times New Roman font;
- have 1″ margins and include page numbers;
- have a clear, concrete, historical thesis statement that illustrates sophisticated historical thought;
- have a thesis statement that is preferably expressed in a single sentence;
- have a brief “roadmap” or outline of the essay as it relates to the main argument;
- and the thesis statement and “roadmap” are easily found in the essay introduction;
Analysis & Historical Thinking:
- clearly identify and explain how an idea or topic was conceptualized and understood in the past, while highlighting change over time;
- explain how these topics/ideas were understood within social and cultural contexts of a particular place and time;
-
question and/or complicate linear and progress narratives;
- offer sophisticated historical and critical analysis using lenses, such as race, class, gender, (dis)ability, colonialism, sexuality, or the like, to expose cultural systems;
- offer original analysis and contextualize and event, idea, or document related to the chosen topic;
Sources & Supportive Evidence
- creatively interprets and analyzes the assigned primary source, the assigned secondary source, and a minimum of two other scholarly peer-reviewed historical publications;
- Interprets and analyzes these sources to clearly and thoughtfully support arguments, claims, and the thesis in the essay;
Communication of Ideas:
- be well organized and laid out with a clear introduction and conclusion;
- have sections that flow together and an argument is clear throughout;
- have minimal typos or mistakes in your spelling and grammar;
Bibliography & Footnotes:
- have bibliography and footnotes in proper Chicago Style with no to very limited mistakes;
- include footnotes appropriately and where needed.
HIST 165
Cecil, thank you for the submission. You need to work on your Chicago formatting. You did not cite your primary source–a key and necessary portion of this assignment. This is plagiarism. Your bibliography is also formatted improperly. Please reach out to Prof Johnson about this. Your thesis needs some refinement and broadening. What years are you looking at specifically? Where are you examining? You’re looking at wartime propaganda about venereal disease–do your secondary sources speak to this? If not, we can workshop how to make an argument that would be a bit more inclusive of the literature. Overall, you need to work on your clarity in your writing. In your annotated bibliography, you were not clear about the authors’ main arguments. More importantly, you weren’t clear about how each source would help you prove your argument. Moreover, the Williams article is WAY too old. You cannot use that as a secondary source. If you are studying the WW2 period, this is a PRIMARY source because it is from that time. Please reach out if you are confused as to why this source is not acceptable or if you need help finding a replacement. I hope this feedback will be helpful as you work toward the final essay. If you have any questions about my comments or would like some help to refine things moving forward, feel free to send me an email. Thanks!
Bethany Knowles, Feb 22 at 6:31p.m.
Here are some suggestions for replacement sources: Brenyo, Bent. “Whatsoever a Man Soweth: Sex Education about Venereal Disease, Racial Health, and Social Hygiene during the First World War,” Canadian Military History Vol. 27 (2) (2018): 1-35. Cassel, Jay. The Secret Plague: VD in Canada, 1838-1939. (book, available at the health sciences library on campus). Levine, Philippa. Prostitution, Race and Politics: Policing VD in the British Empire (ebook available online through the library) Buckley, Suzann, and Janice Dickin McGinnis. “Venereal Disease and Public Health Reform in Canada.” Canadian Historical Review 63, no. 3 (September 1, 1982): 337–54
Bethany Knowles, Feb 27 at 6:50p.m.