Writing College History Papers

Writing College Level Papers -- College classes set standards for written assignments that are often unfamiliar to beginning college students. This is why UD requires students to fulfill the ENG 101-102 requirement, since this is the class in which you learn in detail about these standards. Read the following carefully to be sure that you are prepared to write at the level which college history classes demand.

ACADEMIC DISHONESTY POLICY: "Plagiarism consists of any of the following: quoting directly from any source of material -- including other students' work and materials purchased from research consultants -- without appropriately citing the source and identifying the quoted material; knowingly citing an incorrect source, using ideas (i.e. material other than information that is common knowledge) from any source of material -- including other students' work and materials purchased from research consultants -- without citing the source and identifying the borrowed material." (Student Handbook, page 36 of http://www.udayton.edu/~studev/studenthandbook/3_Academic%20information.pdf) UD policy mandates heavy penalties for plagiarism. Don't risk your future!

WRITTEN ASSIGNMENTS POLICIES: All assignments must be typed, double-spaced, for this class. Historical analysis requires precision and clarity in order to succeed. For this reason, students in college history courses must -- at a minimum -- master the basics of spelling and English grammar. Papers which have three or more sentence-level errors (spelling, basic grammar, unidiomatic use of language) will be returned for revision and one letter grade will be deducted from the paper's grade. If the revised paper still violates this standard, additional revisions will be required and additional letter grades will be deducted from the paper's grade. (How to get help with your writing assignments.)

Confused about grammar?

"A student must not forget their homework."
Click here to find out why this sentence is grammatically incorrect.
"The student's went to Sear's to find Michael Jordans Nike's."
Click here to find out why this sentence is grammatically incorrect.
"My professor assigns too much homework, she doesn't understand me at all."
Click here to find out why this sentence is grammatically incorrect.
"He could of told me."
This sentence is grammatically incorrect because "of" is not a verb. It should be replaced with "have." Click here for some more commonly confused words.

Also note that when your assignment instructs you to maintain a formal tone, this means do not use the first person ("I feel that the Romans were violent."), do not use slang or contractions, and don't switch verb tenses in the middle of the paragraph. Maintain the use of the past tense when writing about the past.

POLICIES ON CITATIONS: History papers are based on historical data. The source of that data must be cited, even if the data are not in the form of a quotation in your paper. If you have never done this before, perhaps you have never written a true research paper. For any essay written not only for my courses, but for any history course at UD, readers should be able to use your citations to go back and examine the original data for themselves. One or more letter grades, depending on the severity of the problem, will be deducted from papers which do not follow this standard. Some definitions:

Paraphrase means to restate an author's ideas into your own words. You cannot just replace two or three words in someone else's sentence and call it a paraphrase. A paraphrase is entirely revised into your own words. You must cite the source of any statement you paraphrase in your essay.
Quote means to place an author's statement in that author's words into your paper. Historians often do this in using primary sources. Be sure that you have a reason to use quotations from secondary sources, however. Don't let your paper turn into a set of secondary source quotations strung one after the other. You must always use quotation marks to indicate any material which you quote and you must always cite the source of any quotation. Long quotations (5 lines or more) should be set off from the rest of the text with single-spacing and wider margins.

You cannot simply make up a citation style. Historians prefer to use a style known as the Chicago or Turabian or footnote/endnote style, because this style makes it easier to distinguish primary from secondary sources. In my HST 101/02 courses, you may use either the MLA citation style OR the Turabian/Chicago/footnote-endnote style, though the latter is preferred. In upper level classes, you must use the Turabian/Chicago/footnote-endnote style.

CITATION STYLES: You will learn a great deal more about citation styles from your professor in ENG 101/102 and from your copy of The Bedford Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. There is also more information available at the websites listed below. This website provides only a few pointers to help you get started.

Different disciplines have different standards for citing sources. For example, your REL professor might tell you not to bother citing a textbook, but this historian insists that you do so. It's a good idea to ask each professor you have for clarification on his or her policies. And know that most professors will not deduct points for too many citations, but most will deduct points for too few -- so when in doubt, cite!
Do not add a citation to every single sentence, especially when the citations all direct the reader back to the same source. Typically, you will have one citation per paragraph. The citation goes at the END of the paragraph or the END of the quotation.

MLA Style citations include the author of the source and the page number where the information can be found and are placed in parentheses. Full source information is placed in a "Works Cited" list at the end of the paper.

citation for a book
citation for an article
citation for lecture
internal citation (when using a primary source quoted in a secondary source)

For information on how to compose your "Works Cited" list and on the MLA style itself, see your Bedford Handbook or the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (Roesch Library Reference LB2369 .G53 1995), or click on http://karn.ohiolink.edu/~sg-ysu/mlaguide.html

From Microsoft Word Help: To insert a footnote or an endnote
1. Click where you want to insert the note reference mark
2. On the Insert menu, click footnote
3. Click Footnote or Endnote.
4. Type the note in the footnote pane, and then click in the document to continue typing.

Turabian/Chicago/footnote-endnote Style citations are indicated by a superscript number in the text which matches a citation that includes source information either at the bottom of the page (footnote) or at the end of the paper (endnote). There is a new number for each and every citation! Full source information is included in these notes, so that no Works Cited list is required; other professors, however, may require a bibliography in addition to these notes.

citation for a book¹

¹Donald Kagan, Steven Ozment and Frank M. Turner, The Western Heritage, Brief Edition, 3d ed., vol. 1(Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000), 14. citation for an article²

²N.G.L. Hammond, "Does Alexander the Great Merit His Exalted Historical Reputation?" in Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in Western Civilization (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000), 35. citation for lecture³

³Carlson, lecture, 9/4/01. internal citation (when using a primary source quoted in a secondary source)⁴

⁴Qur'an 4:74-76, quoted in Donald Kagan, Steven Ozment, and Frank M. Turner, The Western Heritage, Brief Edition, 3d ed., vol. 1(Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000), 139. You don't have to type out all the publication data when you cite a given work more than once⁵

⁵Kagan, 143. For more information on the Chicago style, see your Bedford Handbook or A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and
Dissertations by Kate L. Turabian (Roesch Library Reference LB2369 .T8 1996) or click http://www.ithaca.edu/library/course/turabian.html .

Even data from the internet must be accompanined by a citation. For more information on how to do this using the Chicago style, click on
http://www.lehigh.edu/~inhelp/footnote/turabn.html. Two good websites that explain how to cite online sources in MLA style are:
http://www.mla.org/ and http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/online/citex.html

More Help with Documentation:
University of Wisconsin-Madison Writer's Handbook -- http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/Documentation.html
Karla's Guide to Citation Style Guides -- http://bailiwick.lib.uiowa.edu/journalism/cite.html

Confused about grammar?
"A student must not forget their homework." Click here to find out why this sentence is grammatically incorrect.	"The student's went to Sear's to find Michael Jordans Nike's." Click here to find out why this sentence is grammatically incorrect.	"My professor assigns too much homework, she doesn't understand me at all." Click here to find out why this sentence is grammatically incorrect.	"He could of told me." This sentence is grammatically incorrect because "of" is not a verb. It should be replaced with "have." Click here for some more commonly confused words.