History Assignment
In your term-long writing project, you’ll undertake a research project about an issue or
question that most intrigues you about the events, cultures, people, arts, trade, crosscultural contacts, and phenomena during the period from approximately 1750-1914
CE.
The Writing Forum aims to help you make good progress on the assignment and to
receive feedback throughout the quarter as your project progresses. You’ll also provide
feedback to your peers on their projects. Throughout the process, engage with your
peers in a respectful, considerate, collaborative way, and have fun with it! Remember,
you’re helping each other!
To get you started on this project, the Week 2 Writing Forum asks you to begin thinking
about your writing project for the course: Propose a possible topic for your MMW 14
paper, share two sources related to that topic, and pose a very initial research question.
Before you begin writing your Forum post, review the Writing Project Overview and the
sources on Primary Source Analysis so that you understand the end goal of the project
and what you’re being asked to do. History Assignment.
1. Propose a topic. To help you select a topic, you may find it helpful to browse
the course syllabus, looking for themes, topics, and/or readings that seem
particularly interesting to you. Also think about what interests you more
generally–sport, dance, politics, etc. You may find this listLinks to an external
site. of possible categories of topics useful. Note that the topics listed on that
document are very broad and you will need to narrow your topic to a
particular place, group of people, etc. APA FORMAT
a. Write a 100-200-word paragraph that introduces your topic. You
can think of this as the very first draft of a background paragraph,
or perhaps even your introduction.
b. Include in-text citations as needed. History Assignment.
2. Include two possible sources. Use the library research strategies you learned
in MMW 13 to find two sources: 1) one scholarly, peer-reviewed article from
an academic journal related to your project’s topic 2) one primary source
related to your topic. These two sources should be the best possible sources
that you’ve found on your topic at this point. Avoid settling on the first one or
two that you come across. Read several and choose the best among them.
The MMW 14 Library GuideLinks to an external site. and the library’s Guide to
Online Primary SourcesLinks to an external site. will be helpful here.
For each source:
a. List the source in MLA Works Cited format.
b. Write a 100-200-word paragraph that summarizes the source’s goal or
argument and explains what you found intriguing about or curious in
the source. It is these points of curiosity that will lay the foundation for
your initial research and deepening your topic and research. You may
find the questions posed on the Abstract & Annotated Bibliography
worksheetLinks to an external site. helpful here.
3. Propose an ini-al open-ended research ques-on. This will s)ll be very tenta)ve, but
it’ll be a good star)ng place as you con)nue to research and refine your ideas.