Please see your syllabus for guidance and requirements.
Research Project:
Option 1 - Original Research Paper: A primary-source based piece of original research. Students, in consultation with faculty, identify a topic, develop a thesis, investigate, and write a historical essay in the style of an academic journal article. The research paper will be a minimum of 7,500 words (roughly 30 pages) in length (not including bibliography and notes), utilizing at least 20 secondary sources (e.g., scholarly monograph books and academic journal articles) less than 50 years old. 10 secondary sources must be scholarly monographs; at least 10 secondary sources must be peer-reviewed journal articles. Secondary sources more than fifty years old will not count toward the total number of sources, though they may still be used in the analysis. The research paper must also be based on reading and analysis of a substantial body of primary sources (which can include multiple sources from the same published collection of sources or archive).
Option 2 - Historiographical Essay: A secondary-source based paper affording students the opportunity to trace and analyze the “history of the history” of a particular topic in depth. The historiographical essay will be a minimum of 10,000 words (roughly 40 pages) in length (not including bibliography and notes), and will include in its analysis no less than 30 secondary sources from some extended period in the last hundred years, including at least one from each of the last four decades. At least 15 secondary sources must be scholarly monographs, and at least 15 must be scholarly journal articles or other historiographical essays published in scholarly journals or edited collections. Students will identify major authors, viewpoints, interpretive schools, methodological innovations, changes in source material, the impact of the times in which key historians published their research, and, where appropriate, suggest possible new directions for scholarship.
Option 3 – Technology-Based Project: A project in history that will involve the student completing a shorter version of one of the options above, but with an added technological component, such as the creation of an actual video documentary, a website, or some other form of electronic media. Source and writing requirements are as follows: students must utilize at least 10 secondary sources published in the last fifty years, 5 of which must be monographs and 5 of which must be scholarly journal articles; students must utilize at least 10 primary sources; and the supporting essay must be at least 6,000 words of content (not inclusive of bibliography or other supporting citation), including an extended paper component explaining the project. The technological component of this option will be assessed not only for content, but also for design, comprehensibility, and production quality.
