Research is a required component of advanced history. As a result of this, all assignments related to the papers are required work and students do not have the option to fail to hand them in. Failure to turn in research related assignments will at the end of a quarter result in an Incomplete which will then turn into a quarter grade of F at the time assigned by school policy. In other words, students cannot simply take a 0 for a research assignment and pass the quarter based on other grades. Late work, however, will be docked points for every day late. Normally it is 10% for each day and weekends count as days. The Research Paper is a required component of sophomore history, students who do not complete the paper with not receive a grade for 4th quarter of their sophomore year course until the paper is turned in.
The research topic can come from a list of topics provided by the instructor or a student may develop their own topic as long as this is discussed with the instructor in advance and approved. Topics must be related to American History of any period or to World History post 1400. If a student can show that there are enough available primary sources it is possible to get an earlier topic approved. Students wishing to work on a World History topic must be careful that there are enough primary sources available in English for that topic.
Research and writing are done outside of school and will most likely require at least one trip to a university or downtown library. All books from the downtown library can be ordered by phone or computer to be delivered to a branch library. There will be due dates throughout for shorter work to make sure that students stay on track and are not left trying to do the whole project at the last minute. However, it should be noted that the regular course work for advanced history will continue as students complete their research.
FORMAT: Endnote format will be required. There are numerous websites available on this format and the basics of this format are contained in a handbook given to students at the beginning of the year.. This format is not identical to MLA and it does require endnotes not parenthetical references. This format is widely used in college social science courses so it is in the students' best interest to have some familiarity with this format. This format is also required by The Concord Review. Therefore, students who do an excellent job on their papers and wish to submit them for publication will already have them in the correct format.
Sophomore SOURCE and LENGTH REQUIREMENTS: Click here for source type explanations.
Sources: students failing to meet the minimum source requirements by one source cannot receive a grade higher than a D, students failing to meet the minimum source requirements by more than one source will receive a failing grade.
Primary: Minimum of 5 primary sources totaling 50 pages of text for Advanced students and 3 totaling 30 pages of text for College Prep students. They must also involve different authors. Sources that have not been used (cited) in an appropriate way in the paper do not count. Primary sources are most often found in printed anthologies and at websites run by universities, foundations, and government agencies.
Secondary: Minimum of 5 scholarly secondary sources by at least 4 different authors including at least one scholarly journal article or essay and one chapter from a monograph directly on the student's research topic for the Advanced Students. Minimum of 3 scholarly secondar sources for the college prep students. Students should be aware of what was discussed in class about these terms. These requirements are rarely met by websites, although websites may be used for additional secondary sources beyond the required number as long as they truly meet the requirements of a secondary source. Only with teacher permission can a student substitute a scholarly source that is not secondary. Permission must be received before the student hands in notecards. This will only be allowed in cases where students have exhausted all reasonable avenues for locating true secondary sources. Sources that have not been used (cited) in an appropriate way in the paper do not count.
Tertiary and "unknown" sources: these types of sources do not count toward the required sources listed above but may be used as additional sources if students can show that they are reliable. However, the argument of the paper should not rest heavily on these types of sources.
Length: The length requirement minimum is 3000 words for the Advanced Students and 2000 words for the College Prep Students. In most fonts and normal font sizes this is generally about 11 pages. All words in the text of the paper count, however remember that you will be penalized in the final grade if you use too many direct quotations and there isn't enough of your own analysis in the paper. The general rule of thumb is no more than 1 long or 2 short quotes per page of text and preferably less. Beware that words not in the text do not count such as the footnotes, the headings, titles, works cited page, appendices, etc. Remember that the word count on your word processor will count these extras that I will not count. Falling just short of the length requirements will mean no grade higher than a D. Falling more than 100 words short will be an automatic F.
NOTECARDS: for both papers these must be done according to the notecard handout and turned in on the dates indicated on your bell's syllabus. There is a 10% reduction in grade for every day they are late including weekend days. All notecards must be handed in with the paper. A paper that is handed in without a set of notecards for every source used is an automatic F.
The final due dates for the paper will be absolute. It will be done over a period of many weeks so there will be no excuse for late papers. Students who are absent must send someone to school with a copy of their paper and all the other things that must be handed in with the paper. If students are involved in a long term illness during the period we are working on the paper then they should see the teacher as soon as possible so that other arrangements can be made. Technology issues are not acceptable excuses. All writing should be backed up in different places including flash drives, blackboard digital dropbox, and printing out pages or paragraphs as you write them. Hard drive crashes can happen to anyone, but a responsible student plans for that and has multiple backups. You have to learn to plan for the technological world that you now live in. If you choose not to be aware of possible technology issues and you lose your work you can redo it later but the highest possible grade will be a 55% and that's for a good paper. If you feel that your situation is a true emergency and warrants special consideration then see me outside of class.
Plagiarism: this is a serious offense and will result in a severe penalty. Any plagiarism judged by the teacher to be extensive will result in a 0 for the paper and the student will have to write an acceptable paper still in order to complete the sophomore requirement and receive a 4th quarter grade instead of an incomplete to fulfill the school's required completed history courses. Plagiarism is still plagiarism regardless of whether or not you intended to do it. Less extensive plagiarism will still require a rewritten paper but may result in some form of an F instead of a zero depending on the quality of the rewrite.
Academic Dishonesty: when doing research papers you join a community of historians who deserve to receive accurate acknowledgement of their work. Making up citations completely or making up the page numbers is dishonest and also disrespectful to those who actually wrote the sources that you are using to complete your paper. Simply doing notecards correctly will easily allow you to accurately cite. If you do not do this then you are being dishonest when you inaccurately cite whether it's on purpose or a result of sloppy notetaking. It's just another way of lying and so just as much a violation of the honor code as plagiarism and will receive the same type of penalty as that outlined for plagiarism above.