Historiography (with Annotated Bibliography) Assignment Sheet HIST 272: Major Issues in Gender History (Medieval Europe) Philip Grace -Fall 2016 Summary: You will write an annotated bibliography summarizing three articles or books on a topic drawn from the class. You will then write a short section analyzing points of agreement and disagreement in the scholarship you read. The purpose of this assignment is to introduce you to serveral important skills used by historians. It is essentially the first steps of an imaginary research paper. You will practice defining a historical research question and locating secondary sources that can help to answer that question. You will then describe what previous historians have agreed and disagreed about regarding your topic a task called historiography. The project is divided into stages. All stages of the project are required; I will not accept any stage until I have received the previous stage (even if it is too late to receive credit for it). Stage % of Course Grade Due Date Topic statement - Sept 27 Annotated Bibliography 10 Oct 20 Historiographic Analysis 10 Nov 15 20 Topic Statement Using the class syllabus, choose the topic of one of the lectures/class sessions during the semester. Write a brief report that includes: 1. The topic as listed in the syllabus. 2. A list of three possible research questions that you would like to investigate regarding your topic. What interests you about it? What would deepen our understanding of it? For example, What did Roman aristocrats see as desirable feminine qualities? (except that is ancient and not medieval). You will not investigate all of them the point is just to think of several options. Your research questions may be adjusted and revised up until you turn the assignment in. 3. A brief summary (a few sentences) of the assigned reading for that day in the syllabus. Specifically, summarize how the reading helps to answer your research questions. (Note: If we have not yet reached that class period in the semester, you do not need to read the whole reading. You just need to look at it enough to find the main argument.) 4. At least one item from the footnotes or bibliography of the assigned reading written since 1980 (dubbed Article #1) that you think would be useful in further investigating your questions. You must provide a full bibliography-entry citation in Chicago/Turabian style. Grading: This will be graded pass-fail, but it is required before you can receive credit for any of the later phases. Due Sept 27 on turnitin.com.
Annotated Bibliography Choose the most promising of your research questions from the Topic Statement (or revise it to make it a better fit with your sources). Assemble a list of secondary sources that will help you answer that question and write an annotated bibliography. In compiling a bibliography, you can look in several places. 1. The sources cited in the course reading, or in Article #1, or in other articles you find. This is what I call climbing the bibliography tree. 2. The References and Sources section of the relevant wikipedia article. 3. Searching specialized databases via the TLU Library (we will discuss this further in class). An annotated bibliography is a list of sources that includes short comments regarding the contributions and/or usefulness of each item. The point of this listing is to find the most promising or compelling avenues for the next phase of your project. You need a total of ten sources. However, you only need to annotate (write summaries for) three of them. Each entry should include a full Chicago/Turabian bibliography entry citation followed by a oneparagraph summary of the article/chapter, including the overall topic and scope of the article, the author s argument and the primary sources used in the article. These paragraphs should not contain evaluation or normative language just restate the argument and describe the sources. Here is a template: [Full citation of article] In this article [author s last name] uses [this kind of primary sources] to examine [the historical event, devlopment, etc. including approximate years]. He/she argues that [state the main argument use a direct quotation if possible]. Here is an example: Katherine L. French, The People of the Parish: Community Life in a Late Medieval English Diocese (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001). This book examines local church administration by laypeople in twelve scattered parishes in the diocese of Bath and Wells in England, based mostly on churchwardens account books, supplemented with other background sources. French argues that parishoners had a great deal of ownership or personal investment in their parishes (rather than it being an unwelcome, externally-imposed kind of authority) for example, she argues they saw their church s architecture as a form of parish identity (143). Nitpicks: The annotated bibliography should include at least ten secondary sources, which may be books or articles. It should not include any of the books assigned for the class. Article #1 can be included or omitted. Three of the sources must be annotated. Article #1 must have been written since 1980. No secondary sources before 1950 should be used without instructor permission. All sources must be academic sources: scholarly monographs or peer-reviewed articles (in academic journals or edited volumes).
You may use a website as one of your sources, provided that it is scholarly and substantive. This means that it should be the official site of a university or a site maintained by an academic scholar for professional use. Wikipedia is not scholarly. PBS.org is not scholarly. Grading: The summaries will be graded using the attached rubric. Annotated Bibliography Grading Rubric only 3 summaries are needed Article 1. scholarly, relevant, recent citation, correctly formatted topic and scope main argument sources used 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Subtotal (/30) Subtotal (/30)
Historiographic analysis Write a historiographic analysis essay that uses at least three of the articles (probably the ones you annotated). This means that you should re-read the ones that you are focusing on, this time more carefully. Your essay should be primarily evaluative or normative: you should not write summaries, but instead describe the larger trends or groupings you can observe across the articles. This essay needs to have a strong argument/thesis statement, but unlike a normal history paper, your thesis should be about the understanding the traits, trends, disagreements, etc. between different scholars (not the historical events themselves). What connects the three articles that you have chosen? How do the articles agree or disagree with one another? Can you define schools of thought that is, different authors who share similar views or approaches? Can you detect a change over time in the approach to or interpretation of the subject? (Note that this is not asking about a change in historical events but about a change in historiography that is, in the arguments.) You could also try to describe the state of the question that is, what has been wellestablished or agreed upon, and also what further questions have not been settled or investigated? Throughout the essay, you should quote and/or paraphrase (and cite) specific articles to support your overall explanation. Grading: You will be graded on how well you explain trends, similarities/differences, state of the question, etc. among at least 3 articles and support it using information from the articles. Total Length: Your historiographic analysis should be 600-900 words (2-3 pages)
Historiography Paper Rubric This rubric provides a checklist of issues I evaluate when I am grading. There is not a precise number of points associated with each line, but the ones toward the top are higher priority. There is also not a precise score associated with each column, but a paper that received all checks in the lefthand column would be in the A range, one with all checks in the middle column would be around a low B or high C and one with all checks in the right-hand column would be a low C or below. Name: Grade (%): Addresses entire assignment: The paper follows the assignment given. It fulfills all the requirements for the assignment. Clear, insightful argument: The paper makes an argument describing similarities and differences in previous scholarship on the topic. The argument is sustained throughout the paper (including the thesis). Everything in the paper contributes to the argument. The thesis statement provides a helpful observation or understanding of the topic. Selection of evidence: There is both good quantity and good quality of evidence. Evidence is well-rounded and draws from all the materials required for the paper. Evidence occurs throughout the paper. Evidence is not too lengthy. Counter-examples or objections are effectively refuted or minimized. Interpretation of evidence: The context and analysis is provided for each piece of evidence. The paper shows a ready understanding of the sources that are analyzed. Analysis persuasively shows that evidence supports argument of paper. Organization and structure: The argument is easy to follow. The paper builds its argument in a reasonable way. Each paragraph is connected to those around it. The introduction and conclusion ably set up the topic, scope and argument of the proposal and bring it to a close. Citations: Citations clearly identify the source of each piece of evidence. The citations contain all the necessary information in the proper format. (Note: if citations are missing entirely, it constitutes academic dishonesty, which seriously jeopardizes the entire paper grade) Grammar and mechanics: The paper communicates well with the reader. It is written in clear, grammatically correct language. It is appropriately formal. It spells the names of people and places correctly and consistently.