214 Research Paper instructions
For History of Early Western Civilizations, you will be required to do a 1500 word research paper. For this paper you will choose one of the civilizations we discuss in class and write about the defining features of that civilization. You can choose from the following civilizations:
- Ancient Mesopotamia (5500 BC – 1000 BC)
- Ancient Egypt (3100 BC – 672 BC)
- The Assyrian Empire (Neo-Assyrian Empire- 911-612 BC)
- Classical Athens (480-323 BC)
- Classical Sparta (480-323 BC)
- The Roman Republic (509 BC – 49 BC)
You must cover at least three of the following topics for the Civilization you choose:
–Social Structure (class system, gap between the rich and poor, are there slaves?)
–Government system (Monarchy, Oligarchy, Democracy? How does the government work?)
–Resources and environment (How does the civilization produce its food, and what other major resources do they have? How does the geographic location in which they are located affect the civilization?)
–Role of women in the society. (How are women treated and how are they looked upon in the civilization?)
–Religion (What are the religious beliefs of the Civilization?)
–Military (Does the civilization participate in lots of warfare? What kind of armies do they have?)
–Arts and literature (How would you characterize the art and creative literature produced by the civilization?)
You must cover at least 3 of these topics but you can cover more if you wish.
Sources
For the civilization you choose, your textbook readings can be background information for your paper, but since this is a research paper, you must find and use at least 3 sources from an academic library. These can be books or e-books from the library, or articles from online library databases. Please use these databases to find at least 3 sources. If you want to use more sources than this, that’s fine, but you have to have at least these three.
In the final paper I will be looking for lots of quotes from your sources that illustrate the three topics you are writing on. A good rule of thumb is you should have at least 3 quotes from 3 separate sources (so at least 9 in total) if you want to get an A on this paper.
The final paper must be at least 1500 words long. The paper can be longer, but shorter papers will be penalized. I will read and briefly comment on rough drafts if you email them to me.
Papers will be graded based on the following criteria: First, there should be an introductory paragraph where you briefly talk about the civilization you picked and the topics you plan to cover. Second, in the body of the paper, you should have at least a paragraph on each topic you picked, ie. Military, Resources, etc. In these paragraphs you should have a lot of quotes from your sources with citations showing where the quotes came from. Finally, you should have a conclusion were you sum everything up. I will take off if there are many grammar and spelling errors; you also need to have a works cited page at the end where you list all the sources you used.
