270 Research Paper Instructions
History of Western Civilizations II online
Research Paper overview, Spring 2018- worth 25% of final grade due Sun. May 13th by 11:55pm.
For History of Western Civilizations II in the Spring 2018 semester, you will be required to do a 1500 word research paper. For this paper you will choose one of the topics we covered in class and provide more detailed information about that topic. You can choose from the following topics:
- The Enlightenment
- The French Revolution
- The Industrial Revolution
- The causes of World War I
- The causes of World War II
- The Cold War
For the topic you choose you must discuss the following in your paper:
-the background causes of your topic; why it occurred
-where and when it occurred
-how regular people were affected in their everyday lives
-what were the long term impacts of the event
You can discuss more areas than these, but you must cover at least these areas.
Sources
For the topic 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 the HCCC Library. The textbook does not count as one of the three required sources! These required sources can be books or e-books from the library, or articles from online library databases. In the learning module folder I have posted links to the Herkimer 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 from the Herkimer library. Please note: You cannot use any random website! Any online articles you use must be from the Herkimer Library databases.
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 not counting the textbook (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 topic you picked and what you plan to cover. Second, in the body of the paper, you should have at least a paragraph on each of the areas listed above, for example why it occurred, where and when, 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.
Since the paper is due on the last day of class, no late papers will be accepted.
If you have any questions, let me know via email. Good luck!
SS112 Research Paper by John McLean is licensed under CC-BY 4.0
