History Term Paper

Term Paper

After choosing your topic, write one paragraph describing how you would approach discussion of your topic and provide your sources as well. The period of your paper is open from the time of Hominid to 1500 CE. Your topic should be very specific and narrowed down. For example, it could be a political event or the economic system or social issues of a specific civilization. Avoid biography!!

1. It should be between 4-5 pages (typed and double spaced) in length.

2. Use at least three sources; they should be a combination of academic journal articles and

books or books alone, other than your textbooks. In addition to your three proper sources, you may use Internet sources with the sites that are edu or org domain.

The following site has excellent academic articles that may be useful to you. Scholarly Journal Archive (http://www.jstor.org) and Love Library A-Z Database.

3. Your paper should have an Introduction, Theme/Body, and a Conclusion.

4. Your paper should contain a Chicago style bibliography of your sources (see http://history.hanover.edu/courses/handouts/footnotes.htm )

5. Use Chicago style footnotes or endnotes when quoting or citing data (see http://writing.umn.edu/sws/assets/pdf/quicktips/chicago_bib.pdf )

6. Do a spelling and grammar check on your final paper.

7. Turn your report in by the deadline if you do not wish to be penalized

for an overdue paper

Key points often missed in term papers:

Formatting, both footnotes, bibliographies, and text. If you do not know how, ask your professor, google it, in your syllabus you have helpful links provided, or use the writing center in the library.
Proofread, revise, edit, try to turn in a polished copy of your work. No need to throw away easy points on grammar and things like that.
Do NOT use the first person. Don't tell us what you are going to say, just say it! (e.g. "In this paper I am going to...", "in my opinion...", "I think...”, etc.)
Fact check, don't put in fluff, we need papers that are coherent. Here is where proper sources come into play.
Do not write the way you speak.
Use words you are familiar with, if you want to get fancy, use a dictionary and thesaurus first.
Do not put in questions, again just say it and commit.
Finally, and most importantly, stay on topic. Tangents will hurt your grade. Your thesis statement/introduction is what needs to be supported so introducing a new part to the paper half way through will disjoint the paper and cost you points.