Final Paper Assignment
FINAL PAPER (2000 words, with 50 word margin up or down): 20 points
Step 1) Identify a primary source or set of sources, comparable in length to a chapter in your Mexican History reader. Make sure that the sources interest you because they will be at the heart of your paper.
Step 2) Identify two scholarly books and two scholarly articles that provide historical context for the sources’ interpretation.
Step 3) Learn as much as you can about those sources, starting with the five “w’s” – the who, what, where, when, and why of their production.
Step 4) Formulate a question about the sources. The scope of the question should necessarily be narrow given the length of the paper, and should grow out of the primary sources themselves – in other words, don’t ask a question that cannot be addressed by the sources.
Step 5) Answer the question in a 2000-word essay, incorporating the sources and the scholarly literature that you have identified.
Some of your topics may require interdisciplinary materials such as books and articles from Gender/Women’s Studies, Literary Criticism, Political Science, and Anthropology, in addition to History. If you read Spanish or Indigenous languages, feel free to use Spanish or Indigenous-language sources.
Citations (footnotes and bibliography) should follow Chicago Style format.
https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide-1.html
Phil MacLeod, the Latin American librarian at Woodruff Library has prepared a Research Guide for our class: