Instructor: Anthony G. Gulig 
Office: White Hall 225
Office Hours:  Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12:30- 1:30 pm; Fridays 9-11 am; Virtual Office Hours Mondays, 6-7pm.
E-Mail: guliga@uww.edu 
Web Page: http://facstaff.uww.edu/guliga/ 
Office Phone: (262) 472-5148

 

Content Outline

For at least the past three years, you have read the conclusions of professional historians on a variety of significant and hopefully interesting topics.  In many courses, you have tried your hand at the historical craft by interpreting primary documents through writing short or longer research-based analytical or interpretive papers.  You have evaluated and developed historiographic arguments by synthesizing historians’ findings with research essays based largely on secondary sources.  In this course, you will have the opportunity to bring to bear all the skills of historical interpretation and research you have been practicing as history majors on a topic of your choosing.   By November you will compose an original historical essay of around 25-30 pages that both analyzes the primary and secondary historical sources and explains your project’s historiographic significance.  

Historical research projects are conceived and carried out as part of on-going conversations among scholars about the important questions, methodology and theoretical approaches that help us to interpret the past.  They share their conclusions and insights with presentations and written work that lays out their research questions and the evidence they use to answer them.   In this course, you will have time to share your work with a community of scholars (your classmates and the course instructor) in order to polish your prose and arguments and thus to communicate your project’s accomplishments as clearly as possible.

By the end of semester, therefore, you will have a clear sense of the process of historical research and the steps that you need to complete an article-length work.  Students and the instructor will collaborate to define a series of exercises that will help you master the basic elements of research and effective written presentation.  Your project begins by posing a historical question you would like to answer and locating appropriate primary sources that will allow you to address this question.  While the question you pose is all-important, finding good quality and sufficient historical documents remains a companion and is also key to producing a successful essay.  

As history majors, you have all had experiences interpreting primary sources.  For this paper, however, the challenge of developing your own set of primary sources through research in available library databases and archival holdings will be one early steps that defines the scope and direction of your project.  Understanding how your project fits into the existing scholarship on the topic you are examining, is another crucial aspect of this project.  You will want to identify the historiography which is most relevant to your research as this will help you to refine the important questions, evidence and approaches that will guide your research.  

The class will also examine in detail how best to compose introductions, incorporate textual evidence, form a historiographic argument and critically revise your work and that of your peers. Historical research writing is a process and your success in learning to follow this process is an important objective of this course.  It will strongly influence the quality of the final essay you submit and provides you with steps along the way to evaluate how the progress of your research project.   Grades and policies for this course, therefore reflect this emphasis on thoughtful and consistent preparation for successfully completing a polished historical essay and contributing to the seminar experience of your peers.

Finally, of course, you need to share your insights with your peers in your written conclusions.  The text you need for professional standards of citations is Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term papers, Theses and Dissertations which is available at the bookstore.  

General Course Information

• Distinguish between primary and secondary sources
• Critically read/analyze multiple types of primary sources
• Critically read/analyze multiple types of secondary sources
• Use appropriate historical evidence and terminology to develop arguments
• Understand distinguishing features of major historical schools of thought
• Identify and contextualize multiple elements of historiographic debate
• Use library and historical archives for research
• Develop research questions on a focused topic
• Use relevant historical databases and research tools
• Write a well-organized, logical, thesis-driven essay
• Use appropriate historical evidence
• Effectively synthesize and contextualize primary and secondary sources
• Use appropriate footnotes and bibliographic citations

General Course Policies:

Course Assignments and Final Grade Evaluation  Details on each course required assignment will be provided in class and distributed via the course companion D2L page.

*A research proposal, abstract, first draft and final essay must be submitted in order to pass this course.  Late assignments are accepted but receive a 10% point deduction each calendar day they are late.

Web and E-Mail Proficiency:

Students must be able to retrieve information via the World Wide Web.  Information regarding course assignments, on-line questions and discussions, assigned readings, and other material is made available via the on-line course syllabus devoted to the course.  It is the student's responsibility to check the on-line course syllabus often for important information.  Assignments are distributed electronically through the course companion D2L page.  If you have trouble logging in or accessing on-line material, it is your responsibility to contact the instructor for assistance.  Do not wait!  If you are having trouble with the content or context of this course, ask questions early, often, and repeatedly!  

Required Reading:

Kate L. Turabian.  A Manual for Writers of Term papers, Theses and Dissertations (purchase).

Participation: Participation course constitutes a significant portion of each student's final grade (see above).   The ability to merely recite on-line discussion or the prose in a history text is not education. Learning occurs best when ideas and interpretations are shared and discussed. Participation will occur in a number of ways in this course

A note on class attendance:   Attendance is expected for all scheduled class and individual meetings; no student will pass the course after four absences (both excused and unexcused).

Statement on Academic Integrity and Personal Responsibility:  All students are expected to complete the required assignments, readings, and participate in the class discussion as prescribed in this syllabus.  It is further expected that work submitted for this class is the students’ own work created expressly for the assignments in this course.  

Important Note:  Plagiarism is a serious offense and all instances of it will be dealt with according to the  “Student Academic Disciplinary Procedures” [UWS Chapter 14] see below.   Students who submit plagiarized papers, in whole or part, will receive a failing course grade in all instances    Plagiarism is generally defined as using the ideas of another as your own.  Plagiarism is not avoided by simply changing a few words or by paraphrasing the work of others. 

All students enrolled in this class should download, read, and become familiar with thus guide on avoiding academic misconduct.