HISTORICAL CULTURAL ANALYSIS INSTRUCTIONS
The history of a region is much more than just the facts and figures that get typed out in a textbook. Culture has much more of an impact on history than dates, numbers, and other random factors. If you choose to complete the Historical Cultural Analysis for your required research project for the semester, you will choose a region of the world and analyze its historical importance from a scholarly perspective during a specified one-hundred-year time period.
If you choose this assignment as your research project, your final draft is due in the Dropbox in D2L no later than 8:00 PM SATURDAY OCTOBER 2 and is worth up to 200 points of your overall grade for the semester. I will accept rough drafts and questions on this assignment through 8:00 PM Saturday September 25.
This paper must be your own scholarly, analytical work created just for this semester. Do not submit work that is not unique for this class. “Tweaking” a paper from another class is considered cheating.
Exclusions:
Your region can be from anywhere in the world EXCEPT the United States/Canada area of North America.
Your region must have been historically important AFTER 1450 (the official ending time period of this class).
If you aren’t sure about the place or time period you have chosen to analyze, please ask me for confirmation.
What to discuss: (You don’t have to cover ALL of these, but you have plenty of discussion options)
Where is your region located? Is it part of a larger country?
By what name was your area called during your chosen century? Be sure to consistently call it by the historically correct name.
What was the governing system of your region during your chosen time period?
What was religion like in your chosen region during your chosen time period? What happened to those who did not adhere to the recognized religion?
Describe any major upheavals/changes (i.e. wars, famines, disease outbreaks) that happened in your region during your chosen time period.
What was life like for the elite?
What was life like for the poor/working classes?
Was slavery allowed in your region during your chosen time period? If so, what was life like for slaves? How did people end up becoming enslaved? Was there a way to overcome slavery?
What was life like for women in your region during your chosen time period?
What was life like for children? How were they treated or educated?
What was housing like in this particular century? Describe the building materials or architectural styles that were prominent during this period.
What were the common types of businesses at the time?
What was the clothing like during this century? What sort of fabrics, styles, and embellishments were common? How did clothing differentiate amongst the social classes?
What kind of celebrations did they have (holidays, sporting events, festivals)?
What was food like at the time?
Were there any important/infamous figures from your region during your chosen time period? If so, why were they important?
Why did you choose this particular site and century to analyze?
You will need to do research outside of class to determine the historical accuracy/inaccuracy of your points. For each review, you will need to consult a minimum of three scholarly sources. Your sources can be from any combination of books, journal or newspaper articles, documentaries or TV shows or websites as long as they are SCHOLARLY. By scholarly, what I mean is that it must be presented or maintained by someone within the field of academia. Be very careful about any websites that you choose to use; there is a lot of non-scholarly stuff out there. Good examples of scholarly websites are anything that ends with a “.edu”, a personal site maintained by an academic (showing their name, credentials and source material) and private sites like historychannel.com, pbs.org, nationalgeographic.com, discovery.com, or history.com. When in doubt, send me an email with a link to the site. I’ll check it out and let you know if it counts.
Prohibited source material:
Your textbooks or class notes
Anything NON-SCHOLARLY
All online or hardcopy encyclopedias (if it has “pedia” anywhere, do not use it)
Anything created for children
Wiki anything
Broad search engines (Google, MSN, etc.)
Pop culture stuff (Bustle, Buzzfeed, IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, People, EW, etc.)
Travel guides
Material from sites such as Khan Academy, Quizlets, Prezi
Be wary of using YouTube videos without checking with me first.
If you are in doubt about a source, please ask. Better to have to hunt for another source than to get a huge penalty on your paper. Take this seriously. I check your source material to see if it is truly scholarly, especially anything you’ve gotten from online sources. One of the purposes of this assignment is to show that you are proficient at doing basic scholarly research. If you fail in that task, your grade will suffer.
Each source should be cited at least once within the body of your paper to prove that you utilized your source material correctly. You may (and probably will) have certain source(s) that you rely on more than the others but each one listed in your works cited page must be used and cited with a parenthetical in-text citation at least once in the body of your paper. All of the sources used for the writing of this paper should be listed in your works cited page; don’t cite sources in your paper that aren’t listed in your works cited.
You are not limited to the Motlow State Library for source material, but it is an excellent place to start. Through the MSCC Library website, you have access to thousands of scholarly journal articles and ebooks. Hard copies can be found at the library itself. Get the librarians to help you. They can easily direct you to scholarly resources. In the words of the great Neil Gaiman, “Google can give you 100,000 answers; a librarian can give you the right one.”
Your review should be a minimum of three (3) full pages of text. Your paper should start on page one with a header that is single spaced like this:
Your name
Your class information
Professor’s name
Cultural Analysis of _____ (place and 100-year time period analyzed)
Date of submission
(Just clicking “single spacing” isn’t enough. Check the Helpful Hints section for detailed instructions)
The heading is the only part of your paper that is single spaced. The rest of your paper should be double spaced. Do not include a cover page. Although you should include a good introduction and conclusion, the vast majority of your review should be in the discussion of your points. Be detailed in your discussion of each. You won’t be penalized for going over the page minimum, but you will regret short-changing me on it. If you only turn in a two-page review, that’s 2/3 of the minimum so the highest grade you can make would be a 66.
Your last name and page numbers should be listed in standard MLA format at the top right of each page.
This paper needs to be your own scholarly, analytical work. Direct quotations should be avoided as much as possible. If your paper includes more than two direct quotations, your grade will suffer. What do I mean by “direct quotations?” Any line/lines in quotation marks that you have taken word for word from your source. Paraphrase as much as possible. Keep in mind that you can still use short quotes from your chosen source. It’s fine to say “In Gone with the Wind, Rhett Butler quipped ‘Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.’” But don’t give me a multi-line quote from a source just to pad your paper length out. Remember- even when you paraphrase, you still MUST MUST MUST include parenthetical in-text citations to give your sources credit where credit is due. Just because you change the wording on something does not mean that it is your idea. Missed citations lower your paper by 20 points per instance. That’s how important citations are!
If you choose to include anything non-textual (i.e. pictures, graphs, etc.), they must be put on a separate page(s) after you have completed your three (3) page minimum paper. Include an explanation for each non-text addition showing me how it ties in to the text included in your paper.
Citations: For these reviews, you need to use standard MLA parenthetical citations within your paper. If you are confused about how to correctly use MLA parenthetical style in-text citations, please use the Writing Center or reputable guides such as www.owl.english.purdue.edu. DO NOT use citation generators; they are not trustworthy, and their mistakes are your mistakes if they show up in your paper. A good rule of thumb when it comes to citations is to make sure you have one at the end of every paragraph to cover all the material that you paraphrased and to include one after every direct quotation if used. IF YOU TURN IN A PAPER WITHOUT CITATIONS, YOU WILL GET A GRADE OF “0” FOR THE ASSIGNMENT. No exceptions. Citations are how you acknowledge the people who did the work on the source material. If you don’t cite them, you are stealing your work. I don’t give grades for plagiarized work.
Works Cited Page: At the end of your analysis, you must also include a standard MLA works cited page listing all of the sources you used. This is different from the citation info discussed above. Your sources should be listed in alphabetical order in standard MLA format. Again, utilize format guides if you are confused on the correct format. Your works cited page should be at least page 4 of your review. IF YOU TURN IN A PAPER WITHOUT A WORKS CITED PAGE, YOU WILL GET A GRADE OF “0” FOR THE ASSIGNMENT.
A WORKS CITED PAGE IS NOT THE SAME THING AS MLA IN-TEXT CITATIONS. YOU NEED BOTH. MAKE SURE YOU KNOW THE DIFFERENCE!
Paper Format Details:
3 full pages minimum of text plus Works Cited page
1” margin on all sides
Heading single spaced on top left of page 1 (do not use a title page)
Body of paper double spaced (do not put extra spaces between paragraphs)
Times New Roman 12 point black font
Tab indent all paragraphs
Last name and page numbers at top right on all pages
Follow all formal grammar guidelines for spelling and punctuation
First person (I, me, my) is fine to use in this paper but do not use second person (you, we, yours, ours)
Avoid passive voice
Direct quotes should be used sparingly (more than two in a paper this length is excessive)
Direct quotes over two lines should be single spaced and block indented
Optional Rough Draft Submission: I will gladly read a rough draft for you and I encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity. Rough drafts must be emailed to me as a Microsoft Word attachment so I can edit it and return it to you. I will only read ONE draft; it can be a paragraph or a fully written paper, but this is a one-shot deal. If you choose to submit a draft, it must be emailed to me before 8:00 PM Saturday September 25. This is also the last opportunity to ask questions about this assignment.
Final Draft Submission: Papers must be uploaded as a Microsoft Word document or PDF into the Assignment Dropbox before it closes at 8:00 PM Saturday October 2. No other formats are accepted because they do not always convert correctly; if I cannot open your submission, I cannot grade it. See info earlier in the course outline about late/emailed submissions. I will grade them and return them ASAP. Late work will not be accepted but early work is always welcomed and encouraged.
Grading: This is a college-level analytical paper so I expect college-level work. I grade hard. I expect you to follow the guidelines and do the work properly. I don’t give good grades for half-done work; it’s as simple as that.
Impress me with your analysis; that’s where the bulk of your grade comes from. However, typos and grammatical/format errors do adversely affect your grade. Be formal; I don’t mind lightheartedness but do not use text-ese, inappropriate language, excessive sarcasm, etc.
Simple typos (misspellings, capitalization errors, punctuation errors, etc)- 1 pt each
Format errors (incorrect font, wrong font size, no pg #’s)- 10 pts each
Citation errors (not enough in-text citations)- 20 pts each
Any area where I have to question you- 5-10 pts each
Missing/Incorrect sources- 40 pts each
It is your responsibility to ensure that you have followed all the directions for your chosen paper option and that you get it submitted correctly and before the submission window closes. Failure to do so will adversely affect your grade.
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