| week 1. Introduction. "Professor Trevor-Roper tells us that the
historian `ought to love the past.' This is a dubious injunction. To love
the past may easily be an expression of the nostalgic romanticism of old
men of old societies, a symptom of loss of faith and interest in the present
or future." [Edward Hallett Carr, What Is History? (New York, 1961),
29] |
- Jan. 12. Assignment
1. The Paragraph. Write two paragraphs comparing and contrasting
history and film. Due Jan. 20.
- Jan. 14. Elizabeth (1998); Bucholz and Key, Early
Modern England, pp. 112-22 (handout).
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| week 2. Revising Prose. "Emphasize nouns and verbs in writing.
This means both selecting them with care, and making them bear the burden
of the sentence. Adjectives and adverbs, thus, should be used sparingly.
It is obvious that much gooey writing is due to overuse of adjectives."
[Robert Jones Shafer, ed., A Guide to Historical Method, 3rd
ed. (Homewood, Ill., 1980), 211] |
- Jan. 20. Lanham, Revising Prose, chs. 1-2. Assignment
2. The Revision. Revise coursemate's history statement.
Due Jan. 22.
- Jan. 22. "Starkey's Elizabeth" & Elizabeth's 167
and 1588 speeches (versions, handout). Assignment
3. The Word. Use OED (or online search engine of
historical principles) to research five related words from Elizabeth's
speeches and write an essay on what these words meant in Elizabeth's
period and how the meaning of the subject has changed over time.
Due Jan. 29.
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| week 3. Words in Context. "Words may have different meanings
at different times in history.... Especially when you are dealing with primary
sources, it is essential that you know what a word meant at a particular
time.... Turn to a dictionary of historical principles, which traces changes
in forms and meanings of a word through time. The greatest of these is the
Oxford English Dictionary, commonly called the OED. The
first edition, originally issued in ten volumes from 1888 to 1928, took
fifty-four years to produce, and almost half of its 15,487 pages were written
by Sir James Murray, in consultation with thousands of English-language
experts around the world." [The latest edition is now available online,
through Eastern Illinois' Booth
Library.] [Neil R. Stout, Getting the Most out of Your U.S. History
Course: the History Student's Vade Mecum, 3rd ed. (Lexington, Mass.,
1996), 30-1] |
- Jan. 27, 29. Lanham, Revising Prose, chs. 3-4.
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| week 4. Reference Works. "When you go to the library, begin your
research in reference books, not in the card catalog." [Robert Skapura and
John Marlowe, History: A Student's Guide to Research and Writing
(Englewood, Colo., 1988), 6] |
- Feb. 3. Assignment
4. The Reference Work. Use works in Reference Room of
Booth Library (or online sites--not library catalogs) to establish
context of one aspect of Elizabeth. Cite reference works
and write two paragraphs on points of context (at least five).
Then write a paragraph discussing a possible research question
about a specific subject in Elizabeth suggested by the
context. Due Feb. 10.
- Feb. 5. Marius, Short Guide, intro. & ch. 1
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| week 5. The Historian and the Thesis. "Learn to spot the
thesis.... Pay particular attention the first paragraph of each chapter
or subheading, because it should contain the thesis. A thesis is a proposition
whose validity the author demonstrates by presenting evidence.... (Newspapers
call this a 'lead.')" [Stout, Getting the Most out of Your U.S. History
Course, 5] |
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| week 6. Types of Historians. "Study the historian before you
begin to study the facts." [Carr, What Is History?, 26] |
- Feb. 17. Pre-Assignment
6. Due Feb. 23.
- Feb. 19. Marius, Short Guide, ch. 3. Assignment
6. The Thesis Statement. Read any article on your list
generated for Assignment 5, cite it correctly, copy the sentence
you think most fully covers the thesis of the article, then outline
subject, thesis, and subtheses of essay in your own words. Due
Feb. 26.
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week 7. Constructing a Problem. "Technique begins with learning
how to use the catalogue of a library. Whatever the system, it is only
an expanded form of the alphabetical order of an encyclopedia. A ready
knowledge of the order of letters in the alphabet is therefore fundamental
to all research.
"But it must be supplemented by alertness and imagination, for subjects
frequently go by different names. For example, coin collecting is called
Numismatics. More complicated is the way in which one who wants information
about the theory of the divine right of kings arrives at the term 'Monarchy.'
One might conceivably have reached the same result by looking up 'Right,
divine,' or even possibly `Divine Right,' if the library owns a book by
that title or is fully cross-indexed. What is certain is that there is
little chance of success if one looks up `King' and no hope at all if
one looks up `Theory.' In other words, one must from the very beginning
play with the subject, take it apart and view it from various sides
in order to seize on its outward connections." [Jacques Barzun and Henry
F. Graff, The Modern Researcher, 5th ed. (Fort Worth,
1992)]
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- Feb. 24. Craft of Research, chapter 3 (handout). Assignment
7. The Problem/Hypothesis. Using the online catalog, construct
a bibliography (at least 12 works available in Booth Library)
focusing on a specific research problem relating to Elizabeth.
Then using this bibliography, write an essay about a possible
research subject. Include a paragraph with a possible thesis statement
for your research paper. Due March 2.
- Feb. 26. Marius, Short Guide, ch. 4; primary source (to
be assigned).
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| week 8. The Document. "What makes a historian master of his craft
is the discipline of checking findings, to see whether he has said more
than his source warrants. A historian with a turn of phrase, when released
from this discipline, risks acquiring a dangerously Icarian freedom to make
statements which are unscholarly because unverifiable." Conrad Russell,
cited in Mark A. Kishlansky, "Saye No More," Journal of British Studies
30 (Oct. 1991): 399. |
- March 2. Assignment
8. The Document. Compare and contrast an
MS., a printed contemporary source, and a visual source assigned
to your group in a brief descriptive essay. Due March 9.
- March 4. "Elizabethan
Worlds," in Newton Key and Robert Bucholz, eds., Sources
and Debates in English History (London: Blackwell, 2004),
ch. 4
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week 9. The Newspaper or Serial Source. "[H]istory is to a considerable
extent a matter of numbers. Carlyle was responsible for the unfortunate
assertion that `history is the biography of great men.' But listen to
him at his most eloquent and in his greatest historical work:
Hunger and nakedness and righteous oppression lying heavy on 25 million
hearts: this, not the wounded vanities or contradicted philosophies of
philosophical advocates, rich shopkeepers, rural noblesse, was the prime
mover in the French revolution; as the like will be in all such revolutions,
in all countries." [Thomas Carlyle, French Revolution, cited
in Carr, What Is History?, 61]
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- March 9. "Elizabethan
Worlds," in Newton Key and Robert Bucholz, eds., Sources
and Debates in English History (London: Blackwell, 2004),
ch. 4 Assignment 9. The Edited Collection or Serial Source.
Identify a set of published papers in Booth Library relevant to
your topic. Read the pertinent documents and write a brief paper,
with foot or endnotes, analyzing how the published papers relate
to the view of the topic advanced by the writer and director of
Elizabeth. Due March 25. [Note: changed because
of presentations.]
- March 11. "Elizabethan
Worlds," in Newton Key and Robert Bucholz, eds., Sources
and Debates in English History (London: Blackwell, 2004),
ch. 4
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| week 10. The Edited Collection. "History cannot be written unless
the historian can achieve some kind of contact with the mind of those about
whom he is writing." [Carr, What Is History?, 27] |
- March 23. No class: meet with me individually Thurs. or Fri.
to discuss research.
- March 25. Secondary source (to be assigned).
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| week 11. Developing a Treatment. "Hollywood producers, with millions
of dollars at stake, require writers to produce `treatments' of proposed
movie plots. These short sketches of the film plot enable both the writer
and potential producer to see the story in a nutshell. In the same way,
you can test the potential of history paper topic by writing a one-paragraph
treatment." [Pace and Pugh, Studying for History, 181] |
- March 30. In-class "Treatment" assignment.
- April 1. Assignment
11. The Research Paper. Write a research paper on the
age of Elizabeth using at least three types of primary sources,
making an argument, and responding to what other historians have
said about your subject (that is, using several secondary sources
for both context and argument). Due April 29
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| week 12. Research and Writing. "For myself, as soon as I have
got going on a few of what I take to be the capital sources, the itch becomes
too strong and I begin to write--not necessarily at the beginning, but somewhere,
anywhere." [Carr, What Is History?, 33] |
- April 6. Secondary source (to be assigned).
- April 8. Marius, Short Guide, ch. 6. Assignment 10.
The Note. Write a two-page treatment (see handout) about just
one part of your research paper which is buttressed by at least
four foot or endnotes, including a content note and two from the
same source. Due April 15. [Note: changed because of presentations.]
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| week 13. Writing and Noting. "Footnotes exist ...to perform two
...functions. First, they persuade: they convince the reader that the historian
has done an acceptable amount of work, enough to lie within the tolerances
of the field.... Second, they indicate the chief sources that the historian
has actually used. Though footnotes usually do not explain the precise course
that the historian's interpretation of these texts has taken, they often
give the reader who is both critical and open-minded enough hints to make
it possible to work this out--in part. No apparatus can give more information--or
more assurance--than this." [Anthony Grafton, The Footnote: A Curious
History (Cambridge, Mass., 1997), 22-3] |
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week 14. Revising. A Checklist for Revising:
- "Does what I have written support my thesis?" [If not, change the
thesis.]
- "Are things in the right order?" [Moving blocks by computer is easier
than cut-and-paste. Do it.]
- "Is every item necessary?" [Irrelevant words and anecdotes "must
be killed."]
- Is any direct quotation, particularly a long one, really essential?"
[A good test is whether, and to what extent, you refer to the quote
within the paragraph it is placed. If not, shouldn't it be deleted or
moved too?] [Stout, Getting the Most out of Your U.S. History Course,
68-9]
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| week 15. Everyman His Own Historian. "There are battalions of
good reasons for continuing to study history, but not even those battalions
can or should hide the fact that history is one of the most arduous, complex
and simply difficult intellectual enterprises invented by man." [G.R. Elton,
in The History Debate, ed. Juliet Gardiner (London, 1990), 12]
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- April 27. Papers reports.
- April 29. Summing up. Papers Due.
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