Overview
Primary Source Assignment
Papers should be about 1250 words, and should be typed and double-spaced. The paper should include your name, the title of the course, and the date in the upper left corner of the first page. The paper should have a descriptive title at the top of the first page. There is no need for a separate title page
Choose a collection of primary source material on one of the subjects in the attachment. Primary source material includes artifacts, documents, and testimony that are original to historical events, rather than later observations and analysis. There are various materials on the Canvas site for the course that are suitable primary sources for this paper. You can also use outside material. (NOTE: Books or articles by historians or other social scientists are NOT primary sources on the events described and analyzed in them.)
This assignment is designed to give you a sense of how historians do research and draw conclusions about historical events. Historians and other social scientists, of course, study and rely on secondary sources (like writings by other historians). In the end, however, all this accumulated scholarship traces back to primary source research.
You will find links to appropriate materials (such as online archives, anthologies of original documents, or recorded or transcribed interviews with participants) in the “Additional (Recommended) Materials” items for many lessons.
First, select an issue that interests you and get a general grounding on the history (from secondary sources, such as historians’ accounts in books and articles). You will need to use the required reading and lectures, as well relevant recommended materials from the course, in your paper to analyze the primary source material and place it into historical context. You may also use outside research material, but make sure not to use it to the exclusion of material from the course. (A major objective for all papers is to demonstrate your serious study of the course materials.)
Second, examine the primary source materials you have decided to use. Do not feel like you need to write about a large number of different primary sources, or to find primary sources that will allow you to write very comprehensively about the event or issue. Rather, focus on one or a few primary sources. What does that piece of evidence tell you about the event or issue? How does it fit into a bigger picture (what you learned in your background research)?