Overview
Length: 1,000-1,200 words, not including footnotes, bibliography, and title page
You will summarize and critically assess a scholarly journal article in your own words. Choose an article on any Enlightenment topic (not a book review or review article) that has been published within the last five years (based on when you are taking this course, not on when the course was created). Journal articles are to be accessed via the JSTOR . You must provide a PDF of the article with your assignment.You are encouraged to assess an article that will be relevant to your historiographical essay, but this is not mandatory.
Your essay must:
- Identify and explain the author’s topic and thesis, or main argument.
- Identify the author and describe his or her qualifications to write on this subject. You can find this out through a Google search or by looking up the author’s other publications. Make sure you cite your sources!
- Provide some brief background information on the topic in order to establish a context for your discussion. This will probably require some additional research; again, make sure to cite your sources.
- Describe the sources or types of sources that the author used and how he or she has used them, taking into account the questions he or she brings to the sources and the theories or interpretations he or she uses in analyzing the sources.
- Evaluate the persuasiveness of the author’s argument.
- Include a bibliography of all sources you used for the report.
- Use Chicago-style footnotes and bibliography. MLA and APA styles are not acceptable, nor are parenthetical (in-text) references.
- Be double-spaced; use 12-point, Times New Roman font; have a title page; and have numbered pages.