I have already written 2 pages and organised the essay structure. There are additional details in the document I will be attaching in addition to the sources. Add to my work and build on it.
Essay Guidlines:
you will submit (via Canvas) a 7- or 8-page paper on a
topic of your choice that pertains to any aspect of the Renaissance era, its history and its culture
(including outside of Italy, if you wish).
The main aim of this paper is for you to raise a question; identify, find, and use primary
evidence that allows you to discuss that question; and arrive at some conclusion or argument
about that question. The question should be specific and focused, and the evidence should of
course be relevant to it. The core of the paper should consist of your analysis of the primary
evidence.
You must use at least two primary texts and two secondary sources, and you must also
append at least one image relevant (even if tangentially) to your topic. You may use sources that
we read in our class, and sources you have used for previous assignments, but you are also
encouraged to look for alternatives: by this point, you should have learned how to search for both
primary and secondary sources. As for the image, you may simply include as an illustration an
image that is relevant to some element of your paper; you may instead use the image more fully
in your analysis; if your overall analysis focuses strongly on images, you can use more than one
image, and in that case you may only use one primary textual sources (instead of the required
two).
The specific question you will discuss in your paper is up to you, as mentioned above,
and it can pertain to any element of the Renaissance; by this point we will be near the end of our
course, and you can use any of our lecture or discussion topics or other class work as the basis to
develop your question. Whatever the question, you have to use your primary texts (and possibly
also the image) as your main evidence for the paper, and you should use the secondary sources to
help you place the primary texts and image in their proper context, raise questions about your
evidence, and formulate an argument about that evidence. The secondary sources you use can be
studies of your primary sources, of their authors, of the questions you are investigating, of the
general historical context for your topic, etc. These secondary sources should be interpretive
scholarly ones that give you a chance to engage with other scholars’ ideas; you may also use
general reference works (such as encyclopedias of whatever sort, or museum web sites), but you
should not count those as part of the required two secondary sources for the paper.
You should clarify for your reader the historical context of the sources and issues you
deal with in the paper: this means, for instance, giving life dates of authors you discuss, dates of
texts you employ, formats or purposes of these texts and their relevance for your analysis, and
some sense of the historical specificity of the period and places you are covering in the paper (if
you need extra background, you can of course talk to me or consult a textbook or additional
secondary sources). One of the most important elements of this assignment is indeed for you to
learn to think and write with a sense of historical context and awareness.
Remember that a strong paper is one in which the analysis (i.e., what you want to say
about the evidence and question at hand) precedes and guides the narrative (i.e., the description
of what is in your sources). Think of educated but not specialist readers as your audience.
Remember that you will be dealing with specific texts, however important they might be; avoid
therefore excessive generalizations, and be sure to support your points with evidence from your
sources. While you do not need to provide much detail in a paper of this size, you should avoid
statements that are so general that they have little concrete meaning.
Another significant element of writing clearly is to help your reader understand and
follow your topic and argument. The first paragraph of your paper should ideally lay out what
the question you wish to investigate is; what sources you are using; why you think these sources
will help you analyze the question you are presenting to the reader; and a brief clear statement of
what the result of your analysis will be (in other words, your argument). Soon thereafter, as
appropriate, you should briefly discuss your sources, especially the primary ones, focusing on
how their genre and other characteristics may shape how you will use them, again in particular in
reference to the question that is at the center of your paper.
Please keep in mind that writing an academic paper is primarily about analyzing
evidence. Description or summary are not analysis. In the case of this paper, the evidence is
mainly in your sources, and the purpose of the paper is to discuss a question or issue by using the
evidence you find in them, by making the facts and details of the evidence meaningful. Your
goal should not be to try and prove some broad, general “big thing” but to offer a concrete
analysis of specific issues, based on the evidence you have examined. Any larger point you end
up making in your paper is important, of course, but not more important than the process of
analyzing the evidence which you should go through and display in the paper. Articulating a
point and then testing and supporting it through the available evidence is the mark of quality in
academic writing. In most cases, one should start with a reasonably focused question; then
consider the evidence, and assess its relevance and significance for one’s question, and
especially for specific elements of one’s question; and then deploy and analyze the evidence to
arrive at carefully argued conclusions and, possibly, at suggestions on how this analysis may
affect larger issues.
This also means that the evidence must be used honestly: quotations and textual
references should not be taken out of context, and evidence that may contradict your argument or
interpretation must be presented openly and addressed fairly. You must also, of course, properly
acknowledge all sources and materials you use (please see the syllabus for a note on plagiarism).
The paper should be 7 or 8 numbered pages long, double-spaced and in Word format.
It should include a clear introduction and a conclusion. Pay attention to the internal structure of
your paper; that is, make sure that each paragraph leads logically to the next, and advances your
argument, and that each sentence leads logically to the next within each paragraph. Check the
paper for internal consistency, so that your concluding paragraphs do not contradict your earlier
ones. At the top of the paper, include a title, your name, the date, and the course.
You must fully cite all your sources, in footnotes or endnotes, or in a thorough
bibliography at the end of the paper (you may use page numbers in parentheses when such use is
clear and consistent). Consult a style manual or one of us for proper citation style. Please make
sure you do not list the modern editor of a text as the author (some web sites, like Amazon, do
this, and it is a mistake). You may also use Lauinger Library’s guides to how to organize a
bibliography or works cited page, and to footnotes/endnotes, available at these links:
https://www.library.georgetown.edu/tutorials/research-guides/mla8-guide
https://www.library.georgetown.edu/tutorials/research-guides/turabian-footnote-guide
Long or overly frequent quotes are to be avoided (if absolutely necessary, long quotes
should be indented and single-spaced). Remember that it is necessary to give references not only
for direct quotations, but also when paraphrasing or referring to any section of a source. When
using direct quotations, make sure that they are well integrated in the body of your own
sentences to form full and clear sentences; you may use square brackets to change a word or two
of the quotation in order to integrate it better into your own sentence.
Writing well is as important a part of intelligent communication as having something
intelligent to say. The mechanics (citation, syntax, grammar, spelling, etc.) and style of your
paper are also factors in how we will assess and grade it. Remember therefore to edit and
proofread your paper. If you have any questions about the topics or about any aspect of the
paper, please make sure to ask us for advice.
This paper should build upon the analytical reading and writing that we did in our
discussions and that you practiced in your short papers and writing exercises. A main goal of the
assignment is thus to develop your analytical and critical reading skills in a historical context. By
articulating questions, and by using primary evidence to address those questions, you will hone
your ability to develop a careful and solid argument and to analyze issues with awareness of
their historical context and of the strengths and limits of evidence. Thinking and writing with a
clear sense of context, and with sensitivity to evidence, are, I hope, skills you will find useful in
many future pursuits.
