RATIONALE: This term paper provides an opportunity for the student to examine, in depth, one specific event, topic, or person in History during the time period and scope covered by the history course in which you are enrolled. It will enable you to research an area of interest to you, define a specific subarea of particular interest for further research, and then present the results in a well-written term paper.
Topic I Chose:
The establishment of Fort St. Louis, the French’s attempt to colonize the gulf coast.
FORT ST. LOUIS SITE
This site commemorates the first French attempt to colonize the gulf coast, which created special Spanish interest in Texas. In 1685, La Salle, intending to plant a colony near the mouth of the Mississippi, led 400 colonists and soldiers instead into present Texas, where he founded Fort St. Louis.
FORMAT: The report is produced on a standard software program like MS WORD
2. The paper will be approximately 1750 to 2000 words long. This translates into seven or eight double-spaced, typewritten or word-processed pages.
3. The term paper must include at least THREE PRIMARY sources and FOUR SECONDARY sources. All of these sources can be online resources. A primary source is something written by an individual who lived at the time and took part in the event that he or she is describing. Primary sources usually take the form of letters, diaries, journals, newspapers, government documents, and autobiographies. Some primary sources like original documents may be published, even online. They still count as primary. IT DOES NOT COUNT AS ONE OF YOUR PRIMARY SOURCES if you take a source listed in one of your secondary sources. Secondary sources are books and articles written at a later time, usually by historians who were not participants in the event. You may not include an encyclopedia as one of your sources. No term paper will be accepted unless it contains the requisite number of primary and secondary sources. Make sure to contact me if you have any questions about a source.
5. Footnotes are required in the term paper. The only form for footnotes for a history report is found in Kate Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations.
Several online guides will help you with this process.
NOTE: No other form of footnotes (MLA) will be accepted for credit. Footnotes are mandatory for both direct quotations AND information you use from other sources.
6. An ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY (see the SAMPLE at bottom of this page) is also required. The form can be found in Kate Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations. The purpose of annotating your bibliography is to explain not only the contents of the source but also its value to you in preparing the paper.
7. FORMAT: The term paper must be produced on a standard computer software program, preferrably Microsoft WORD, doubled-spaced in a standard font like Times Roman,
CHECKLIST: (answer each question before submitting the paper)
1. Does my paper have THREE PRIMARY sources and FOUR SECONDARY sources? If not, it will be NOT ACCEPTED.
2. Does my paper have an ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY? If not, it will be NOT ACCEPTED.
READ THIS AGAIN: The report must have an ANNOTATED Bibliography. See Turabian for example of Annotated Bibliography.
Refer to the instructions in the Blackboard A-Level Research Paper TAB.
USE TURABIAN FOOTNOTES. NOT MLA. Turabian footnotes use the superscript.1 NOT the parenthetical style (Jones 45).
SAMPLE FOOTNOTES
In 1629, Father Salas is believed to have followed the same route from Santa Fe through Lubbock on his way to the San Angelo area, where he established a mission, and then returned via Lubbock. Salas was followed in the 1650s by Captains Martin and Castillo and others on their way to the San Angelo area in search of freshwater pearls, which Father Salas reported to have found in that area.1 Troops from San Antonio used the route through the Lubbock area on their way to Santa Fe as late as 1808 when Captain Francisco Amangual came through with three companies of troops. 2 The latter expeditions, however, never exceeded the knowledge recorded in the earlier ones by Martin and Castillo. 3
ENDNOTES
1 Lawrence L. Graves, ed., A History of Lubbock (Lubbock: West Texas Museum Association, 1959), 23-25.
2 Carlos E. Castañeda, Our Catholic Heritage in Texas, 1519-1936, vol. 2, The Mission Era: The Winning of Texas, 1693-1731 (Austin: von Boeckmann-Jones Company, 1936), 33, 282.
3 Graves, Lubbock, 28.
NOTICE: Footnote #3 is the same source as Footnote #1, but it is numbered #3 because it is the third footnote in sequence. All footnote numbers continue in sequence, 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. No footnote number is ever repeated, even if it refers to the same book as an earlier footnote. It still takes the next number in sequence, not the same number it had the first time you cited that book.
Advice on Research:
Make an effort to use hard-copy books as much as online sources for research on your paper. It’s easy to use the internet, but the information online is often generic and superficial. A college-level history project like this is intended to introduce you to special viewpoints or insight on an issue. A book may be harder to find in a have pursued otherwise. Use your college course experience expand your horizons.
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY (This is a SAMPLE. It is not your topic or your books.)
Brands, H.W. American Colossus: The Triumph of Capitalism 1865-1900.
New York: Doubleday, 40-64. 2010..
I used this source for its focus on capitalism and the effects it had on building the railroads and the larger than life individuals involved.
Theodore Roosevelt: Last Romantic (New York, NY: BasicBooks, 1997.)
Gordon, Sarah H. Passage to Union; How the Railroads Transformed American Life, 1829-1929. Chicago:
Ivan R. Dee, 1997.
I used this source for it focused on the more human aspect of the building of the railroads and the effects it had on the common man, not the entrepreneurs.
Hawthorne, Nathanial. “The Celestial Railroad.” The Library Network. http://www.online-
literature.com/poe/127/ (accessed May 7, 2012)
I used this source as it was written by a man whom was living at the time the railroads where built, so the imagery and logic for the description would be from that time period, not an interpretation of events by someone whom had not actually experienced it.
“In Memoriam, Theodore D. Judah, Died November 2, 1863.” CPRR.
http://cprr.org/Museum/Ephemera/Judah Memoriam BCC.html (accessed May 7, 2012).
I used this source for it showed the documents from that era of railroad building, and the personal history of a man directly involved with facilitating the building of the transcontinental railroad.
Miner, Craig. A Most Magnificent Machine: America Adopts the Railroad, 1825-1862. 1st. Lawrence:
University Press of Kansas., 2010.
I used this source for its focus on Ava Whitney and the time period prior to the building of the transcontinental railroad and the civil war to help provide a more thorough background of events leading up to the building of the railroad.
