Pre-writing assignments: Renaissance and Reformation History
I.
Primary source quiz (see handout) [January 20]
II.
Quotation quiz (see handout) [January 20]
III.
Database Assignment (see handout) [February 3]
IV.
Annotated Preliminary bibliography (at least 10 sources) [February 24]
A.
List your primary sources for your topic (that is, sources written close to the time of what you are studying)
for this topic. Ideally about a third of your sources (at least three or four) will be primary sources.
B.
List your secondary sources (late 20th-century or early 21st-century books or articles). At least half of your
secondary sources should be journal articles (such as you found in the Database assignment) or works which look
into the topic in similar detail and with similar documentation of sources.
C.
Try to avoid using tertiary (third-hand sources) such as textbooks and reference works. If you feel the need
to do so, note that these should be IN ADDITION to your 10 primary and secondary sources.
D.
For each source in your Annotated Bibliography briefly indicate
1.
what the source will add to your understanding of the topic
2.
what biases or weaknesses might make it difficult to evaluate.
3.
For example, "William Chester Jordan writes on the famines of the early fourteenth century (that is,
before the Black Death). His research indicates that the years from 1310 through 1330 saw remarkably
severe crises in food production."
V.
Thesis statement [March 24]
A.
State the topic for your final paper. Be sure to be specific as to (a) time, (b) place, (c) general topic. (For
example, "The effects of the Black Death on population in western Europe in the fourteenth century.")
B.
What scholarly problem surrounds the topic? That is, what do modern scholars studying this topic disagree
about among themselves? (For example, "Scholars disagree about how important the Black Death was in long-term
population loss.")
C.
Give at least two views reached by modern scholars (secondary sources) on this issue. (For example, "At
one time, historians wrote as if the Black Death was solely responsible for European population decline in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. More recently, some historians have revised this view to suggest that European
population was already in crisis before the Black Death. They note that the population had been declining for nearly
a century before the Black Death, and that the population rebounded fairly quickly immediately after the first
outbreak in 1348, though the long-term downward trend continued.)
D.
Based on the debate in B-C, what question do you hope to answer about the topic? (For example, "What
was the role of the Black Death in population decline between the early 1300s and late 1400s?")
E.
Sum up your answer to this question in one complete sentence. (For example, "Although the Black Death
was not the only crisis affecting the European population, its initial severity and regular recurrences (every couple
of decades) made it a significant contributing factor to overall population decline in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries.")
VI.
Outline [March 29]
A.
Write a formal outline of your paper (this sheet is an example of what it would look like).
B.
Introduction: Use your introduction to indicate what you will include in your paper.
1.
Thesis statement
2.
Sources of information (not a relisting of your bibliography but a summary of the types of evidence
you will use)
3.
Complications in proving the thesis (for example, other possible interpretations of the evidence,
lack of evidence on key points, etc.)
C.
Subtopics. (Provide an outline number for each subtopic; for most papers you will need at least 3 or 4
subtopics, in some cases several more. Plan on writing at least one paragraph of about a half page on every major
heading and at least one sentence for every subheading).
1.
Identification of subtopic
2.
Indication of how it relates to your thesis statement and proof of your paper
3.
Examples to support your argument for each subtopic (a capital letter for each major group of
examples, with specific examples indicated by Arabic numbers)
D.
4.
Debates about or qualifications of your conclusion (another capital letter heading)
5.
Conclusion about the subtopic (the final capital letter division)
Indicate what you will conclude (your final Roman number heading).
1.
Reconsideration of your thesis (not a word-for-word restatement but a reminder to your reader of
what you promised to prove)
VII.
2.
Recapitulation of major points (briefly)
3.
Overall conclusion
Sample paragraphs [March 31]
A.
First paragraph (should include thesis statement)
B.
Evidentiary paragraph (should give evidence, including citations, for one argument necessary to support
the thesis)