204 Research project

What was missing?

"It is the historian who has decided for his own reasons that Caesar's crossing of that petty stream, the Rubicon, is a fact of history, whereas the crossing of the Rubicon by millions of other people before or since interests nobody at all. The fact that you arrived in this building half an hour ago on foot, or on a bicycle, or in a car, is just as much a fact about the past as the fact that Caesar crossed the Rubicon. But it will probably be ignored by historians. Professor Talcott Parsons once called science "a selective system of cognitive orientation to reality." ... The historian is necessarily selective. The belief in a hardcore of historical facts existing objectively and independently of the interpretation of the Historian is a Preposterous fallacy."

--Edward Hallett Carr, What is History?

Like the historians who write books, history teachers constantly struggle to decide which events and facts to include and which to exclude from their syllabi. Your final assignment for the term is to write a paper based on original research about something related to Ancient Roman history that we have not studied this term. The essay should explain the topic and its historical significance and make the case that it should be included in the course in the future. Here are some topic ideas:

FOCUS: Research papers are usually more narrowly focused than the other papers you do for a class, which are designed to cover as much of content of the units you have just studied as possible. To make a compelling case that your topic is worth including in the course, you will need to tell me enough about so that I understand its significance. For example, the emperor Justianian reigned for 40 years. If you try to cover every thing that happened in that time, you will never be able to provide enough on any one thing to convincingly explain its importance. Better to discuss the one most significant thing about his reign.

Important elements:

• • Length: 500-750 words

  • Research: The paper should be derived mostly from library sources. Consult at least five different sources. At least one should be a reference book from the shelves, one a reference source from the library's e-resources, and one a book from "the stacks" (floor 2 and above). You should also use one internet source, but be careful--make sure it is a reliable source. See these guidelines on using internet sources. Make sure you use information from a variety of sources, not just one.

  • Quotations: Please read my Primary v. Secondary sources page and paragraph 4a of the Paper-Writing Guide. Do not over-quote secondary sources. Use the facts, but write your own paper. I do not want to read a paper that is essentially a stringing together of a series of quotes by other historians. There is one historian whose writing I'm interested in: YOU. BTW, any quotations three lines or more needs to be set off as a block of text--indented and single spaced. But I am not a fan of papers with a lot of block quotes, especially if they come from secondary sources.

  • Citation: Chicago/Turabian style footnotes AND bibliography. See the documents attached to the bottom of this page for examples of how to write citations for different kinds of sources and to see what a bibliography looks like. Note that the formatting for footnotes and bibliography are different in Chicago style.

  • The essay should include a sufficient description of the topic that includes relevant dates and concrete and relevant factual information. Make sure the historical context of the topic is clear. Is the topic relevant to the rise of Rome? Republican Rome? The Pax Romana? The decline of the empire?

  • The facts you chose should support the argument you are making about why this topic is significant and deserves to be included in the course.

  • Making a strong argument will be easier if you have some kind of notion about why it's valuable to study history.