History Papers

History is not a description of facts, but rather an analysis of them. Facts are given meaning by the way a historian interprets them. Each history paper, then, is an interpretation of how one historian views the facts. Consequently, history papers are summaries of neither the facts nor the contents of a primary document. A summary of the book you have read, no matter how well done, is unacceptable for this course.

Each of your papers will treat a primary source as raw historical data. To organize your paper in the form of an argument, rather than select a topic, I want you to choose a question to answer. So instead of writing about warfare in Sun tzu’s Art of War, I want you to answer the question of what did Sun tzu envision as the best ways of winning a war? Instead of writing about salvation in the Dhammapada, I want you to answer the question of by what means can one gain salvation in the Dhammapada? The rest of your paper then will be organized around answering the question you pose. Posing a question that your paper will answer will not only make your paper into an argument, it will also sharpen your focus on the subject and make your paper more apt to get into details.

Note that your paper should start off with a descriptive title that will suggest to the reader the issue your paper will illuminate. Do not give me a paper entitled The Art of War or the Dhammapada. Instead give me a title such as The Use of Spies in the Art of War, Offensive strategy in Ancient China, The Path to Salvation according to the Dhammapada, or The Buddhist Teachings on Man’s Ignorance.

Your first paragraph should contain the question you are asking as well as your hypothesis. Your hypothesis is your answer to the question you have posed. For example, your hypothesis might be “Sun tzu believed that the key to successful warfare was deception.” Or, it might be that “the author of the Dhammapada thought that salvation rested in seeing things as they really are.”

Your next several paragraphs will be devoted to showing that your hypothesis is correct. The best and only way to do this is to quote copiously from the text you are using. Each paragraph should be dedicated to one point that substantiates your hypothesis. Each paragraph should start with a topic sentence that sums up the point that this paragraph will make. For example, the topic sentence might be “Sun Tzu thought that one of the best ways to defeat the enemy was through using spies in a variety of ways to confuse the enemy.” After this sentence, you should furnish several statements from the text in which Sun tzu does indeed say this. Remember include the page number after each quotation. Each evidence paragraph should at least have two quotations. Your next paragraph might start off with the statement “Another way to deceive the enemy is through the formations in which a general deploys his troops.” And so on.

Your conclusion should end by answering the "so what" question, namely, why should we care about the information that you are providing us? You have to be able to tell your reader what light your paper sheds on the society, group, or cultural phenomenon that you are studying. In other words, why should we care about the strategies found in the Sun tzu? What does it tell us about ancient China? Why should we care about the Dhammapada’s view of salvation? What does it tell us about the beliefs and assumptions of Buddhism and classical India?

Finally, remember that these papers are designed to shed light on the ideas and institutions of the past, which is what historians do. These papers are not editorial pieces in which you express your opinion about an issue. Nor are these papers meant to shed light on our own society or lives. Do not compare aspects of these past societies with those of our own. Papers that do so end up telling us more about the present than the past.

Your papers and presentations will be graded on the following basis:

A = A well written analysis with copious evidence. The argument must be convincing.

B = An adequately written analysis with a substantial amount of textual evidence. The argument must be well conceived, if not convincing.

C = An analysis with some substantiating evidence, but whose argument is seriously flawed or trite.

D = A summary that is illustrated by some textual evidence, i.e., a paper which has no argument.

F = A summary with no supporting textual evidence.