You are required to write one 6 to 8 page essay that analyzes a “theme” from Western Civilization over time. More specifically, this involves selecting a topic that is related to this class, developing a thesis statement that ponders how and in what way/s your subject matter affected Western Civilization, and then constructing a narrative that argues your thesis. You should identify three or four questions that you will answer in each time period you cover in your paper.  The period of time under consideration is roughly 4000 BCE to 1600 CE.You must use at least 3 primary source documents and 4 secondary sources in your research (the definitions will be discussed in class). You may NOT use your text book or lecture notes as source material in your paper. You may use journal articles or books normally found in printed form, but obtained off of websites, but you may not use “history” related websites, such as History.com, TheBible.com, Wikipedia, etc., as sources. Again, we will discuss more about this in class.

The font must be 12 point, Times New Roman and must have 1 inch margins on all four sides (top, bottom, right, left) and be double spaced. You must use the Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) aka, the “Turabian” style of citation for your paper. More specifically, you must use footnotes not endnotes, and you may not use the Author-Date style of citation (ie. parenthetical form) or the MLA style of citation.

The essay must have a cover page stating your name, date, class, professor (my name), and title of your paper. The cover page is NOT numbered and does NOT count toward the 6-8 pages. While the first page of your actual text does count toward the 6-8 pages, it is NOT numbered either. The first numbered page is page 2. You must have a bibliography (not a “Works Cited” page) identifying the sources you used and formatted in the CMS style discussed above; it, too, does not count toward the 6-8 page requirement. All photos you use in your paper, whether imbedded within the text or at the end of the document, must be related to and referenced in the text of your paper and not included as “filler.”

Category: Essays