RESEARCH PAPER Due: 12/3 For the research paper, you must pick a historical topic that took place some time before the year XXXXXXXXXXIt would be best if you pick a topic that took place before the...

Research paper on Black Death


RESEARCH PAPER Due: 12/3 For the research paper, you must pick a historical topic that took place some time before the year 1600. It would be best if you pick a topic that took place before the year 1500, but if your topic continues a little bit later, that’s fine. Your goal is to understand and explain that topic to the best of your ability. You should write no fewer than 5 pages and no more than 7 pages, typed, double-spaced, with normal margins and a normal font size (preferably 12 pt.). I expect you to include a bibliography/works cited page—this does not factor into your page count. You must include at least 1 PRIMARY SOURCE and at least 3 SECONDARY SOURCES in your research. A primary source is a document created during the time period by someone who was there. A secondary source is anything written on the subject after that time, such as a scholarly article or a textbook. Try to avoid using our class textbook as a source, since it does not provide much detailed information. Secondary sources must be reliable. Scholarly articles can be accessed through the BC Library website—click the “Find an Article” tab on the sidebar and choose any of the databases to search through. EBSCO and JSTOR are best for historical articles. Anything found there is reliable and peer-reviewed. A good way to check if a book is reliable is to look through the back to see if there is a bibliography. Books without bibliographies cannot be easily fact-checked and should be used with caution. AVOID WIKIPEDIA. Wikipedia is great for giving you the gist of a topic and providing some more sources to research with, but you cannot use it as a source for your paper. Anybody can edit Wikipedia, meaning that you should take all the information you read there with a grain of salt and fact-check everything before you trust it. Be similarly careful with anything else you find on the Internet. You must cite all your sources as you use them, every single time you use them. All paraphrasing and quoting counts as using a source and must be cited. You can cite your sources with whatever citation style you are most familiar with (MLA, APA, Chicago, etc.) but YOU MUST ALWAYS CITE YOUR SOURCES. If you fail to cite your sources, even if you are not quoting something word-for-word, it counts as plagiarism and I will report you. Research papers are a good time to be specific. Use examples, list statistics, add in hard facts, etc. In summaries it’s okay to be vague, but for a research paper you are expected to go into more detail on your topic than I have asked for in your other assignments. You should have an introduction and a conclusion, but how you structure your paper beyond that is up to you.