Write a formal research paper on your already-chosen natural disaster or epidemic topic using ONE SCHOLARLY BOOK and ONE PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLE. This is not a summary paper, so it should not simply narrate what happened during your disaster/ epidemic. Instead, it needs to provide your analysis of it. Choose ONE of these to achieve this: OPTION 1 select specific aspects of the disaster/epidemic for in depth focus and explain what your research into these aspects reveals about several course themes and/or course Questions. (Ex. Preparation and recovery efforts for Hurricane Camille and how they relate to race and class ; biological and human influences on the spread of the Influenza Epidemic of 1918) This works best if both your book and article cover some similar aspects of the disaster/epidemic OPTION 2 Compare and contrast how your book and article discuss the same disaster/epidemic with an emphasis on contrasts and with an emphasis on how similarities and differences connect to several course themes and/or course questions (Ex. Compare a book that focuses on early-twentieth-century polio with 1940s-50s polio ; compare/contrast a book on recovery and politics after the Chicago Fire
with an article that focuses on causes and ethnicity). This works best if your article and book are quite different. Organization: Your paper needs to start with an introductory paragraph that clearly states your thesis (the main argument that you are making throughout the paper). Your paper needs to end with a conclusion that
synthesizes the paper’s main points. For papers of this length, good introductions and conclusions are approximately ⅓ to ½ a page each. The rest of the paper will consist of main-body paragraphs, all anchored by strong topic sentences, that contain specific information about your disaster and that help to support your thesis. Length and Format: 5-5.5 full pages of text, plus additional pages for a works-cited list (see below) and plus a
title page and works cited list; 12-pt. Times New Roman; black ink; all 1-inch margins; double-spaced. Sources: The paper must be drawn from and make substantive
use of both one book and one article. For purposes of this paper, 2 (or more) chapters means substantive, as does information from various parts of the article. If one of the books and the article submitted in your bibliography were appropriate for scholarly research, use those. If, according to comments on your bibliography, they were not appropriate you will need to use different sources. You are not allowed—without written consent and without showing me your new sources—to radically change your topic. I reserve the right to not grade papers that are turned in on a completely different or
unapproved topic and/or that do not fit assignment specifications. Do not use primary sources in this paper. Citations: All papers must include a correctly formatted Works Cited list AND appropriate Chicago Manual of Style endnotes OR MLA in-text citations for all direct quotes (marked by quotations marks) and for all paraphrases (times when you use your own words to express ideas you learned from another source). Note: changing a few words around in a sentence does not mean you are paraphrasing/using your own words. All citations must have correct page numbers showing exactly where the information or
quote comes from.