U.S.

HISTORY – PAPER GUIDELINES

SPRING 2010

Your Topics Paper is a significant portion of your grade that you have 14 weeks to
complete. The goal of the paper is to give you an opportunity to identify the arguments
of historians, compare their views to general knowledge of the issue and justify your
choice of the winner of this debate. Students choosing to write a paper should focus on
determining a winner of the debate issue of their choice found in the secondary sources
found in Taking Sides: Clashing Views in United States History. The professor would prefer that
your interests guide the focus of the paper. The paper must be at least 1000 words. Your
last name, first name, class (HST115.xx), and date should appear on the TOP LEFT, a
centered title on the first page, and page numbers should appear on the bottom right.
Your paper must be typed, double spaced, Times New Roman (or other TrueType) font,
and include Chicago Note Style citations and a bibliography, an example of which you
find below. Standard margins (1” top and bottom, 1.25” right and left) will be
appreciated.

Example of how the top of the first page should look:

Hernandez, Hugo
HST115.01
01/01/10
YES WE CAN! KNOWING THE TRUTH ABOUT THE PAST

Introduction…
Body Paragraphs…
Conclusion…

Chicago Note Style Citation examples:

Chapter or other part of a book

N: 5. Andrew Wiese, “‘The House I Live In’: Race, Class, and African American Suburban
Dreams in the Postwar United States,” in The New Suburban History, ed. Kevin M.
Kruse and Thomas J. Sugrue (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 101–2.
B: Wiese, Andrew. “‘The House I Live In’: Race, Class, and African American Suburban
Dreams in the Postwar United States.” In The New Suburban History, edited by
Kevin M. Kruse and Thomas J. Sugrue, 99–119. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2006.

For further information, a quick-guide to the Chicago Manual of Style can be found here:
http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html

If you have any questions please contact the Professor Hernandez as soon as you have
them and he will reply as promptly as possible.

Any drafts you would like me to review, I will gladly look over until the WEEKEND
BEFORE they are due in class.