U.S.

History Research Paper

As one of the centerpieces of the 11th grade U.S. History course, every student must write a
large, in-depth and mostly self-guided research paper. This paper is designed to pull together
your understanding of historical process, and move you forward in your ability to conduct good
research and analyze and think clearly about past events—in an independent and fairly self-
directed manner. You have practiced analyzing primary and secondary sources already this year,
and this assignment is designed to take that to the next level. The specifics for the assignment in
this class are included in this handout. We will be spending several months on this project, but it
will not be the only thing we are doing in this class. Your regular workload will be somewhat
lighter than in the fall, but you should be careful not to lose sight of this project in the mix of
everything you are doing. You should be putting quality time in on it—conducting research,
taking notes, writing, editing—all the way along. We will talk about some of the specific
assignments as we come closer to them, and lead you through the process step by step. The final
paper will be due in May. The whole research paper process is worth roughly 200 points, split
between the preliminary assignments and the final paper. A breakdown of the point values for
each assignment is included below.

The Assignment:

Your task is to write a well-constructed, well-researched, well-thought-out and well-executed

paper on a major topic in American history. Remember, focusing entirely on a developing,
present-day issue is not necessarily going to work for this assignment so keep that in mind when
you’re thinking about potential topics. Your paper should present an argument about the
meaning, significance or importance of a particular event, person, movement or theme based on
significant research and drawing on primary evidence to support your conclusions. You are not
writing a descriptive history paper that depicts what happened or who someone was, but instead
are presenting an argument that supports an interpretation of the meaning and significance of the
event or person or theme. Your paper should not simply explain what happened or summarize
events, but instead should explore questions around why your topic was important, what the
larger meaning of the topic was to United States History or present a novel interpretation of the
causes or impact of your subject. Your argument should be historically based, specific, and use
facts and descriptions to make points and support a well-defined thesis. You should base your
thesis and your argument mainly on primary documents, and use secondary sources as support
for your own conclusions.

Honors students must include a historiographical section that places their argument and
analysis into the larger history of historical study on the subject and shows how their ideas
relate to, differ from, build upon, or better illustrate the work of previous historians who have
written on and studied the subject.

1
Your paper must meet the following guidelines:
- length for regular course is 10-12 pages, 14-16 for Honors
- proper Chicago style format with a title page, header, page numbers, proper margins, 12
point font, footnotes, etc.
- follow all the hallmarks of good historical writing and strong style
- include a bibliography of those sources cited in the paper and a works consulted list of
sources you consulted, but did not directly cite in the paper
- for honors students, include a historiographical section as part of your argument
- use the minimum required sources outlined below (you of course may, and most likely
will, use more)

Secondary Sources:
- 2 book sources (printed or e-book)
- 2 Scholarly Journal articles (originally published in a peer reviewed scholarly journal--
may be accessed via the internet)

Primary sources:
- 6 of any kind (speeches, letters, diary entries, newspaper articles, legislation, legal
cases, poems, visual sources, etc.)

Honors papers must include the above plus:

Secondary Sources:
- 1 additional book source (printed or e-book)
- 2 additional Scholarly Journal articles (originally published in a peer reviewed scholarly
journal--may be accessed via the internet)

Primary sources:
- 2 additional primary sources of your choice

Note: The additional secondary sources for honors are to facilitate the historiography section of
the paper, which will use these sources to help place your own work into spectrum of existing
scholarship on the subject.

Topics:

You may write about virtually anything related to United States History - this is a lot of
range, so you should think about the kinds of things that you can craft a thesis around and
what interests you. Avoid large universal topics (the Constitution, liberty, family, or
immigration for example), comparing multiple large-scale events (Korean War and
Vietnam War) or imagined situations (what if Lincoln hadn’t been assassinated?) which
do not usually make good topics for this type of paper because they are too broad and
lack specificity. You should focus on a particular event (The Nat Turner Rebellion or the
Stonewell Riots) or person (Eugene Debs or Ida B. Wells) or “thing” (Redlining and
Racial Discrimination or the East Village Avant-Garde Art Scene or the Eugenics
Movement) in a particular time period and their importance and then build your thesis

2
 and argument from there. Do not start out with a thesis in mind, but instead decide on a
topic that you want to explore and a question that you want to try to answer. Let your
research and your discoveries guide you to the argument you are making, not the other
way around. Choose the idea you want to explore as specifically as possible to help
focus your research.

The Process:

We are going to be working through each of the steps of research and research paper
writing as a class. Once you have selected your topic, you will then begin doing the
research, learning about your topic, and developing your own argument. After gathering
together your information, you will lay out your argument and organize your ideas,
before the final step of actually writing the paper. Throughout the process you will have
assignments (each graded and counted as a separate grade) to keep you working, directed
and on pace to write a great paper. A general timeline and overview of the whole process
and a list of each assignment are included below

Choosing a Topic: The final page of this handout is a discussion of how to choose a
good topic for this type of research assignment. You should read it as you think about
topics, and follow the guidelines included in it. The Rampolla guide also includes a good
section on this subject on pp 78-81, which you should read. Once you have identified
some possible topics, you will need to do some “pre-research” to make sure that the topic
is doable and will hold your interest. This is outlined on the last page as well. If your
topic doesn’t work, results in a bad paper, or doesn’t hold your interest that,
unfortunately, is going to make this whole process more challenging. This is where you
make sure that those things aren’t going to happen. You should identify 3 possible topics
that you are interested in, and list them in order of preference. These should be three
different topics, not three variations on the same idea. You should write 2-3 sentences for
each briefly explaining why you are interested in that topic. Remember, I do not want a
thesis statement – you need to start with a general idea and go from there.

Research: A research paper starts with research—it is the backbone of the entire
assignment and everything you say in the paper has to be backed up by what you find in
your research. Keep in mind, however, that research is not a linear process. You need to
be constantly going back and forth between reading and taking notes from the sources
you find, writing and outlining and searching for new sources based on the new
information you have gleaned or new directions your paper is taking you. Right up until
turning the paper in you should be refining your search terms, investigating new avenues,
finding new sources and developing your understanding of the material to make the paper
better and more specific and meaningful. You should consult pp. 81-93 in Rampolla for
more information on this phase of the project, and we will talk more about it in class.

Working Bibliography: You should keep a properly formatted Chicago style working
bibliography of the sources you find and consult and update it with each new source you
look at. Part of doing good research and finding good material that guides your thesis is
looking at a lot of stuff that isn’t good and doesn’t work for you. Not every source you

3
find or read is going to make it into your paper, but these sources might inform your
thinking about the material or show you new avenues and directions to take your research
(i.e. identify new search terms). If two journal articles are going to make it into the final
paper, for example, you will probably need to read five or six articles to find the two that
you end up using. Each of these sources should go into your working bibliography (but
only the two you actually cite in the paper go on your works cited list). You will be
adding to and building this document as we go, and turning it in on a number of
occasions. We will be going over the proper format for this assignment as we get closer
to the due dates.

Notecards: Once you begin to read and collect your information, there is a particular
format for note taking (using notecards) that you will be expected to use. You will be
turning in secondary source notecards on several occasions, and we will go over this
process and the proper format as we get closer to those due dates.

Thesis Statement and Outline: As you are learning about your topic, you should start to
think about what you are going to be arguing and how you are going to support that. The
thesis statement and outline are designed to give you a chance to look ahead to what you
are going to say, and how you are going to say it. We will talk more in class about what
makes for a good thesis statement and outline for this type of paper.

Historiography Section: As a requirement of honors, you must include a

historiographical section in your paper. This section will explain and analyze the
arguments of other historians, and show how your perspective is new, different, or
influenced by what they have said. You will be turning in this section ahead as a separate
assignment, and then including a revised version of it in your final paper. We will talk
more about this assignment in class.

Draft and final paper: The final step is to write the paper. You will be turning in three
pages of the paper first, followed by a whole draft, and then the final paper. This is
broken up to allow you to get feedback along the way, edit and make changes, and adjust
what you are doing. Your final paper should be a polished, edited, and revised draft, not
a first effort, and will be graded as such.

4
 Research paper assignments with tentative due dates and tentative point values
(all assignments, point values and dates subject to change)

NOTE: anything marked as due in class must be submitted at the beginning of class when our
section meets. Any other means of submission means due by 3pm.

Monday 1/14 3 Potential Topics 5 points

(share via assignment page)
Friday 1/23 Working bibliography—you should have found 5 points
4 potential sources and created properly
formatted bibliography entries for each
(share via Noodle Tools)
Monday 2/4 First 25 Notecards and associated bibliography 10 points
(share via Noodle Tools)
Tuesday 2/12 Updated Bibliography with at least 4 Secondary 5 points
Sources and 4 Primary Sources
(share via Noodle Tools)
Wednesday 2/27 All 75 Notecards (100 for Honors) and 20 points
associated bibliography (share via Noodle Tools)
Wednesday 3/13 Thesis Statement and preliminary outline 25 points
Honors: outline must include plan for
historiographical section
(share via assignment page)
Friday 3/22 First four pages of paper (first six pages for 25 points
Honors) and updated outline for entire paper
(share via assignment page and hard copy due
in class)
Monday 4/22 Full draft of paper for Peer Editing 5 points
(hard copy due in class)
Regular – must be at least 8 full pages
Honors – must be at least 12 full pages
Monday 5/6 Final paper due 100 points
(shared via turnitin.com)

5
 Choosing a topic
The best topics are those that are narrow enough to make research easy, but broad enough that there is plenty of
material. If you pick a topic that is too narrow, research becomes very difficult. If you pick a topic that is too broad
you will never be able to say everything that needs to be said and wind up with a vague and not very good paper. You
also want to make sure your topic is interesting to you. There is nothing worse then becoming bored with a topic
halfway through the process, and not be able to change topics (which you won’t be!). The key to prevent that from
happening is to put in the time and effort now to make sure you have a topic that is both interesting and appropriate for
the assignment. In order to pick a topic that meets these requirements, you need to do some pre-research to narrow
down your interests and determine what will be an interesting and feasible topic for the assignment.

A good place to start is your class books. They are a great place to look for topics that catch your interest. You
should flip through the books and read the chapter headings, section headings, bullet points at the end, and sections
that we haven’t covered yet. See what grabs your attention, and read those sections. Remember, this isn’t something
you want to dash off quickly with little thought. You are going to be living with this topic for the rest of the year

Grab a book from of the history office or from the library and flip though it-- these can be a great place to look for
topics too, and I encourage you to use them. If your family has any books on American history topics, these can be an
excellent place to look for a topic as well. Check out the library, we have lots of great history texts in our library and
the public libraries also have lots of good books that are a great place to look for topics. See what catches your eye,
that’s probably something you will be interested in studying. Ask the people around you, your teachers, your friends,
your family and other people at school for suggestions or ideas. If there is something that one of your friends or
family is really interested in, then you might be interested in it too.

Finally, follow up on the things that catch your eye—sometimes called pre-research. Do a quick search on the
internet, and read a little bit on your topic. Pull a book out of the school library and read about your topic. All of the
American history reference books are on the shelf between the librarians offices in our library, and many of these are
great places to do this pre-research. Check out an encyclopedia article on the subject. Make sure that the substance of
the topic interests you as well once you get beneath the cover. Sometimes topics that caught your eye at first look are
quite boring when you get beneath the surface.

You should identify 3 possible topics that you are interested in, and list them in order of preference to turn in. These
should be three different topics, not three variations on the same idea and you must identify three distinct possible
topics. I will look over your topics, and return them to you with suggestions or comments—and give you the go ahead
to begin researching the one that is the best. You may not get your first choice, but you will get one of the three you
put down on the sheet if it is decent. Most people will have a topic identified at this point, but some people will need
to meet with me or do more work to choose a topic.