Historiographical Essay Assignment #1 (Due Monday June 12):
Choose one of the historiographical essays and read it carefully. Then provide an outline of the historiographical development of that topic. This outline should be in the form of an annotated bibliography (see the example of the “Salem Witchcraft” outline). You will submit two copies of your outline of the essay, one for the professor, and the other for another student (your partner) to critique. – 10% of course grade.

Historiographical Essay Assignment #2 (Due Wednesday June 14):
Carefully read your partner’s provided outline and your partner’s assigned historiographical essay. Your assignment will be to provide a constructive critique of your partner’s outline. Are there key points which your partner’s outline missed or got wrong? Are there editing errors in the outline? This critique should be both editorial corrections to your partner's outline as well as a WRITTEN discussion of weaknesses and strengths in your partner's submission. Be sure to list both your own name as author of the critique as well as the name (and article information) of your partner's project. You will submit two copies of your critique (one for the professor, one for your partner, the author of the original outline). – 10% of course grade.

Historiographical Essay Assignment #3 (Due Monday June 19):
Using your partner’s and the professor's critique of your outline, undertake revisions. Then, using J-STOR, Project MUSE, America: History and Life and/or Historical Abstracts, Academic Search Premiere, and Worldcat, review what has been written about your topic since the appearance of your original historiographical essay. What are the new historiographical twists and turns which appear in these newer works? Prepare an updated annotated bibliography with your revisions of Assignment #1 and the newly-identified materials. Submit this new annotated bibliography as well as your original Assignment #1 to the professor. – 15% of course grade.

Historiographical Essay Assignment #4 (Due Thursday June 22):
Revise your annotated bibliography. Submit a copy of this new outline to the professor, and make 35 copies to be circulated to the members of the class. – 5% of course grade.

Historiographical Essay Assignment #5 (Due Monday June 26):
Review the outlines of historiographies which have been provided by students in the course. Can you recognize any general historiographical trends from the ways that historians have worked on these various topics? Identify, describe, and document these trends. What do they indicate about the changing ways that historians have looked at history? Document your answer in a 500-750 word formal essay. – 20% of course grade.

Additional materials you may find helpful in preparing your papers:

"Some Reflections on How to Write an Essay"

http://scholar.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/essay.html

This is a basic overview of ways to write better essays, whether for History classes or any other class.

"On Writing a Research Essay"

http://scholar.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/researchessay.html

This is a more-advanced guide to writing a research-based essay.

"A Starting Point Guide to Research for History Students"

http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/research.html

This is a guide to how to do research using the library resources at CSI as well as the WWW.

The CSI Library's "Alphabetical List of Databases"

http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/eresource/alphalist.php

This will be your starting point for most research at the CSI Library. Many of these resources are available from off-campus via the proxy login number on the back of your CSI ID. The databases which will be most useful for this project are:

Academic Search Premier

ARTICLES from the "Directory of Open Access Journals"

JSTOR

Project Muse

WORLDCAT

In most cases, you will get the most useful results by selecting "Full Text" in the search.

"How to Cite, Bibliography: Using the Chicago Manual of Style"

http://scholar.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/bibliography.html

This will walk you through how to format your bibliography in the proper style.

"How to Cite, Using Footnotes: Using the Chicago Manual of Style"

http://scholar.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/footnote.html

This will walk you through how to format footnotes in the proper style.