Final Paper: HIST 291 (Spring 2013)
Due Thursday, May 16, 4:00 PM
Overview
Your final paper is designed to allow you to bring together what we have been studying over the course of the semester in an original analysis of how a single issue (e.g., immigration, the military in Latin America, etc.) or specific event (e.g., elections in Mexico, the Mariel boat exodus, etc.) has been understood (“imagined”) in the United States. The issue or event that you pick must be about Latin America and/or Latin@s in the United States and must have received a fair amount of coverage by media or other sources in the United States. Your analysis will be shaped by the secondary (analytic and historical background) sources you have read, and will be built on the evidence drawn from primary source materials.
Your papers can be based on contemporary events (the immigration debate, the “war on drugs,” the portrayal of Brazil as a rising power, the death of Hugo Chavez, Latinos/as in the context of the 2012 elections, Chicano/a Studies in Arizona, etc.) or past events for which you can get appropriate documentation (i.e., documentation that records how these events were presented and understood in the United States).
Again, and to be clear: This is not a standard history paper (‘what happened and why’), but rather a paper which investigates how Latin America comes to be understood in the United States.
To tackle this project well, you will need to examine both the historical context which shapes/shaped the issue you are examining as well as the interpretative frames through which (US) Americans have come to understand these events. For example, if you are examining the current immigration debate, you will need to provide a brief history of the debate in its current state, and then suggest how current understandings are shaped by previous images, stereotypes, metaphors, representations.
Here are some steps that you will want to go through in order to write a successful paper:
1. Select a topic: pick an issue or event that you want to examine. Think about why you are interested in it, why you are curious about it.
2. Is the topic “do-able”? You need to frame a topic in a way that you can approach it in the given amount of time you will have for this project. If you want to look at how issues of immigration have been understood in the United States from 1898 to the present, your topic is too big.
3. Figure out what sources you will use and determine if they are available. This paper requires that you do an original analysis based on primary sources (newspapers, radio, TV, blogs, websites, magazines, letters to the editor, etc.). There is no absolute minimum number of sources that I recommend, although fewer than 5 would be questionable. What are your primary sources? How will you get them?
4. Do you have enough evidence through your primary sources to sustain your argument? You can use any kind of documentation that contains the information you need to provide evidence for your argument, from textbooks, to news and TV reports, to films, videos or still photography, to letters to the editor, blogs, social networking sites, etc. The key point in using evidence is to make sure that it is representative and not anomalous. In other words, you can’t cite one letter to the editor which appeared in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and argue that this proves that everyone thinks this way about the topic.
5. Are the sources you use the proper ones to support your argument For example, if you argue that the mainstream media uses a particular set of metaphors when talking about Cuban exiles in the United States and a different set when talking about Haitian immigrants, and your only source is some nutcase website you have come upon, you won’t be able to sustain your argument.
6. When writing the paper, make sure that you apply the analytic and methodological tools that we have used (and made reference to) over the course of the semester. In that regard, it’s not enough just to say that a particular source uses metaphors to represent Latin America. You’ll need to analyze the importance of the metaphors used, how they are applied, etc. This is a paper in which the analysis will address the representational material that you are finding in the primary sources.
Writing the Paper
Your papers should include the following sections:
Sources:
Your papers must use footnote citations (bottom of the page) in the proper format. You will find instructions on this at: http://www.oberlin.edu/faculty/svolk/citation.htm. You do NOT have to provide a bibliography.
Paper Format:
Papers should be 12-15 pages in length, double-spaced with 1” margins and 12 pt font size.
All papers must include a signed honor code and are due no later than Thursday, May 16, at 4:00 PM. There will be NO extensions on this paper granted unless you take an incomplete in the course. Papers which are not turned in by the above time will not be graded.
Questions? See me or send me an email.
Overview
Your final paper is designed to allow you to bring together what we have been studying over the course of the semester in an original analysis of how a single issue (e.g., immigration, the military in Latin America, etc.) or specific event (e.g., elections in Mexico, the Mariel boat exodus, etc.) has been understood (“imagined”) in the United States. The issue or event that you pick must be about Latin America and/or Latin@s in the United States and must have received a fair amount of coverage by media or other sources in the United States. Your analysis will be shaped by the secondary (analytic and historical background) sources you have read, and will be built on the evidence drawn from primary source materials.
Your papers can be based on contemporary events (the immigration debate, the “war on drugs,” the portrayal of Brazil as a rising power, the death of Hugo Chavez, Latinos/as in the context of the 2012 elections, Chicano/a Studies in Arizona, etc.) or past events for which you can get appropriate documentation (i.e., documentation that records how these events were presented and understood in the United States).
Again, and to be clear: This is not a standard history paper (‘what happened and why’), but rather a paper which investigates how Latin America comes to be understood in the United States.
To tackle this project well, you will need to examine both the historical context which shapes/shaped the issue you are examining as well as the interpretative frames through which (US) Americans have come to understand these events. For example, if you are examining the current immigration debate, you will need to provide a brief history of the debate in its current state, and then suggest how current understandings are shaped by previous images, stereotypes, metaphors, representations.
Here are some steps that you will want to go through in order to write a successful paper:
1. Select a topic: pick an issue or event that you want to examine. Think about why you are interested in it, why you are curious about it.
2. Is the topic “do-able”? You need to frame a topic in a way that you can approach it in the given amount of time you will have for this project. If you want to look at how issues of immigration have been understood in the United States from 1898 to the present, your topic is too big.
3. Figure out what sources you will use and determine if they are available. This paper requires that you do an original analysis based on primary sources (newspapers, radio, TV, blogs, websites, magazines, letters to the editor, etc.). There is no absolute minimum number of sources that I recommend, although fewer than 5 would be questionable. What are your primary sources? How will you get them?
4. Do you have enough evidence through your primary sources to sustain your argument? You can use any kind of documentation that contains the information you need to provide evidence for your argument, from textbooks, to news and TV reports, to films, videos or still photography, to letters to the editor, blogs, social networking sites, etc. The key point in using evidence is to make sure that it is representative and not anomalous. In other words, you can’t cite one letter to the editor which appeared in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and argue that this proves that everyone thinks this way about the topic.
5. Are the sources you use the proper ones to support your argument For example, if you argue that the mainstream media uses a particular set of metaphors when talking about Cuban exiles in the United States and a different set when talking about Haitian immigrants, and your only source is some nutcase website you have come upon, you won’t be able to sustain your argument.
6. When writing the paper, make sure that you apply the analytic and methodological tools that we have used (and made reference to) over the course of the semester. In that regard, it’s not enough just to say that a particular source uses metaphors to represent Latin America. You’ll need to analyze the importance of the metaphors used, how they are applied, etc. This is a paper in which the analysis will address the representational material that you are finding in the primary sources.
Writing the Paper
Your papers should include the following sections:
- An introductory paragraph in which you set out your topic and thesis (“In this paper, I will examine the debate around immigration that took place following the mass marches of 2006 and argue that…[thesis here].) Your introduction should also give a rapid overview of your paper: “After an introductory paragraph, I will turn to a discussion of the use of semiotic analysis when examining photographic images, …”
- Sources used (and why)
- Methodology and analytic framework: A discussion of how you approach your sources; what theoretical or methodological understandings guide your work; etc.
- Presentation of the evidence (i.e., your main narrative)
- Conclusions and any thoughts about future directions of this research
Sources:
Your papers must use footnote citations (bottom of the page) in the proper format. You will find instructions on this at: http://www.oberlin.edu/faculty/svolk/citation.htm. You do NOT have to provide a bibliography.
Paper Format:
Papers should be 12-15 pages in length, double-spaced with 1” margins and 12 pt font size.
All papers must include a signed honor code and are due no later than Thursday, May 16, at 4:00 PM. There will be NO extensions on this paper granted unless you take an incomplete in the course. Papers which are not turned in by the above time will not be graded.
Questions? See me or send me an email.