expand and rewrite an essay

profilelishabaiyi
20Paper.ppt
Home>History homework help>Ancient history homework help>expand and rewrite an essay

About Your Paper and Paper Outline

Choose your own paper topic

  • You are obligated to choose the topic for your own paper

  • For the first paper you may choose anything related to China’s domestic politics from 1949 to 1976; for the second, since 1976

  • Including those issues not covered by lectures or reading assignments

Discuss your choice with the instructor

  • I urge you to discuss your idea/question/topic/paper with me

  • My office hours: Thursday 2:30-4:30 pm, or by appointment

  • Email communication is also encouraged

  • By Oct 2 (Monday) 3:00 pm, hand in your paper outline via email (as a WORD document attached)

Paper Outline as an Assignment

  • Total 1 page, including bibliography

  • Your paper topic, and why this topic
  • Your research question (with a question mark)
  • The possible structure of your paper
  • A brief bibliography indicating possible sources of research data

Submission

  • Make your assignment a WORD document; a non-WORD document will not be marked

  • Name the electronic document of your outline as

Poli 371 O1 Your Last Name

Hstr 365 O1 Your Last Name

  • Email your assignment as the attached document to:

[email protected]

Grade distribution of O1

Grade Students

8.5 2

8 8

7.5 8

7 3

6.5 8

6 6

5.5 3

5 4

4 1

How to find a good topic?

  • Keep reading; keep thinking; keep questioning

  • Follow your curiosity and intellectual interest

  • Always try to be specific and further specific: be narrow, narrower, and further narrower!

How to specify your topic?

  • Sufficient knowledge as the basis

  • Break down your big matter into aspects/dimensions/factors/elements

  • Shorten the historical duration you cover

  • Do a case study

  • Raise a central research question

  • Ask a question to your question, push for further specification

Collect data, do your research

  • Historical materials: What happened?

  • Building up connections among pieces of historical information

  • Asking “why this happened in such a way”?

  • Mobilizing what you have read which is relevant

The way to organize your paper

  • (title, your name)
  • Introduction
  • (Literature review)
  • The main body (evidence and argument)
  • Conclusion
  • (reference)

Find a title for your paper

  • Give a specific title to your paper, rather than calling it ‘Hstr 365 or Poli 371 Paper 1’

  • It is not your topic, not necessarily your research question

A good title should be:

  • Accurate
  • Attractive
  • Abbreviated (succinct/concise)

Introduce your paper to readers

  • The first section of your paper must be ‘Introduction’

  • The functions of Introduction:

-- Why this topic?

-- How will you deal with the topic?

-- ‘Tell the readers what you are going to tell them’

-- How will you organize your paper

Locate your paper in a scholarly
context

  • How other scholars have answered your question in conceptual or empirical senses?

  • Discuss this in the section of “literature review”: What have they already answered? What they have not answered or not sufficiently answered?

  • Discuss two or more relevant items (books, journal articles, or book chapters)

Make an argument, provide evidence

  • This is the main body of your paper

  • Any argument could be a good argument

  • As long as you have evidence to support the argument

  • Use a concept with its established/well-defined meaning, or you need to redefine it

  • Observe the possible specific historical meaning of a concept

Organize your paper in sections
with headings

  • Divide your paper into several sections rather than putting everything in one bag

  • The different sections are for making the different tiers of the argument

  • Give each section a subtitle/heading to indicate what you are discussing in the section

Draw your conclusion

  • The last section of your paper is always the conclusion that summarizes your paper and make some remarks you may like to add

Why a conclusion?

-- Tell the readers what you are going to tell them [this is your Introduction];

-- Tell them [this is the main body of your paper];

-- Tell them what you have told them [This is your conclusion]

Use References

  • Always cite relevant information sources (academic publications, mass media coverage, governmental reports, statistics, survey outcomes, personal interviews, etc.)

  • Avoid plagiarism!

Choose any format/style of reference you like

  • Footnotes
  • Endnotes
  • ‘Harvard style,’ e.g., in the format of (Pei 2004, 26) -- with a reference list at the end of the paper

Be consistent through the paper in whatever format you choose

Submit the paper in professionalism

  • Length: 3,000 words (not characters) -- This is flexible

  • Deadline for the first paper: October 19th (Thursday), by 3:00 pm – This is NOT flexible! A late submission will be penalized

  • You are required to submit it in a WORD document as an attachment to your email to: [email protected]

  • Name your document as in the examples below:

Poli 371 P1 Your Last Name

Hstr 365 P1 Your Last Name