history paper work

Question:

Was the pursuit of ideals or material gains more important in shaping the United States in the years before 1865? Answer this question in 2-3 pages using evidence that

supports your position.

Explanation:

Throughout the course of HIST 2010, we’ve discussed a number of factors

that have shaped the development of the United States from a collection of British

Colonies into an independent and united political entity. The factors at work in this

process can be grouped into two general categories: those driven by ideology/ideals (religion, political and other types of philosophical beliefs) and those driven by material concerns(land acquisition, the desire to accumulate wealth, etc). While there is no doubt that both types of factors were important in the years leading up to the Civil War, which of these do you find to be the most important? Pick one or the other and argue for that position. Make sure to use plenty of evidence from the course lectures and readings.

Assignment Overview:

You must back up your argument/thesis with plenty of evidence that supports your position. The purpose of this assignment is to show that you know and understand the material we’ve covered in this course, so you should include evidence from both lectures and readings. In other words, you should do well to demonstrate that you know the material in this course. Anyone can give an opinion based on how they feel, but you are scholars, so what I expect is that you make an informed position that is based on what you can prove with evidence. If you choose to turn in a paper with few sources to back up your thesis, then you choose to receive a poor grade on this paper. Papers that draw only on lectures or a single source will receive a maximum grade of a D.

In order to be counted as on time, you must submit BOTH of the following to the D2L dropbox by Friday, April 24th at 11:59pm.

1) An electronic copy of your paper.

2) An audio file of you reading your paper.

*- Your paper will not be considered turned in until I have BOTH of these versions of your paper. If you turn in one of these, your paper will not be considered submitted and your grade will be reduced by 5% per day until the assignment is submitted in full.

Guidelines:

-Your paper must have a title page that includes your name, course and section number, and the semester. This page does not count toward the limit. Your paper should begin on the first line of the page that follows your title page.

-The paper must be in 12 point Times New Roman font with 1.25” margins at left and right and 1” margins at top an bottom. It must be double spaced. Failing to meet these requirements will lead to a deduction in your grade.

-If you plagiarize on this paper, you will be given a failing grade for the course and you will be reported to the university. MTSU has plagiarism detection software that compares your paper to not only outside sources, but other papers that students have submitted to MTSU. Don’t throw your grade away by being too lazy to do your own work.

-You must cite your sources using end notes. The notes do not count toward your 2-3 page total. A link to the format will be provided on the course D2L site. Failing to follow the citation format will result in a reduced grade.

-This is a formal paper. You must proof read. Spelling or grammatical mistakes will reduce your grade. You will catch many errors when you read your paper out loud for the audio recording, so don’t plan to finish your paper at the last minute. Give yourself time to fix the errors you find. Another way to catch errors is to have someone else read it.

-Failing to meet the page requirements will result in a reduced grade. One full page and a sentence on the second page is not two pages. The page requirements concern both minimum and maximum page numbers. Papers longer than three pages are not within the grade requirements.

-If you plagiarize on this paper, you will be given a failing grade for the course and you will be reported to the university. (This is here twice to emphasize this point).

-No lengthy direct quotations. Only directly quote sources when doing so is absolutely necessary to get your point across. Do not directly quote lectures (you probably didn’t write down word-for-word what I said).

-You must use only assigned readings from this course. This includes the recommended text (Brinkley, Unfinished Nation Vol. 1).