Winter Quarter Research Paper

You may begin your research immediately for the winter quarter research paper.  You may write on any topic from the Renaissance through the end of World War I.  You again need to find a creative, or original, angle on your topic.  A catena is not as difficult as you think: it is your hypothesis as to how events, peoples, compositions, ideologies, etc. (the stuff of history) served to influence each other.  If you struggle with the catena for your topic, please discuss developing a specific, debatable thesis in lieu thereof with Ms. Gerst or Mr. Janus, as necessary.  This will need approval.  Your final paper will be due on Wednesday, March 2, 2016.  

Research entails checking books out of a research library or logging into a subscription database.  This is a college level class. As such, you should go beyond mere encyclopedias and the like from Google searches.

Consider starting with primary sources FIRST and have those form the GUTS of your paper. What are good primary sources? Newspaper articles, letters, pamphlets, poems, journals,  speeches, diplomatic correspondence from embassy to mother country, paintings, musical compositions, etc. Having the primary sources take center stage makes it much more likely that you will hit on a creative, original thesis.  

You will also look at secondary sources (review of the scholarly literature) in order to enhance your understanding of the era, your topic, the existing scholarship on your topic (do others agree or challenge Tuchman's narrative), and bolster your argument within your paper. 

Ultimately, you need both primary and secondary sources to write a sophisticated, original paper.  

SECONDARY SOURCES ONLINE:
ABC-CLIO Modern World History, http://worldhistory.abc-clio.com/Authentication/LogOn?returnUrl=%2F
History Today, http://www.historytoday.com/user/login
JStor, http://www.jstor.org/
Project Muse, http://muse.jhu.edu/

PRIMARY SOURCES:

Fordham University Modern History Sourcebook, broken down on left-hand side by era, country, or ideology, http://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook.asp

Other primary sources may be found under the "Documents" link on the left-hand side of the screen in ABC-CLIO as you search. Say, for instance, you researched anarchism. You will find Peter Kropotkin's Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Ideal on the Left (1896).  Now, you have a stellar primary source to use.

160 years of the NY Times online, available through Rowley
http://search.proquest.com.proxy.uchicago.edu/hnpnewyorktimes/index?accountid=14657

The British government archives contain interesting records as well:
http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/looking-for-subject/default.htm

Finally, here is the research guide for HISTORY for Regenstein Library.
http://guides.lib.uchicago.edu/content_mobile.php?pid=497098&sid=4086704

BOOKS

The library houses important resources for your paper, including books, database articles, websites, e-books and primary sources.  Books provide general background information, detailed information on specific historical events, and context for an event or topic. Books are a very important piece of the research puzzle!  Remember to use the tables of contents and indexes to target specific details when using a more general text.  Enter Rowley catalog here.