Research Project Guidelines

I.  Description:

One of the major parts of this course is the undertaking of a research project.  The project will result primarily in a 8-10 page paper, but also includes two intermediate stages/assignments that you must turn in at the appropriate times, as explained below.

Each of you will choose a specific topic to research – the one commonalty, of course, is that everyone must write about some aspect of women and gender in Early Modern Europe.  The specific focus, however, is up to each you.  The scope here, as in the class in general, covers any time between 1400 and 1800 and any country in Europe.  I have included a separate sheet which offers a list of sample topics to give you an idea of possible areas of research.  Remember, in studying women and gender, we also look at constructions and depictions of femininity and masculinity, the foundations for those constructions, and how those constructions “dictated” roles and behaviors for both men and women.  Any of these subjects can serve as a basis for your research.  You may also want to look at women’s role in the creation, reinforcing, or challenging of those constructions.  For a list of research topic suggestions, click here.

II.  Research Requirements:

Beside the specific stylistic requirements for each assignment below, your project has some basic, overarching requirements:

1. Your research MUST include both PRIMARY and SECONDARY sources.  That is, you are expected to seek out and analyze writings both by Early Modern contemporaries and by modern scholars who have studied the period.  Your research must show an understanding of current scholarship on your chosen subject but, most importantly, must demonstrate your critical engagement of the original “voices” available to us. 

2. The number of sources will vary according to the selected topic.  Although your research should be comprehensive enough to gain you a pretty solid understanding of the issues surrounding your subject, I would suggest having 1-2 primary sources and 6-8 secondary ones.

3. You may base your research on class readings and materials, but those can only serve as a foundation; external research is required.

III.  Topic Statement (5% of final grade)

Due on February 23

(Note, however, that by this date you should have already started doing basic research on the topic.  If you have not, the following deadlines will be almost impossible for you to meet.)

The first stage of your research project is the development and presentation of your topic, that is, the question you want to investigate.  Whatever the topic, you should aim at a statement that poses your topic as a problem or question to be investigated. 

IV.  Thesis Page (5% of final grade)

Due on March 8.

The second stage of the project is the development and presentation of your hypothesis, that is, the answers to which you have arrived so far or hope to arrive; your page should, therefore, include a thesis statement, or a succinct summary of your argument. 

Creating a thesis is not easy; actually, it is perhaps the most difficult stage of the whole exercise.  However, if you do not start verbalizing your interest, which usually leads to narrowing it, your project will be larger than life and undoable. 

Your Thesis Page, which can actually be 1-2 pages in length, is a short paper describing your project. It should include the topic statement, thesis statement, a preliminary list of primary sources, the location of those sources, a brief summary of work already done in the area, possibly the organization/sections of your essay, and the anticipated results of the project.  You may organize it into separate sections (for example, “Topic & Argument”, “Primary Sources”, “Historiography”, “Intended Sections”, “Preliminary or Anticipated Results”) or write it as one cohesive essay.

Below I have listed a series of questions which should help you develop your thesis.  The language, borrowed from the History Department at Bowdoin College, is pretty basic; do not be intellectually insulted.

How do I develop a good thesis?

Here is an example of how you might arrive at a strong thesis.

Start with a topic, such as discrimination against Japanese Americans during World War II. (Note that this is a very general area of interest. At this stage, it is utterly unguided. You cannot write a paper on this topic, because you have no path into the material.)

Develop a question around it, as in "why did government officials allow discrimination against Japanese Americans?" (You now have a question that helps you probe your topic; your efforts have a direction, which is answering the question you have posed for yourself. Note that there are a great many questions which you might ask of your general topic. You should expect in the course of your research to consider many such possibilities. Which ones are the most interesting? Which ones are possible given the constraints of the assignment?)

Develop a unique perspective on your question which answers it: Government officials allowed discrimination against Japanese Americans not because it was in the nation's interest, but because it provided a concrete enemy for people to focus on. (This is a thesis statement. You have answered the question you posed, and done so with a rather concrete and specific statement. Your answer offers a novel and thoughtful way of thinking about the material. Once the terms of the thesis are clarified [what was the "national interest"; what was the meaning and value of having "a concrete enemy for people to focus on"?], you are on your way to a solid paper.)

Constructing a tentative thesis (hypothesis)

Here is a somewhat formulaic approach to constructing a tentative thesis. It is just one possibility among many.

A concessive clause ("although such and such"). If you do not concede something, you will appear strident and unreasonable. By conceding something, your point will stand out, for you will have contrasted it with an opposing position.

The main clause. This is the heart of your argument -- the thing you will prove. The subject of the main clause should be the subject of the paper. Do not present it in the form of "I will show" or "I hope to prove."

A "because" clause. This will force you to summarize support for your thesis as concisely as possible.

Example: Although the Scopes Trial was a legal farce, it reflected deep ambivalence in American thinking, because so many conflicting attitudes met headlong in Dayton, Tennessee. (Not a great thesis, but a good start. What were those conflicting attitudes? What was the key to their conflict? This thesis should be re-visited later with these questions in mind.)

Another approach to thesis construction

Here is another exercise that might help you develop your thesis. On a separate sheet of paper, complete the following sentences:

Dear Reader: I want to convince you that. . . . [This is a hypothesis]

The main reasons why you should believe me are that. . . . [This is a summary of your evidence and logic.]

You should care about my thesis because. . . . [This provides the seeds of your conclusion, and checks the significance of your thesis.]

Refining the thesis

A good thesis does not spring to life from nothing. A good thesis is the product of a discussion you have about your source material and its meaning. Here is what that process might look like:

Start with a question about your source material, as explained above.

How did African-American women fare after slavery ended?

Create a hypothesis, that is, a tentative answer to the question. I suggest using the formula above.

Although freedom made life better in general for the slaves, African-American women fared worse than African-American men under freedom, because society sought to impose sexist notions of gender roles on emancipated black families.

Then, considering the contents of your primary sources, ask these questions: Is my hypothesis really true? What evidence at my disposal makes it false? How can I modify my hypothesis to make it true?

For instance, you may have some source information that suggests black women were beaten by their husbands when free, but you might also have some that suggests their husbands protected them from whites and kept them from working long hard hours in the fields. Perhaps it was only in the realm of relative equality within the family that women lost out in freedom.

Develop a new, more complex hypothesis by modifying the old one. There usually is no need to start from scratch; simply alter what you started with.

Although freedom made life better in general for African-American women, freedwomen may have lost some of the power they had held in the family under slavery, because freedom subjected them to the patriarchal domination of a sexist society.

More suggestions for developing a good thesis

Developing a good thesis is usually the most difficult part of writing a paper; do not expect it to come easily.

After developing a hypothesis, read through it again, searching for vague words and phrases that "let you off the hook," or permit you to not make strong arguments. Underline such phrases, and re-word them to be more specific. In every un-refined thesis, there is a word or phrase which remains unclear or unexplained. Find it and "unpack" it in your introductory paragraph.

You should start thinking about possible theses from the very start of your paper preparation, but you need to examine your primary sources before you can develop a strong thesis. It is impossible to develop a good thesis without already having begun to analyze the primary sources which supply your evidence. How can you know what is even possible to argue if you haven't looked closely at your data?

In a history paper, you must state your conclusion (thesis) at the outset. But this does not mean you have to write it that way. Often, you will not know exactly how you will make that complex thesis until you have gotten deeply into the material. Start your draft with a tentative thesis paragraph (perhaps constructed using the formula above). Once you have written a draft of the paper, go back and re-write the thesis paragraph -- you'll have a much better sense of what you just argued, and you'll come up with a better thesis. Then go back over the body and see if it supports this complex thesis. Good writing is a process of continually evaluating your work this way -- of constantly asking yourself if your evidence and analysis supports your thesis. Remember, the thesis is not the starting point of your exploration, but the result of it.

V.  Annotated Bibliography (5%)

Also due on March 8.

The next stage of your project, which should happen concurrently with the creation of your Thesis Page, is the compilation of an annotated bibliography. This a preliminary list of sources you have and/or will consult when conducting your research. The annotated bibliography has two main purposes: first, to make sure that you have started to critically engage your sources; second, to allow me to recommend further sources and/or comment on the sources presented in the bibliography.  You are not expected to have read them in full, but must at the very least be able to pinpoint each author’s thesis, his/her methodology, and why this particular source will be of help to you in developing your essay.

Below is a description borrowed in part from Cornell’s Research Library, which should help you compile your own annotated bibliography.

            What is an annotated bibliography?

            An annotated bibliography is a list of citations to books, articles, and documents. Each citation is followed by a brief descriptive and

            evaluative paragraph, the annotation. The purpose of the annotation is to inform the reader of the relevance, accuracy, and quality of the sources cited.

            The process

            Creating an annotated bibliography calls for the application of a variety of intellectual skills: concise exposition, succinct analysis,

            and informed library research.

            First, locate and record citations to books, periodicals, and documents that may contain useful information and ideas on your topic.

            Briefly examine and review the actual items. Then choose those works that provide a variety of perspectives on your topic.

            Cite the book, article, or document using the appropriate style.

            Write a concise annotation that summarizes the central theme and scope of the book or article.  Include one or more sentences that

            (a) evaluate the authority or background of the author,

            (b) comment on the intended audience,

            (c) compare or contrast this work with another you have cited, or

            (d) explain how this work illuminates your bibliography topic.

            The correct format for the annotations

            Here you have no choice; historians use either the Chicago Manual of Style or Kate Turabian’s book     which is required in this course.

            Sample annotated entry for a book:

            Phillippy, Patricia. Women, Death, and Literature in Post-Reformation England.  New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

            Phillippy’s book studies the Reformation’s impact on the gendering of mourning.  The author argues that women’s excessive

            mourning contrasts with what contemporaries viewed as the appropriately stoic responses to death attributed to men.  The main

            strength of the book is that it constantly keeps in mind the fact that the voices of the women she studies were always mediated

            and constructed by their male counterparts, but that women were ultimately able to appropriate cultural representations of grief. 

            Women, in fact, were able to validate in their writings what others saw as “immoderate” grief, creating a literary genre where they,

            as women and mourners, could be the subjects.  This    source illuminates my research by explaining one of the ways in which

            women were able to manipulate constructions of gender, and create a special literary space for themselves.

VI.  Research Paper (20% of final grade)

Due April 12

The final paper is the comprehensive presentation of the results of your research.  You should keep in mind several things:

1. This is a formal written assignment.  This means that your paper should follow all the basic rules of essay writing: for example, you must have an introduction that includes your topic and thesis statements; you must then use the body of the essay to prove your hypothesis; you must end with an coclusion that does not include any new information.

2. As you are expected to critically engage your sources, and base your findings upon them, you are required to use quotations to prove your points.

3. Your sources should be documented, following the Chicago Manual of Style or the Kate Turabian one.  If you are unfamiliar with these annotation styles, please come see me.

4. Your annotations should be in the form of footnotes, not endnotes.

5. GRAMMAR COUNTS!!!  Make sure to have someone proofread your paper; what sounds great and makes total sense to you, might be unintelligible to others.

6. The required length is 8-10 pages.  Keep to it!  Essays that are too short or too long will result in a loss of 10 points from the project grade.