THIST 430 Introduction to Public History - Nicoletta: Assignments

Library Exercise

This assignment will give you some practice using the UW Libraries catalogue and research databases for finding primary and secondary sources. Sources should be cited using the Chicago Manual of Style format for bibliographic entries or the handout “Guidelines for Citing Primary Sources in Chicago Manual of Style Format.” You may use this assignment to start doing research for your pamphlet or FOLD project.

Citations should be uploaded to the Canvas page by 11:59 p.m., April 9 (today), though you should be able to complete this assignment in class.

• Upload one primary source using the following: any of the databases found via the Public History course guide through the UWT Library's website:  http://guides.lib.uw.edu/tacoma/pubhist

• Upload two peer-reviewed journal articles using two of the following databases:

            America: History & Life

            Academic Search Complete

            Art Full Text

            JSTOR

The proposal is an early opportunity to think critically about your topic.

Every proposal should answer these questions:

1. What is your topic? Describe it briefly.
2. What is your main research question? What is your hypothesis?
3. What will your readers learn from this project? Will you be bringing new information to light, or will you be interpreting commonplace knowledge in a new way?
4. Why is your project significant or interesting? Discuss the relationship between your project and some broader issue in history.

Adapted from: William Kelleher Storey, Writing History: A Guide for Students, 4th ed., New York: Oxford University Press, 2013, 29, and William Kelleher Storey, Writing History: A Guide for Students, 5th ed., New York: Oxford University Press, 2016, 28.

Annotated Bibliography (See Storey, 4th ed., pp. 29-30 or Storey, 5th ed., pp. 28-29)

The preliminary annotated bibliography will contain at least three primary and three secondary scholarly sources.

The final annotated bibliography will contain at least ten primary and ten secondary scholarly sources.

Primary sources include newspaper articles, photograph collections, maps, and interviews. Scholarly secondary sources include well-documented books and articles in peer-reviewed journals. All sources will be formatted using the Chicago Manual of Style and grouped together as either primary or secondary sources. Under each category, primary or secondary, entries should be alphabetized.

Annotations:

For primary sources, identify the source (i.e., letter, diary, newspaper article, etc.), describe the content, the author's thesis, if relevant, and a description of the evidence used, and what the work's significance to your topic is, for a total of roughly three to four sentences.

For secondary sources, identify the source (journal article, book, documentary film), address the author's thesis, a description of the evidence used, and what the work's significance to your topic is, for a total of roughly three to four sentences. Single-space entries and annotations with double-spacing between entries.

Accessibility score: Low Click to improveAnnotated Bibliographic Citation example

For the purposes of grading your bibliography, primary sources must be relevant to the topic. Many of these sources will be found in local archives such as the Northwest Room at the Tacoma Public Library, the Seattle Public Library, the Washington State History Museum, and the UW Library system. Secondary sources need to be scholarly; websites, per se, don't count unless they are from verifiable sources, such as a museum or historical society. (It doesn't matter how you access scholarly works, just that you use them. For instance, if you rely on www.jstor.org you are tapping into scholarly literature via the web, which is quite different than going to some random website; the first is research, the second is wasting your time.

Finally, if you completely change your project topic, you need to re-write and re-submit your research proposal.