T here will be a short analytical essay due the second week of the term. This essay will need to be no more than 750 words long (± 5 percent) not including footnotes, works consulted pages, illustrations, or other supporting materials. Your essay should be based exclusively on the materials assigned and classroom activities during the first two weeks in class. You should not do any additional research or Internet brainstorming in materials that have not been assigned. You may bring in prior knowledge from other readings and experiences but these will need to be properly documented. See below for useful writing tips and some important additional comments and documentation requirements about "brainstorming" using non-assigned resources or Internet sites. Consult with me as necessary as questions come up about documents and evidence. You should imagine that you are writing a short summary of this issue for a college-educated but non-specialist audience as part of a larger work such as an history of the United States, of the Modern World, or of civil wars more generally. Please submit one print copy to me in class and e-mail me a second copy. If I have received one or the other by the deadline you may submit the second copy within the next 24 hours.
The central question to answer in this essay is "Judging from the evidence we have seen, what were the most important differences between the regions in the antebellum period, and what was their significance?" The length of the assignment has been deliberately kept short to ensure that you think intensively about what historical influences were most essential, and what reasons might be advanced to explain why other influences might be considered less crucial. At the same time, you will need to ponder the complexities of the historical processes involved, of the political, cultural, economic, religious, ethnic, racial, class, and gender divisions within each region, on the influence of communication networks and international influences (and any other original influences you come up with on your own).
How to do well? Be sure you have read and understood these guidelines, including the writing tips and documentation standards listed below. Treat the exercise as a really strenuous but really fun mental "hike" through some of the most spectacular historical scenery in American history. Take the essay seriously but do not be afraid to engage in intellectual play and experimentation, and do not obsess about providing the "one perfect answer." (The fact that professional historians disagree on this issue should help free you of anxiety about finding A "correct" solution.) Take advantage of all the available assigned evidence. In light of the Hume insight, think carefully about your own background and how that might give you special insights and set up some blind spots in your reading of the evidence.
Before you write, identify all the factors that seem potentially relevant to the question of regional differences. Mentially rank them according to their relative influences, as you judge it. Consider any paradoxical or bifurcated consequences that might have emerged in response to each factor. Consider how each factor may have interacted with the others. Then consider how time and place might have affected these influences. Why did the same factors seem to work out differently in different moments and locations? It may also be helpful to contemplate the counterfactuals. How might have things been different if particular factors such as territorial expansion, slavery, the consumer market economy, industrialization and urbanization, "two-party winner-takes-all mass-democracy" or reform had not existed? Do not assume that every person from a particular region, social class, ethnic group, or economic interest acted the same way or were motivated by that same influences. Ponder why they might not be unified. Be explicit about causal connections and processes in time. Be conscious about not reading present regional differences back onto the past. Then get started putting words to screen. Focus on the logical organization of your writing. Write clearly, vividly, and richly. Try to say something plausible that nobody else in class will have said. (See additional comments and writing suggestions below.)
There will be a comparative analytical essay due during the last few weeks of the term. This essay will need to be 1500-1700 words (roughly 5-6 pages) long, not including footnotes, works consulted pages, illustrations, or other supporting materials. Essays that are much too long or short will get lower grades. The specific books and assignment dates for your specific comparative essay will be determined the second week of the term. See here for specific assignments.
The essay should be an analysis and synthesis of the two books that have been assigned to you. Your goal in the paper should be to use your critical sensibilities to combine these works in clever, interesting, sophisticated, and plausible ways. Rather than summarizing each work separately, your paper should talk about how they connect together and what they reveal together that neither work shows on its own. Because this is a thoughtpiece and reaction essay you should use only the briefest of direct quotes if you use any at all. You should assume when writing that the reader has read these works too but is looking for original perspectives and proof that you have reflected diligently on each work's most important arguments and viewpoints, as well as on the sublety of its details and components. Since this is neither a literary review nor a leisure reading guide you should avoid commenting on the writing skill of the authors or the entertainment value of these works, and should focus on questions of historical scholarship instead.
Submissions should be typed, and double (or 1.5 line) spaced, and should have a margin of at least an inch on all sides. Do not use a cover sheet, include blank pages, or use a plastic binder or paper folder binder. Essays will need to be properly footnoted using correct historical format. (See the Chicago Manual's Citation Quick Guide for details.) Document excerpts assigned in class or in the syllabus may simply be listed in a works consulted page rather than in a specific footnote, though longer pieces and scholarly articles that are more than a four or five pages long should be cited formally. Footnotes must be precise enough so that I can locate the specific page or item you reference. Parenthetical footnotes are not acceptable. You will need to submit both a printed version in class and and electronic version via e-mail. At least one of these must be in my hands by the deadline and the other as soon as possible thereafter. Final grades for late papers will be reduced in proportion to their lateness. You are expected to be familiar with Furman's general guidelines regarding academic integrity and plagiarism. It is understood that you have also reviewed the integrity policies for this specific course.
A special warning about anything you might "Google up" or "Wikipedia-dig" to help you with your essay: 99.44 percent of everything history-related on the Internet is garbage, poorly documented, loaded with errors of fact and interpretation, and produced by people with no historical training or expertise. If you do use something from the Internet make sure you cite it, especially if you "merely" looked at it to provoke or formulate your general ideas. (It is these interpretive ideas, after all, that are likely to be more original than plain factual data. Both data and interpretations must be cited, of course.) Then ask yourself if you would really trust your grade to such a source. Better yet, don't use it at all, (except on your "works consulted" page) unless you can confirm that the site was produced by someone with a PhD in the relevant subject, under the sponsorship of a research library or academic institution, and that the same site is likely to be available fifty years from now in much the same format. Keep in mind, too, that the focus of the paper is on the works themselves, not some Internet derivation.
There is no one "correct" way to write either the regional differences paper or the analytical comparative essay. Nor is there any one specific formula or template I have in mind for any single "model" answer. Indeed, there are a number of excellent but utterly different ways these papers could be organized, and a rich variety of themes and approaches you might use to structure it. Part of each assignment will be for you to show your own ability for developing original approaches, ideas, theses and interpretations. Indeed, rather than having one model paper in mind, I look with great favor upon arguments that would not be what I was expecting. Originality must be coupled with substance, of course. Organizing themes and theses that cover a broad range of issues in these works rather than a minute subset or subsection will probably be more sophisticated in their implications, (though there are always clever exceptions). All of the usual strictures about writing clearly, having a sophisticated and multi-faceted interpretive perspective, working through the evidence systematically, documenting where you got your ideas, as well as thoughtfulness about how your own background and interests (as well as those of your sources) have shaped, enhanced, and filtered your conclusions will be relevant to the evaluation of your submissions. Do not forget to enjoy the discovery and expression process.
It is likely that a really good essay written in response to these assignments will have the following traits: It will have a vivid, plausible, and original thesis, and one that will not be initially obvious to the reader but rather will have to be proven in the paper. It will have clear but sophisticated organization and argumentation. It will engage intelligently, critically, and respectfully with the most important issues raised in each one of the assigned books, articles, and other documents. The best essays will avoid simplistic generalizations about the characteristics of "THE North," "THE South," "Northerners," or "Southerners," "Whites," or "Blacks." (A good test to ask is whether any such statements are still true when applied equally to every occupation, class, race, gender, geographic subregion, religion, or political affiliation within each region or group you are describing.) The best essays will avoid unreflectively treating specific individuals as being synonymous with their respective regions or groups, though you may pose the question of representativeness explicitly.
Below I have listed a few of my personal peccadilloes about style and grammar. Using your word processor's search function it should take no more than thirty minutes to check and correct any problems before turning in the final draft.
Note: The instructor reserves the right to change any provisions, due dates, grading percentages, or any other items without prior notice. All assignments on this schedule are covered under the university's policy on plagiarism and academic integrity. See the syllabus statement for further details. This page was last updated on 3/9/2008.