Dr. Greg T. Smith, Department of History
University of Manitoba
This site provides links to a number of web sites that will help you to prepare your written assignments for my classes (and perhaps other history classes too) plus a few examples of proper formats and styles for certain components of essays. The following topics are covered:
General Writing Tips
Avoiding
Plagiarism
Footnotes
and Bibliographies: Style Guides
Writing
Critical Book Reviews
Writing
Document Studies
Writing
Research Essays
Essay Checklist
Good writing proceeds from exposure to good writing through reading. Try to incorporate broad reading into your daily life. Pick up a good academic book on a subject of interest to you and read it. Don't read it for class, or for an assignment, read it for you. Make mental notes of the author's style, tone, and argument. Aside from books, other good examples of quality writing may be found in periodicals such as the New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, The Walrus, The New Left Review, The London Review of Books, Harper's and many others.
If writing really isn't your strongest skill, and you need help with the nuts and bolts of writing, enroll in a writing workshop offered on campus through student services at their Learning Assistance Centre, or enroll in a course in writing for credit such as ENGL 0930 'English Composition' (3 CH).
Websites:
One of the standard, brief, and very easy to follow guides to writing, William
Strunk Jr. and E.B. White's, The Elements of Style
3rd ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1979), is now available on line.
Other helpful websites dealing with writing at the university level:
Reading, Writing, and
Researching for History
-a good website from a professor in the Bodowin College History Department
(USA)
Research and Writing
Resources for History
-another good, comprehensive introduction
to all aspects of writing for history undergraduates (and graduates!) from the
Department of History, Indiana University-Bloomington
History
Writing Resources Centre, College of William & Mary
-another good website from a top US College with tips on almost every kind of
writing you will do for undergraduate history courses
Books:
Mary Lynn Rampolla, A
Pocket Guide to Writing in History, 5th ed. Boston: Bedford/St.
Martin's, 2007.
Kate L. Turabian, A Manual
for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations 7th ed.
Revised by Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, Joseph M. Williams et. al.,
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.
Mary Ann Armstrong, Martin Boyne, Maged El Komos, Karen Taylor, eds. Notes on the Preparation of Essays
in the Arts and Sciences 5th ed. Peterborough, ON: Academic Skills
Centre, Trent University, 2001.
Margot Northey, Lorne Tepperman, James Russel, Making Sense: A Student's Guide to Research and
Writing 2nd ed. Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press, 2002.
William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White, The
Elements of Style, 3rd ed. New York: Macmillan, 1979.
Plagiarism is the intentional or unintentional representation of someone else’s words or ideas as your own. Intentional plagiarism is stealing while unintentional plagiarism (also stealing) is further indicative of sloppy research, poor referencing skills, and hasty, slap-dash writing. Both forms of plagiarism are unacceptable and constitute an academic offence with serious penalties. To find out how plagiarism is dealt with in the Faculty of Arts at the UofM, see:
http://webapps.cc.umanitoba.ca/calendar10/regulations/plagiarism.asp
Plagiarism can take several forms. The obvious ones are submitting a paper that has been written by someone else but with your name on the title page. Papers purchased or obtained from web sites, 'paper mills', or from friends or frat house basements fall into this category. Computer technology has made it easier to detect such cases.
Plagiarism is more commonly the result of poor time management. Students who begin writing a paper at the last minute with a Google search of their topic, or with books open on their lap and their fingers dancing across the keyboard are simply setting themselves up to commit plagiarism. However, by starting work on a paper early and taking careful notes from primary or secondary sources, and then writing a paper from those notes, many of the issues of plagiarism can be avoided.
What you should always footnote are:
-direct
quotations from any primary or secondary source; these should always be
enclosed in quotation marks or, if the quote is longer than 2 lines of text,
set off as a block quote
-expert
opinions, original arguments (Smith argues that the fall of Rome was due to
"the failure of the leaders to see ... ") specific figures or
calculations made by another researcher; examples of such calculations or
figures would include percentages (62% of married women…), total numbers
(14,000 troops were called up by the King…), rates of change (say in the
population of a city over various points in time)
For a good, brief summary of the plagiarism problem with some useful examples and some tips for avoiding it, see Mary Lynn Rampolla, A Pocket Guide to Writing in History, 4th ed. (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2004), chapter 6. St. Paul's College Library Call No: D 13 R295 2004; or, Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb and Joseph M. Williams, The Craft of Research (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), pp. 166-174. Dafoe Call No: Q 180.55 M4 B66 1995.
Proper Citation Technique
Anything taken from another source that is not part of general knowledge must be footnoted. General knowledge includes things like the fact that World War II began in September 1939, or that Henry VIII had six wives, and so on. This kind of information is so widely known that you do not need to clog up your essay with footnotes to such facts. Footnotes are there to point the reader to the source of facts or opinions not known to the average person (for example, the percentage of GDP related to coal production in China in 1944, or the number of daily newspapers published in eighteenth-century London). They also point to particular primary sources from which your interpretation is drawn.
Footnotes have a slightly different format from entries in a bibliography, so be careful to follow the proper order of first and last names, and the punctuation and page references in each case. Although it is a matter of preference, note that the Chicago style represented here does not indicate page numbers with a 'p.' or 'pp.'.
For a quick guide to Chicago style at the website, click here or get a pdf handout by clicking here.
Examples of acceptable footnote and bibliography style:
a. A book with a single author:
Footnote:
3. J.M. Beattie, Crime and the Courts in England, 1660-1800
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986), 18.
Bibliography:
Beattie, J.M. Crime and the Courts in England, 1660-1800. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986.
b. A book with multiple authors:
Footnote:
8. Howard P. Chudacoff and Judith E. Smith, The Evolution of American Urban
Society, 5th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000), 78-79.
Bibliography:
Chudacoff, Howard P. and Judith E. Smith. The Evolution of American Urban
Society 5th ed. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000.
c. An article from a journal:
Footnote:
12. Benjamin Weinstein, “Popular Constitutionalism and the London
Corresponding Society,” Albion 34:1 (Spring, 2002), 39.
Bibliography:
Weinstein, Benjamin. “Popular
Constitutionalism and the London Corresponding Society.” Albion 34:1
(Spring, 2002): 37-57.
Note: the entire page range (37-57) of the article is given in the
bibliographic entry, whereas just the page cited is noted in the footnote
entry.
d. An article from an edited collection or
a chapter from a book of essays:
Footnote:
21. William Monter, "Protestant Wives, Catholic Saints, and the Devil's Handmaid: Women in the Age of Reformations," in Becoming Visible: Women in European History, ed. Renate Bridenthal and Claudia Koonz, 2nd ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987), 206.
22. Peter Bailey, "The Victorian barmaid as cultural prototype," in Popular Culture and Performance in the Victorian City (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 172-73.
Bibliography:
Bailey, Peter. “The Victorian barmaid as cultural
prototype." In Popular Culture and Performance in the
Victorian City, 151-174. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Monter, William. “Protestant Wives, Catholic
Saints, and the Devil’s Handmaid: Women in the Age of
Reformations.” In Becoming Visible: Women in
European History, ed. Renate Bridenthal and Claudia
Koonz, 2nd ed., 205-220. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1987.
e. A primary source from an edited
collection:
Footnote:
11. Southamtpon Record Office, 6/1/73 (1698) Court Leet records: Stall and
Art Rolls. Cited in Patricia Crawford and Laura Gowing, eds. Women's Worlds
in Seventeenth Century England: A Sourcebook. (London: Routledge, 2000),
87.
e. A primary source found on line on a
website (e.g., Old Bailey Sessions Paper):
Footnote to a particular case:
14. Old Bailey Proceedings Online <www.oldbaileyonline.org, 29 November
2005>, April 1754, trial of Elizabeth Canning (t17540424-60).
f. A newspaper found on line, on microfilm,
or in its original print form (e.g., The Observer, The Times,
Morning Herald):
Footnote to a particular issue or article (without and with page
number--both forms are acceptable):
8. Morning Herald, 23 June, 1773.
37. 'The Columbus Celebrations at Genoa," The Times (London), 15 September, 1892, 3.
Bibliography:
The Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser
The Morning Herald
The Times (London)
Subsequent
Citations and Ibid
You do not need to repeat the full details of a citation every time you quote from it or cite it as a source. The full title and publication details need only be given in the first instance of citation from that source. Subsequent citations from the same source may be given with a brief form of the author and title, followed by the relevant page number(s). If your citation comes from the exact source as the one in the preceding footnote, you can use the Latin word 'ibid' and then give the relevant page number (if it is different from the page cited in the previous citation). Here are some examples, beginning with footnote number 6:
6. Karen Offen, "Defining Feminism: A Comparative Historical Approach" Signs 14:1 (Autumn, 1988), 141.
7. Bernard Porter, The Lion's Share: A Short History of British Imperialism, 1850-1995 3rd. ed. (London: Longman, 1996), 170-171.
8. Offen, "Defining Feminism", 141.
9. L. Jordanova, History in Practice (London: Arnold, 2000), 15.
10. Porter, Lion's Share, 188.
11. Jordanova, History, 18-19.
12. Ibid., 23.
13. Ibid.
14. Old Bailey Proceedings [or OBP], April 1754, Elizabeth Canning (t17540424-60).
In this series of footnotes, you will
see that numbers 6, 7 and 9 give the full references, 8, 10 11 and 14 show
shortened forms, while both notes 12 and 13 indicate a reference to page 23 in
Jordanova's book. Note that 'ibid' is capitalized and that it is neither
italicized nor underlined.
Writing a critical review is one of the main skills you will develop as a history student. Your ability to understand, weigh, and judge the strengths and weaknesses of a piece of writing, whether a book, an article, or a primary document, is central to the task of developing an historical understanding of events. It is a way for you to develop the skill of critical analysis.
Being critical does not necessarily mean being nitpicky. Students often confuse the task of a critical review or critical assessment and think that what they are asked to do is to look for "contradictions" in an author's argument. Though it is certainly true that, in some cases, a contradictory or confusing argument are the faults of the piece of writing being reviewed, usually when you are asked to produce a critical analysis it means that you will write something that tells your reader what the book or article is really about, and how it adds to our knowledge of a specific subject. For example, a book about Henry VIII may describe his policies and document his struggle with the Roman Church, but what it is really about --its central argument or thesis--might really be about how Henry sought to exercise power.
To analyze a book effectively, it is necessary to have a solid grasp of what it actually said. That means you must read the entire book; once, quickly, to get a sense of the whole work and the broad themes, then once (or twice) again, more carefully, to pull out the more subtle arguments and particular details. To accomplish this task effectively requires that you develop careful, critical reading skills. The following websites might be helpful:
How to
read a secondary source (by Patrick Rael, Bowdowin College):
http://www.bowdoin.edu/writing-guides/secondary.htm
Writing an article or book review (from the University of Toronto Writing
Centre):
http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/specific-types-of-writing/book-review
How to Write a Document Study:
A document study asks you to set a primary document—a piece of evidence from the past—into its historical context. The point of a document study is to get you to think about the value of primary sources as clues or insights into some aspect of life in the past.
A document study should begin by briefly identifying the document's form (a letter, a diary, a newspaper article, a document from a court of law, etc.) and then stating when the document was created (if this can be determined). This establishes the 'what' and 'when' regarding the evidence. Now you need to try to find a way to explain why this particular document is a valuable piece of history. By reading it carefully and digesting the words, the phrasing, the tone of the document, you can begin to see what it might tell us about the time or place in which it was created. Its physical form might also be worth noting, such as whether it is a book, a stone tablet, a piece of parchment, or a solitary piece of paper. It may also be important to know who created the document: a king? a nurse? a factory worker? a prisoner on death row? the Prime Minister? Cleopatra? All of this information is vital in building the historical context for the document. Your document study will thus demonstrate both an understanding of the document itself, and a familiarity with the time and place and outside events and contemporary ideas at play when the document was created.
How to
read primary sources:
http://www.bowdoin.edu/writing-guides/primaries.htm
HIST 2210W
Assignment #1:
Sample introduction and page citation
Sample title page
Watch this space for updates on this topic. For the time being, you may want to visit:
Writing
papers for university:
Writing
an Academic Paper--UofM Learning Assistance Centre
A Guide to Writing
History Research Essays
-a pamphlet by Femi J. Kolapo, (Department of
History, University of Guelph) outlining the key aspects of the history essay
and the process from formulating a topic to writing, revising and properly
footnoting your essay
Last updated: 19 October 2011