memoir.list.99

History of the Soviet Union

Guidelines for Paper Assignment

The 12-15 page (3,000-3,750 words) paper will be based on a careful reading of your chosen personal narrative, and should include the following points:

• who is the author and what is the author's point of view;

• the major themes of the narrative in terms of the historical context of twentieth-century Soviet Union and its successor states;

• In addition, you should choose a particular theme, event, or episode in the narrative and compare the author's analysis of it with that of several works (3 or 4) of historical scholarship, preferably books. Use the course bibliography to help identify these additional sources, or see me. This section should be about one-quarter to one-third of the paper.

The purpose of this part of the paper is to consider how historians “make history.” Your source provides one person's view and interpretation of this event or process, but historians generally use many different kinds of sources to analyze an event. How do the historians' conclusions differ from or support the point of view of your author? What kinds of sources do the historians use? Do they use your chosen personal narrative as one of their sources? How do these historians compensate for the biases inherent in most individual sources? You will be evaluated on your choice of historical works to consult: books are more synthetic and therefore better than specialized articles; the books in the course bibliography (http://www.econ.uiuc.edu/~koenker/biblio-462-09.html) bear the instructor’s seal of approval.

Argument:

An analytical paper is more effective than a descriptive one. In other words, do not just list and retell the major themes of your book, but explain why they are significant and how they illuminate the issues of the history of the Soviet Union. Be critical of your source: look for moments of self-deception or lack of candor and discuss these. Explain how the particular event or episode you choose fits into the larger work.

Organization:

The paper should be organized in a clear and logical fashion. The goal and thesis of your paper should be stated clearly in the opening paragraph. Each paragraph should contain a topic sentence.

A thematic organization is often more effective than a chronological one.

Your paper should have an introduction and a conclusion.

Style:

Identify the title, author, and edition of the book in the first paragraph. All references to that book can be made by page numbers in parentheses. For all other sources, you need to cite the source of any information you include in your paper, whether or not you use a direct quote. To fail to identify your sources constitutes plagiarism.

The paper should be double-spaced, with 1-inch margins. A bibliography of works consulted should come at the end. Use footnotes to cite sources other than your personal narrative.

Please be sure to number your pages. Most word processing programs do NOT do this automatically. Why they do not is a mystery of modern computing.

Grading:

Papers will be evaluated on how well you identify the themes of the book and the perspective of the author, on organization, on the historical sense displayed, on the appropriateness of the historical sources used and the logic of the comparative argument, and on grammar, style, and appearance.

Always proofread your paper before turning it in. I will mark papers down for excessive spelling errors or sloppiness.

I am happy to look at rough drafts provided there is enough time to furnish useful feedback.

The paper counts for 30 percent of your course grade.

Plagiarism:

Plagiarism is claiming or implying that the work of someone else is your own, whether in whole or in part. Plagiarism will be penalized by failure in the course. Please see the university policy on plagiarism for definitions and details (http://www.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/print_hit_bold.pl/admin_manual /code/rule_33.html?plagiarism#first_hit).

Emergencies:

Papers are due Friday, May 8, by 11 am. No extensions will be granted unless there are exceptional circumstances accompanied by a note from a dean. Dog-related emergencies require a note from your vet. Late papers will be penalized by .33 of a grade for each day (24 hours) they are late; i.e. an A paper turned in after 11 am on May 8 but before 11 am on May 9 becomes A-, the next day B+, etc.

Back up your paper regularly, no matter how reliable you think your hard disk is. Hard disks fail! Take it from one who knows. Make sure your printer is working at least two days before the paper is due.