I’m working on a history question and need guidance to help me learn.
Instructions for the Writing
Assignment 3
For this assignment, we will look at long-term or underlying causes, just as we looked at
them in the last discussion. Remember, When we speak about causes we classify them
as either short term or immediate causes and long term or underlying causes. For
example, we can say that the immediate causes of the American Revolution were the
Boston Tea Party in 1773, the Intolerable Acts in 1774, and the Battles of Lexington and
Concord in 1775. These are short term or immediate causes. The cause of these
events, however are all rooted in long-term causes such as the British colonization of
North America, growing American national identity, and a belief that the colonies were
unfairly treated by the British. These are long-term, or underlying, causes because they
drive the short term causes and have unintended consequences. If this idea is still not
clear, you can ask me or watch this informative video about cause and effect. If the link
does not work, use this address:
For your third writing assignment, let’s consider why representative governments do not
flourish in the ancient world. The two civilizations we have studied that
had representative governments were the Greeks, especially Athens, and the Roman
Republic. Each of them faced challenges to maintain a representative government.
Compare the collapse of, or challenges in preserving, representative government in
both cases and explain what long-term factors made such forms of government difficult
to sustain in the ancient world.
Write an essay that has the following essential components:
1) Your essay clearly and directly address all parts of the prompt.
2) Your essay uses information from the assigned materials to support your argument
3) Your essay quotes a primary source, an eye-witness account from the period of time
you are studying. You can find primary sources at the Internet History Sourcebook
Project, but be aware that not every link on this site is a primary source. If you need
help, let me know.
4) Your essay should be 500 words at the minimum, not counting footnotes or
bibliography. You must supple footnotes to show where you found specific information
(as in a page number) and you must supply a bibliography.
Style Guide:
Your paper should have an introductory paragraph that explain in clear details what you
are going to argue: such a statement is a thesis statement. A good example of a thesis
statement (from a former undergraduate student) is “Although gender roles changed
from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire, the state’s military culture ensured that
women remained a lower valued group. “A thesis statement that offers only generalities
like “although there were both changes and continuities, there more more continuities
than changes” is very weak. A thesis that simply states a subject “e.g.: I am going to
discuss changes and continuities in Islamic societies” is also weak. You must give an
argument about change and continuity in a specific society. Your thesis must be
testable in the sense that it will require evidence to prove. If you are still unclear about
what makes a good thesis statement, look here or or ask me!
Footnotes!
Footnotes can be very tricky. Take a look at this brief Youtube video here or you can
ask me if you have questions. Footnote are important because they show the reader
where you got your information and that you are basing your argument on solid ideas.
You should use one footnote for every fact that is not common knowledge. If you have a
series of facts from the same page, you may use one footnote to cover several
sentences. Your first footnote should contain a full citation like this:
Judge, Edward H. and John W. Langdon, Connections: A World History, 3rd ed. vol. 1.
Boston: Pearson Education, Inc, 2016: page 32.
After this first reference, please abbreviate the citation:
Judge and Langdon, Connections, page 35.
Bibliography
Your bibliography should be placed at the end of the essay and include all of the
sources you used. Entries in the bibliography are the same as the full reference from
the footnote but without the page number or parentheses around the publication
information.
Judge, Edward H. and John W. Langdon, Connections: A World History, 3rd ed. vol. 1.
Boston: Pearson Education, Inc, 2016.
All bibliographies are arranged alphabetically by the author’s last name.
When you have completed this essay, please submit it to the correct dropbox. All
submissions will be check for originality by Turnitin.com. You have access to your
Turnitin score. If you are not sure how to check Turnitin, please look at the video in the
“Course Information Module.” If you essay is found to have unoriginal that is not
properly cited material, it will be returned to you ungraded. Please check the dropbox for
feedback and notes. If you have any questions, please let me know.
For credit on this assignment, your participation will be graded according to the
following rubric.
The assignment has five criteria
1) The essay directly address all parts of the prompt (10 points)
2) The essay uses information from the assigned materials (10 points)
3) The essay quotes a primary source in context (10 points)
4) The essay meets a minimum of 500 words, not including footnotes and bibliography,
includes footnotes and a bibliography (10 points)
5) The essay has addressed any issues raised on the previous feedback (10 points)
