Humanities Research Paper

Humanities Research Paper Guidelines

1. For your topic, you need to choose a single Western (i.e. European or European-derived) work of the humanities (i.e. a single work of history, religion, visual arts, philosophy, performing arts, or literature) from 1600 CE to the present.  The topic cannot be a person, event, geographic place (i.e. city, country, region, etc.), time period, style, movement, or collection of works.

2. After choosing the topic, you next need to choose which question, meaning, or

significance, you will answer about the topic (you have to choose one or the other). If you choose meaning, you will decide what is the overall meaning the creator of the topic is trying to communicate through the topic.  If you choose significance, you will decide why the topic is significant or important.

3. You will then need to identify the rationale for choosing the topic you chose; in other words, you spell out exactly why you chose the topic.  And let’s go beyond the obvious one, which goes something like this: “this pain–in–the–neck humanities professor is making me write a research paper, so with a proverbial gun to my head, I chose....”

4. You will then formulate your thesis which is a single declarative sentence that answers the question you have chosen.  The thesis should clearly, precisely, and explicitly state your interpretation of either the topic’s meaning or significance and it should mention the topic directly by its full title and the creator(s) by full name.  The thesis should NOT:

·merely describe or summarize the topic;

·have any quoted content in it;

·contain any superlatives, such as "the greatest," "the best," "the most accomplished," etc., in it;

·be an “IOU” statement that promises to state the work’s meaning or significance but does not deliver on that promise.

5. Your topic, question, rationale, and thesis will be included in your introduction paragraph. Immediately following the introduction paragraph, you will create a concession paragraph that offers an alternate or contrary thesis to the thesis you stated in the introduction paragraph.  You do not need to quote a source for the contrary or alternate thesis; you can generically create one stating “some people may not agree and instead argue that....”  After stating the contrary or alternate thesis, you then go on to state why your thesis is more reasonable.

6. In your five main body paragraphs, you will choose at least five pieces of evidence, which include details, examples, quotations, etc., directly from at least five specific, separate, and appropriate sources to support the thesis.  The topic itself constitutes one of the five required sources.  The use of authoritative, reliable, and scholarly sources is paramount to the quality of your research.  Appropriate sources for research can include articles, audio-visual materials (CDs, films, DVDs, records, tapes, videos, etc.), books, CD - ROMs, interviews, lectures, performances, specialized

reference sources, surveys, Websites, etc.  Sources can include prior scholarship on the work, biographical information on the creator of the work, historical information on the time when and the place where the work was created, etc.  Sources should always be evaluated in accordance with the following criteria:

·Is the source authoritative?

·Is the author an expert?

·Is the source current?

·Does the source support its information sufficiently?

·Is the author’s tone balanced?

Encyclopedias (such as Wikipedia, Encyclopedia Britannica, etc.), dictionaries, summaries/synopses (such as BookRags, CliffNotes, Shmoop, SparkNotes, etc.), and other highly generalized reference sources will not count as appropriate sources of evidence for your paper. 

No more than 50% of your sources of evidence should be Internet-based.

Make sure that you explicitly demonstrate the relevance of your evidence to your thesis.

Online databases do contain articles and books that originally appeared in print but were later digitized and added to the database. If you cite such an article or book to

its original print source, it will not count as an Internet source; if you cite it to the online database, it will count as an Internet source. It is a similar situation with online videos found on YouTube; if you can find where and when the documentary was originally broadcast on television or shown in theaters and cite it to its original source, it will not count as an Internet source; if you cite it to YouTube, it will count as an online source.

7. Write a seven to ten-page (exclusive of the title page and “Works Cited” page), typed, double-spaced research paper, which, at a minimum, should include the following elements:

·an introduction paragraph containing the topic, question, rationale, and thesis.

·a concession paragraph, immediately following your introductory paragraph, which explicitly acknowledges an alternate or contrary thesis to your thesis and explains why your thesis is more reasonable.

·at least five main body paragraphs, each dealing with at least one piece of evidence from a specific, separate, and appropriate source, in support of the thesis; you need a minimum of five specific, separate, and appropriate sources.

·a conclusion paragraph summarizing your evidence and restating the thesis.

8. Your paper should also have a title page containing, at a minimum, the title of your paper, your name, the course and section number, the instructor's name, and the due date.  A "Works Cited" page, formatted according to MLA standards, must be included.  Bear in mind that a “Works Cited” page is not a bibliography; only works that you directly cite or refer to in your paper should be included on the “Works Cited” page.

9.Your paper should be free of typographical and grammatical errors.  Please proofread your work very carefully and consult a grammar handbook for reference.

10. As Sir Isaac Newton observed, “If I have seen further it is by standing on ye shoulders of Giants.”  Always give proper credit to the sources you have used.  To avoid plagiarism, all direct quotations or paraphrased material from a source must be appropriately cited in accordance with the MLA style of documentation.  If you are not familiar with the MLA style of documentation, please consult the MLA Handbook.