America Since 1865
Details:
Your second paper assignment will ask you to read and analyze selections from the autobiography of Pauli Murray, The Autobiography of a Black Activist, Feminist, Lawyer, Priest, and Poet, in the context of our course themes and the broader historical events and issues we have covered thus far in the semester (through Week 13). Murray’s autobiography should be the central source from which you draw and your paper should pull from various points in Murray’s life, but you are also welcome to incorporate external research within the parameters described in Point 9 of the Plagiarism & Citations section below.
You will need to choose one of the following options to address in your paper:
1. How does Murray witness and address the role of class (both social and economic) in American life? Consider for the purposes of your answer what impact class identity has in her own life and/or how she approaches and understands class struggle in America.
2. How does Murray experience the intersecting identities of race and gender as she navigates life in the 20th century? Here, you should avoid considering Murray’s race or gender in isolation, but instead address the overlapping and/or conflicting ways in which both her race and her genderaffect her life experiences, attitudes, and goals.
3.How does Murray’s life help us to understand the trajectory and/or the connections between various social protest movements in the 20th century? For example, how might an examination of her life experiencesand activismchange our understanding of the arc of civil rights protest in America?Or, how does Murray’s involvement in civil rights activism and feminist activismhelp us to understand the links/tensions between these causes?
4. How does Murray protest inequality and injustice (of various forms) in American society over the course of her life?Your answer should address at least one of the following issues as you form your argument:why she feels compelled to act, why she chooses the tactics that she does, or how her strategies of protest evolve over time.
I encourage you to narrow your focus for any of these topics, develop a specific thesis statement, and hone your argument in consultation with your T.A.
Please focus your attention on the following chapter selections in preparation for the paper. While you are absolutely encouraged to read and use material from any and all of the remaining chapters, you will only be required to draw from the information in these specifiedportions of the text.
Designated Selections:
Introduction
Chapter 1 (pp. 1-14)
Chapter 3 (pp. 28-36)
Chapters 6-7 (pp. 59-81)
Chapters 10-20 (pp. 102-245)
Chapters 25-26 (pp. 294-317)
Chapters 29-30 (pp. 344-368)
Some Expectations/Tips for Formal Academic Writing:
1. Your paper must have a well-defined thesis statement. Our goal is not simply to summarize the details of historical events but to craft an informed assessment of their significance. As much as possible – and in conjunction with thoughtful analysis of the autobiography – we want to hear your voice and your thoughts as a writer. One of the keys to developing a strong thesis statement will be sufficiently narrowing the scope of your argument. Avoid overly general statements and provide a sense of how you will justify your central claim.
2. Check with your T.A. about early benchmark deadlines so that you can get feedback on drafts of introductory paragraphs, thesis statements, or outlines. They will not be permitted to review complete drafts.
3. Emphasize clarity in your writing. While you should strive for sophisticated prose, the most important element of the process is the ability to convey your information and message to the reader with precision and concision.
4. Start with clear and direct topic sentences for each paragraph to make your transitions and arguments strong.
5. Unless it is part of a direct quote, do not use the terms “Negro” or “colored” in your writing.
6. Avoid the passive voice. (i.e. “Johnson was fired by the meatpacking plant” is passive. Try instead, “The meatpacking plant fired Johnson.”)
7. Do not use the first person when writing. Instead of saying “I believe …” or “I argue/contend/really hope it is true that …” just state your point.
8. Vary your sentence structure. If every sentence is starting the same way or looking the same length, make some adjustments to avoid a repetitive style.
9. Explain any and all quotations that you include in your text. You should never let a quote speak for itself without providing context or analysis, no matter how devastatingly brilliant it may appear to be.
10. Do not use contractions (i.e. didn’t, couldn’t, it’s) or slang.
11. Do not use block quotes. Any quotation longer than three typewritten lines should be paraphrased or broken down between sentences instead.
12. Use the past tense when writing about events from the past.
13. Proofread your paper thoroughly. Technical soundness will benefit your grade and in general is an important part of executing work that your reader will take seriously.
14. Before submitting, read a draft of your paper out loud. It helps to catch omissions, awkward transitions, and unclear phrasing that your reader might encounter.
15. Feel free to attend office hours and ask questions early and often.
Some Thoughts and Tips on Plagiarism and Citations:
I take the issue of academic integrity very seriously and the consequences for plagiarism will be severe, whether it is intentional or not. At a minimum, any submitted work that plagiarizes material will receive a zero score. It is therefore important that you take the necessary steps to ensure that your use of sources is appropriate. If you have questions or concerns, voice them to your T.A. or to me in advance of the due date.
We will be using Turnitin, a plagiarism prevention system. The ease of using the Internet has made it very easy for students to “cut and paste” material into papers that they are writing without proper citation. We will submit papers that you write in this class to Turnitin, a service that identifies “matched text,” and we will interpret the results of the originality reports. In this class, you will also be given the opportunity to submit your own papers to Turnitin to check that all sources you have used are properly acknowledged and cited. Note that all submitted papers will be included as source documents in the Turnitin.com reference database, solely for the purpose of detecting plagiarism of such papers.
For this assignment it will not be necessary to compile a bibliography or works cited section. This means, however, that you will need to be particularly diligent about providing complete citation information in your footnotes. Please use footnotes and not endnotes or in-text citations. Footnotes should be 10 ptfont and single spaced.
Things to remember:
1. Any time you are using direct quotes or paraphrasing ideas that are not your own, you should offer a citation to signal the source to your reader.
2. Direct quotes should always be marked by quotation marks.
3. Citations should adopt the Chicago Manual of Style format (linked here).
4. Course textbooks should be cited as follows:
Author name, Book Title (Publication City: Publisher, Year), page number(s).
5. Subsequent citations of the same material can truncate the information following standard declension rules.
Format: Last Name, “Shortened Title,” page number.
6. If citing lectures, use the following format:
Jeffrey D. Gonda, America Since 1865, “Lecture Title,” Lecture Date.
7. Footnotes go at the end of sentences, not in the middle.
8. Punctuation goes inside of quotation marks while footnotes go outside. Example: “Citations are important.”
9. Avoid citing internet sources that are not linked through the SU Library, its databases, or other reputable academic institutions (Smithsonian, New York Public Library, etc.). It is not appropriate to cite articles from Wikipedia.