What does the Battle of Plataea reveal about how the military differences between the Athenians and the Spartans?
Assignment: For your research project this semester, you will write a formal research paper. You will be able to choose any aspect of Ancient Greek Civilization. Pick something that looks interesting to you. Read about it in the book and see if there is something that you want to investigate further. I do not want to see a general report on, for example, Athens. I want you to dig deeper into the subject. For example, “The political system in Athens allowed for open participation in the managing of the state for all levels of the socio-economic structure.” You would then conduct research to support your claim and provide specific examples. Look ahead into the text at all of the aspects of Greek History we will be covering, don’t just pick something from the first week unless it is of genuine interest to you.
The paper itself will be a minimum of eight and a maximum of ten pages long. Less than eight pages will not give you adequate space to provide detailed analysis of the material and over ten pages does not force you to focus your argument and choose your words carefully. If you find yourself going over ten pages, you need to narrow your focus. Longer papers do not meet the assignment guidelines, the same as shorter papers. For sources, you may not use websites, magazines, or the textbook. You will need to find a minimum of three primary sources, and three scholarly journal articles. Popular history books, bibliographies, encyclopedias, and non-scholarly websites are not acceptable sources for this level of research. Upper division classes are meant to focus on good, solid research and writing.
All papers will need to be cited in proper Chicago/Turabian style footnotes or endnotes. I realize that you may not be familiar with this style but do not default into MLA simply because that is what you always use. History uses footnotes for specific reasons, primarily because they are a part of the narrative, they give you a chance to expand upon ideas that may not immediately fit into the body of the essay and they are the only way to cite archive and unpublished sources, which is what historical research is based on.
Your notes do not have to be perfect, but you do need to make a wholehearted attempt at using the proper citation format. All research papers not only need notes but they also must include a bibliography listing all sources that you used in your research, not just the ones that you cited directly. This allows the reader to follow your thinking and your research and to understand where your ideas came from.