| Progress report for week 4 | |
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BEFORE CLASS You should have contacted your faculty mentor and presented them with a sense of your research paper topic. I would also encourage you to contact the relevant librarian in the Wells Library, for guidance about databases and primary sources in particular, so you can begin to gather some initial secondary and primary sources. For a guide for undertaking library and database research, see the History Research Guide prepared by specialist librarian Scott Libson. As you proceed, you should continue to refine your research paper proposal. 1. Framing: What is the bigger situation (time) and world (place) around your topic? 2. What important (oft cited) books and articles exist about your topic and/or situation and world around it? (I.e., secondary sources; historiography.) 3. What is missing from our historical knowledge? 4. What needs fundamental questioning? 5. How do new concerns and perspectives from your own lifetime lead you to re-examine history? 6. What sources might you investigate? (I.e., primary sources; archives.) |