A 25 to 30 page research paper (not including notes, graph-
ics, appendices, etc.)
Can include alternative formats, such as a museum-quality
exhibit or documentary film.
Possible topics include analyzing a historiographical debate
or placing a smaller, local event in a larger historical context.
Relies more on secondary and less on primary sources.
Critiques from my instructor
I have attached a copy of your thesis with suggested edits. There are a few questions you need to think about as you make revisions:
1. What is your thesis? I don’t see a well-defined argument being laid out in your introduction. You need to explain what you intend to contribute to the history of this field that is different from what scholars who have written on this topic have said about it. Your paper seems to go back and forth between discussing the positive and negative aspects of the War on Drugs without taking a position yourself or adding anything new to this field.
2. How are you using primary sources to support the argument you make? I don’t really see you using any primary sources. It appears that you are repeating information that you found in secondary sources. A thesis needs to be based on primary source research.
3. Are all of your points clearly and concisely made? Beyond the editing I suggest, there are larger structural issues that need to be addressed. What you’ve written is very repetitive. You include the same information in multiple places throughout the thesis and make the same statements numerous times, sometimes even in the same paragraph. You need to be concise.
Now at this point switching from thesis to project in which, I can use secondary sources but I need it not to be repetitive, basically follow the critiques of my instructor to the point.
I’m sending both drafts the one titled “Incarceration” is the old one and “War on Drugs” is recent.
I will need graphs etc. footnotes as well
