Honors History

Due Date: Tuesday, December 14th @3pm 

Submit via Google Classroom

Overview: This assignment “invites” you to dive deeply into one primary source that you have determined will be useful in your quest to answer your research questions. Note that it might be something as straightforward as a letter, a speech, or a government document. If you happen to be using one particularly long and/or detailed source in connection with the bulk of your research (e.g. the memoirs of a figure central to your work), then you can probably zero in on one section of that source for the purposes of this assignment.

ANALYZE the source (see central elements of an analysis below) and IN ADDITION, please identify two other primary sources that you plan to read presently (or already have) and simply list those (in proper bibliographic format) as part of what you submit. 

Details: The write-up of your source should be 300-400 words (i.e. more than one, but less than two double-spaced pages). In addition, please list the TWO other sources below the write-up. 

What it Should Look Like: Here’s a look at the bibliographic information you should provide for each of the four sources. Remember you need to provide a write-up for just one. Start with that one. List it at the top of the page and then move to your analysis of it per the example below (taken from William Barbee’s 2022 submission!) 

Betancourt, Alvaro. Route Book of P. T. Barnum’s Greatest Show on Earth and the Great London Circus Since the Consolidation Seasons of 1881, 1882, 1883, 1884, & 1885. Baraboo, WI, Circus World Museum Collection, 1885. https://digital.library.illinoisstate.edu/digital/collection/p15990coll5/id/2567/rec/1 

Though described as a route book for P. T. Barnum’s circus over the course of several seasons, Alvaro Betancourt’s Route Book only goes into great detail about the schedule and events of the Greatest Show’s 1885 season, which toured through the Northeast United States and Canada from March to October of that year. Published at the end of an eventful season, which saw the retirement of James A. Bailey as the General Manager of the Greatest Show, his replacement by another circus tycoon, W. W. Cole, and the death of Jumbo, P. T. Barnum’s prized circus elephant who was described as “the greatest attraction ever known in show business,” this route book provides an interesting look into the lives of circus performers as they experienced a whirlwind of a season.¹. . . . 

BIBLIOGRAPHIC FORMAT 

See other examples of proper format here–please be sure to look under “Bibliography Entries” rather than “Notes”-which we’ll deal with later. 

READ WITH CARE AND ATTENTION 

Jot down in your notes any evidence from the documents that you might want to use in the paper. Identify main ideas from the source. Record with precision any direct quotations that strike you as particularly worthwhile to have in your notes. Be sure to record the page number for all your notes.  

The following SEVEN elements constitute a sound analysis of your source and should appear in your write-up: origin, perspective, context, audience, motive, information, and evaluation. 

1] ORIGIN 

Who created the source? What type of source is it?(Is it a private letter or an op-ed written for the local newspaper?) What do you know about the author(s)? Can you find out anything more about them with a bit of research? 

2] PERSPECTIVE 

What point-of-view does the source represent? This can be as simple as male/female or Chinese/Japanese, but can also be rather more targeted, such as ‘the English ambassador to the court of Charles V during the 1520s’. 

3] CONTEXT 

When was the source created? What is the historical context of the document (i.e. what was going on at the moment of the document’s creation)? You need to think through this and identify a few thoughtful and relevant anchors to historical time. Don’t get too carried away. If your document was written in the summer of 1916, it may or may not be relevant to include mention of the British offensive on the Somme, definitely relevant if you happen to be working on a topic concerning the public support of WWI, less so if you are researching street kids in Chicago. You want to identify the historical events at the time of creation that are relevant to the creation. 

4] AUDIENCE 

Who was the intended audience of the document? Did it ever reach the intended audience?(For example, it matters if a certain personal letter from the Prime Minister of Britain written to Adolph Hitler was never sent.) 

5] MOTIVE 

What was the purpose of producing the document?Is the document from a ship’s captain’s log, a government record that was produced as part of someone’s job, or is it from a personal diary, a private record that was kept voluntarily. 

6] INFORMATION 

What is the EXPLICIT MEANING of the document? What is the IMPLICIT MEANING of the document? 

Whatis the EXPLICIT MEANING ofthe document? Explicit information is anything that is clearly stated in the document. 

Whatis the IMPLICIT MEANING ofthe document? Implicit information refers to anything that is not clearly stated, but which the author seems to wish to convey. 

Take care! This is a bit trickier analytically because you are interpreting and moving beyond the directly stated information. Before writing about implicit meaning you should think deeply about the source and make sure the implicit message is present. Do not simply speculate about meaning or add ideas that you want to find. Therefore, if you don’t quite see any implicit meaning, leave it off. [NOTE: you are producing a Source Analysis, here. These are not your primary notes. You are searching for meaning, not simply recording historical information.] 

7] EVALUATION 

What do you make of the document? What light does it shed on your topic? What further questions does it provoke? How does this document CORROBORATE other information you have on the topic? How does this document CONTRADICT other information you have on the topic?