Document analysis example
I’ve been getting a lot of questions about what the essays should look like. So, here’s an example from a similar document study. In this study, the document analyzed was a speech by a nineteenth-century American labour leader dealing with immigration. I will be at a conference all day today (Friday) and tomorrow (Saturday). If you send me an email during that time, I may not be able to get back to you right away.
Thesis statement (in the introduction)
Dennis Kearny’s speech shows that American labor leader in the late nineteenth century supported Chinese exclusion because they thought Chinese immigrants took away jobs from white workers. [notice here that the author of the essay is basically saying that this document says X about Y, in Z period]
Paragraph in the body of your paper:
Kearny blames white workers’ unemployment in part on the slave mentality of Chinese workers. He argues that corporations go as far as China to recruit workers because it is easier to control them “as serfs.”1 He claims that their character predisposes them to obedience: “They are wipped curs, abject in docility, mean, contemptible and obedient in all things.”2 As Eric Foner shows in the texbook, this attitude was shared by the majority of working class white men.3 This notion of innate difference between the “white” and “Asian” races justified Chinese exclusion. [Body paragraphs expand and give evidence for the argument raised in the thesis statement - notice here how she uses information from the textbook to help contextualize her argument]
1 Dennis Kearney, President, and H. L. Knight, Secretary, “Appeal from California. The Chinese Invasion. Workingmen’s Address,” Indianapolis Times, 28 February 1878.
2 Ibid.
3 Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty: An American History, Volume 2, Seagull Edition (New York: W.W. Norton, 2005), 75.
Purpose of the assignment
This is an exercise to allow you to think about how historians use primary sources (that is, direct historical evidence) to understand the past. The most persuasive historical arguments are those based directly on this sort of evidence. As explained in tutorial, you will build an argument about an aspect of Jewish history based on the document assigned. For background, use the lectures and the textbook. You should, however, rely primarily on the document itself for your essay. While reading the document, be alert for themes, comparisons, issues that arise. These will form the basis of your paper.
In answering the main question of the assignment, “What does this document tell me about Jewish history?,” you must always think about where the evidence comes from: Who produced it? When? Why? What was the document’s purpose? You may not be able to answer all of these questions fully, but you should take advantage of lectures and your textbook to try to understand the context.
Also, remember that being critical doesn’t mean dismissing the document out of hand. A bias doesn’t invalidate a document. If it did, we would have no medieval Jewish history since the most detailed documentation available about Jews in the Middle Ages come from non-Jewish sources. Bias just means you need to handle the document more carefully and not take it at face value.
Writing the Essay
The purpose of a historical essay is to put forward an argument, clearly, logically, and concisely. According to proper historical method, your argument will be based on the evidence from the document, and you will present both the argument and the evidence to the reader in your essay. You do not have to summarize the document for this assignment. You can assume the reader knows the content of the document.
Although each essay will be short, it should still have a proper form: a short introduction, a middle section or body where you will develop your points, and then a conclusion, drawing the material together. Presentation of your ideas is important. Be sure to write carefully, and once you finished a rough draft, revise it, thinking about whether or not you have said things as clearly as you can. Others will find your ideas more persuasive if they are presented clearly. Use criticisms of the first Document Analysis assignment to improve your second assignment.
You can present the evidence both by quoting the document, as in the example above, and by providing references to it. Every time you refer to a specific point in the document you are analyzing, use footnotes or endnotes to provide references. Remember that the whole point of providing such notes is for another reader to be able to retrace your steps, so make the notes clear. No bibliography is necessary. Each paper should be double-spaced, include a cover page, and use 1-inch margins, Times 12 point font, and page numbers.
October 16 2009 | assignments and primary sources | No Comments »