Specifications for Papers

Some of the specifications and injunctions given here are intended to maintain the routine of the seminar, but most of them are conventions of professional practice. In general I want you to submit your work as historians, not as history students. That's the point of the seminar, after all. By the time you turn in your paper, you're supposed to be a historian.

1. Pursue your research and writing according to the schedule laid out in the calendar of the course and according to methods and standards discussed in class.

2. The length of the paper is to be 2500 words of text. This is a standard length for oral presentation, amounting to about 10 pages of double-spaced text in typical fonts and about 20 minutes reading time.

3. Annotation is to be done in the style discussed in class and codified in the Chicago Manual of Style.

4. No bibliography. (Books ordinarily have bibliographies, but papers and articles do not.)

5. Illustrations belong at the back of the manuscript, and should be placed there with appropriate legend.

6. Proofread, and proofread again aloud.

7. No title page is necessary. Center the title at the top of page 1, and center your name under that, as in,

Everyman His Own Historian

By Carl Becker

8. No plastic covers, folders, binders, or staples. Just put a paper clip on it.

Submission of Papers

Send the first draft to me by e-mail, a Word doc attached to your e-mail message, subject heading: Paper. I’ll edit the draft and return it to you, also meet with you to talk about it. After you have revised the paper, send it back to me again.

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