(An "Initial Proposal" should include as many of the points below as you are ready to provide as

well as two complete footnotes and bibliographic entries in Chicago Style. Your final proposal

will include all of the points below.)

Craft a Research Proposal

After you have completed your preliminary research, craft a one-page proposal. Your teachers

and friends will probably be happy to read it and comment on it. Even if they are not, the process

of writing the proposal will still help you to sketch out your ideas. The proposal is an early

opportunity to think critically about your topic.

Every proposal should answer these questions:

1. What is your topic? Describe it briefly.

2. What is your hypothesis? Tell which question is driving your research.

3. What will your readers learn from this project? Will you be bringing new information to

light, or will you be interpreting commonplace knowledge in a new way?

4. Why is your project significant or interesting? Discuss the relationship between your

project and some broader issue in history.

5. What are your principal sources? Give a short bibliography of four primary and four secondary sources with annotations.

6. What methods will you use to evaluate your sources? Will you be reading library books

or will you be using archival materials? Are any of your sources in foreign languages, and if so, can you understand them? Will you be using methods from another discipline, such as sociology or anthropology?

Adapted from: William Kelleher Storey, Writing History: A Guide for Students. 2nd ed. New

York: Oxford University Press, 2004, 14-15.

Introductory Paragraph and Annotated Bibliography

The bibliographic entries will be preceded by a one-paragraph introduction to the paper you "would have written," had one been assigned, in which you state your thesis and give an overview of the evidence you would have used to prove it and a statement as to why it matters (the "so what?" question).

Creating an Annotated Bibliography

The annotated bibliography will contain at least ten primary and ten secondary scholarly sources. Scholarly sources include well documented books and articles in peer-reviewed journals. All sources will be formatted in Chicago style and grouped together as either primary or secondary sources. Under each category, primary or secondary, entries should be alphabetized. Each annotation will contain a sentence addressing the author's thesis, a description of the evidence used, and what the work's significance to your topic is, for a total of roughly three sentences. Single-space entries with double-spacing between entries.

Evaluation Criteria

The final project will be evaluated based on the usual criteria for written work. In addition, the following points will be judged:

1. How interesting is the question you pose? Is it sharply focused and original or is it diffuse and generic? A good question might be, "Who holds the real power in the Decameron, men or women and to what extent to Boccaccio's portrayals of gender dynamics reflect the reality of life in Florence in the fourteenth century?" A possible thesis statement in answer to this question might be, "A close examination of Boccaccio's text reveals that more often than not, women had the upper hand inside marriage, but among strangers men always prevailed. However, from what we know about women in Florentine society, Boccaccio's views represent nothing but wishful thinking." A poor one would be, "What were women's lives like in the Middle Ages?" With a poor, unfocussed thesis being, "Women's lives varied a lot, depending on a lot of factors." Notice how the focus of the first question and answer contrasts with the vague generalities of the second set. The first is likely in the "A" or "B" range. The second maybe a "C" or a "D."

2. The other major criterion by which your work will be judged is how thorough and up-to-date is your research? Did you "get to the bottom" of a sharply focused question, or is it general and scattered? Did you consult scholarly journals as well as books in the UW library system? Or did you supplement an hour at your public library with some web surfing the night before the work was due? Did you locate and identify the classics in the field everyone cites or did you miss them?

For the purposes of grading your bibliography, primary sources must be relevant to the topic. Secondary sources need to be scholarly; websites per se, don't count. (It doesn't matter how you access scholarly works, just that you use them. For instance, if you rely on www.jstor.org you are tapping into scholarly literature via the web, which is quite different than going to some random website; the first is research, the second is wasting your time.

Finally, if you completely change your project topic, you need to re-write and re-submit your research proposal.