Beginning Library Research for your Source - based Argument Paper

The process of becoming familiar with the Stanford Libraries can continue for a lifetime, but a good place to start is at the Beginning Library Research Page:

http://www-sul.stanford.edu/guides/

Read through this page, and take a look at the U.S. History links especially.

Then go to the Database pages, where you will find amazing online resources for your papers:

http://www-sul.stanford.edu/catdb/alldata.html

I would like you to begin your search for information with Jstor and America: History and Life to start out, but you should also look through the whole page to see the wide array of sources available, from Historical Newspapers Online to the San Francisco Library Homepage to the Bibliography of Native North Americans.

Requirements for the Argument Paper

This paper will be 5-7 pages, double -spaced, and should include at least two primary sources and 4 secondary sources. You will not need to deal with opposition to your arguments fully in this paper - that will come next quarter when your research paper will dominate your efforts! For now, you will be working with the inter-play of primary and secondary sources to prove a point, using these sources to persuade us about one major argument you wish to make.

Step I. Suppose you have looked at the list of topics I have given you, and you decide to pursue research about black women in the Gold Rush. How can you proceed from this topic to an argument that you can support with primary and secondary sources?

First, do your research, read more, get your sources, and keep the following questions in mind as you read:

What interests me most about this topic?

What is most surprising about this topic?

What have I learned that most people do not know about this topic?

What aspects of the topic seem controversial?

What kind of evidence is available to me ?

What kind of primary and secondary sources can I use?

Which aspects of this topic could I explore fully in 5-7 pages?

What new ideas can I get from the indices and online source headings about this topic?

Step II. After you have done some reading, stop and freewrite about what you might want to pursue further in the topic. Then, begin to formulate a tentative argument, an argument which may change as you finish your paper. For example, if you take the subject of black women in the Gold Rush, you will find that black women not only worked as prostitutes and shopkeepers, but that they owned mines, ran businesses, owned ranches, inherited gold fields from their husbands, and even became involved in state politics. But how can you make an argument out of this information?

One way might be to consider that your high school textbooks have never mentioned any of these facts, and you might want to review more textbooks to see if black women appear in any of them.

One student last year did pick this topic, and she argued in her paper that U.S. history texts, at both the high school and university level, represented black women in the West in a woefully limited manner, especially in light of the enormous contributions these women had made. She examined texts, read historical journals and online newspapers, researched black women in secondary sources, and came up with a thesis which proposed that these college and high school texts were omitting a vital part of American history.

You could make other arguments from this topic also. You might find in your research that black women during the Gold Rush introduced certain businesses to California , and you could trace the evolution of these businesses over the last 150 years, detailing the little -known impact black women made on the Gold Rush economy.

You could also set your paper up to challenge stereotypes of black women as prostitutes during the Gold Rush, and use all your evidence to argue that while some black women were prostitutes, others were shrewd businesswomen and entrepreneurs.

There are a number of ways, in other words, to formulate an argument from a topic , and the more you read about your topic first, the clearer you will be about creating an argument.

Step III. If you like writing with an outline, outline your paper and then begin the rough draft.

If you prefer to write and then organize, you can write your rough draft, revise it, reorganize it around a clear thesis, and write it again.

Once you have a clear idea of your thesis and the evidence you are using to support that thesis,

underline your topic sentences, and check for an argument in each topic sentence. Does each topic sentence promote your thesis and move your argument forward? Also check to make sure that you have enough evidence to support each major point in each paragraph.

Use your primary sources for interest and color, adding to secondary source material you have taken from other scholars' works. For example, if you are writing about black women in politics, you can quote an historical researcher who has written books on the subject, but you can also quote from the diaries of the women themselves, thus adding depth, interest, and originality to your research. Use your secondary sources to prove larger points and to give statistical evidence; use primary sources to give examples and add personality to your research.

Step IV. Citing Your Sources. For this paper, just put the author or the title of the book or journal in parentheses after you have quoted or paraphrased the author. At the back of the paper, you can put a complete list of the works you have cited. Next quarter we will go into much more detail about how to cite sources formally, but for now, just let me know where you got your information, and , if you are going to quote, be sure to introduce your source in the body of the paper the first time you quote him or her.

(For example: Author Dee Brown, who has written several books about women and the West, states that : " YOUR QUOTE HERE."

Step V. Revise for stylistic problems!

Check your transitions, internal and between paragraphs.

Get rid of short, choppy sentences, and check for sentence variety by reading your paper out loud.

Get rid of "this " by itself, "being that," "likewise," "thing," and slang terms.

Substitute strong verbs for the "be" verbs, and check for word repetition.

Work on an interesting conclusion that does NOT just "tell them what you told them."

Save an interesting quote or image to end with , and summarize without using the term, "Thus we have seen that.." Also avoid boring, repetitive language which simply repeats the thesis.

And finally, PROOFREAD CAREFULLY!!!