Option 1: Choose any of the Supreme Court cases that we have discussed this semester in lecture or that appear in the SCOTUS excerpts on Canvas. Find two (or more!) scholarly articles in historical journals or law reviews that discuss the case. ,Explain what you learned from the articles and how they help you better understand the court case., Also explain how the authors’ arguments compare to each other. ,Where are their interpretations similar?, Where are they different?, What do you think accounts for the differences in the arguments or perspectives of your authors? (Here you are approaching historiography, or the study of the writing of history.) Do you find one of the articles more persuasive than the other? Explain why or why not.
Option 2: Pick any aspect of the case Dred Scott v. Sanford that you would like to know more about, pose a question you would like the answer to, and then try to find the answer using research in scholarly, secondary sources. Choose something fairly specific, such as the plea in abatement (Was asking for a plea in abatement common?), Justice Curtis’s dissent (Why did Curtis approach the issue so differently from Taney?), or the Missouri Supreme Court decision from 1852 (Did the Missouri Supreme Court decision acknowledge how it was departing from precedent?). Feel free to reach out about what you are curious about and how you could fashion your curiosity into a researchable question.
General Requirements:
· Approx. 1200 words, or about 4 pages double-spaced with one-inch margins. Include a word count. I will accept papers that are 15% over or under the word count.
· Research drawn from at least TWO secondary, scholarly sources:
· articles published in professional journals, available through the library’s databases
· scholarly books that include footnotes, are ordinarily published by a university press, and are written by a professional historian, sociologist, cultural critic, etc.
· Use at least two sources not including class materials provided to you. These two sources can be any combination of scholarly books and articles. Note that you will not read all of the book(s) you use, just the relevant parts. You should read all of the articles.
· Footnotes and bibliography in Chicago style. See additional information below under “Style Guidance.”
Style guidance:
For footnotes:
· In MS Word, go to “References” then “Insert Footnote” to create and number the footnotes automatically. Google Docs and Pages have similar functionality.
· Include a bibliography at the end of the paper. Divide it into primary sources and secondary sources. Follow the formatting modeled for you in any Chicago-style guide.
· See https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/turabian/turabian-notes-and-bibliography-citation-quick-guide.html for a quick guide to Chicago Notes-and-Bibliography style. I am asking for Notes and Bibliography style.
· Your footnotes should include the precise page or pages from which your information or quotation comes.
· Your bibliography should include all the pages on which a journal article appears. See the link above.
· The first citation of a particular source should include all citation information. Subsequent citations should include only the author’s last name, short title, and page number. See the link above.
To help you write correct, formal, written English, remember to do the following.
· Use only complete sentences with a subject and predicate. Avoid sentence fragments and run-on sentences, both of which make it difficult to decode your meaning.
· Do not use contractions such as weren’t or couldn’t. Contractions are a verbal form. Use the written form: were not, could not, etc.
· Check word usage for unfamiliar words.
· Indent new paragraphs.
Outside Resources and AI Tools: This assignment is designed to be self-contained. You should have everything you need to complete the assignment by using course materials and the scholarly articles that you found through the library. If you need help understanding the material, you should come to me or go to TASC.
If you use any additional sources, you must include them in your bibliography.
You are supposed to do the work on your own, but If you use any AI tools, you must cite them in your bibliography, disclose what you used, include the precise wording of the prompt(s) you entered, and include a 2-3-sentence reflection on how the AI tool helped you with the assignment or helped you learn.
If you use Grammarly or another editing AI tool to show you how to improve your writing, you must include that in your bibliography, as well. Do not let an editing tool rewrite your sentences for you; do the rewriting yourself. I do want to see you write in complete sentences, but I want to hear your authentic voice, not the robot voice.
Violations of these standards—using any outside tools, that is anything except course materials and your two or three articles, without disclosing them—constitutes academic dishonesty and will be penalized. Your grade on the assignment will be lowered, possibly to an F.
You cannot withdraw from a class in which you have committed academic dishonesty.
