This
document sheds an unfiltered light on politics in the Gilded Age by
detailing the famous / infamous career of a New York City politician.
Plunkitt’s views provide a window into this era and the fundamental
transformations reshaping the country and redefining what it meant to be
an American.
Answer the following three (3) questions in an essay a MINIMUM length of Two (2) FULL Pages.
1. What does this document reveal about the nature of American politics in the Gilded Age? Please be specific.
2. What major aspects of Mr. Plunkitt’s approach to politics do you approve of and/or disapprove of? Why? Please be specific.
3.
Are there parallels with this primary document from the early 1900s and
the nature of politics and role of politicians in modern society today?
In what specific ways?
Please remember to use specific evidence from these documents to support your arguments.
Writing Instructions and Formatting / Citation Requirements
Writing Instructions and
Formatting / Citation Requirements
For the Primary Document Analysis (PDA) papers
this semester, you will select a single document or specified group of
documents from the documents provided within each Unit’s PDA Assignment page.
After reading your selected document please submit a written essay
that:
1. Addresses the stated
writing prompt(s) associated with the specific PDA assignment and selected
documents.
2. Exceeds the stated
MINIMUM length requirement for the associated writing prompt(s).
The Writing Assignments for this course should
be written and submitted with the following formatting rules:
1. The essays should be Double-Spaced and
written in Times New Roman font with a point size of 12.
2. The top, bottom, left, and right margins
should all be the standard 1″ in size.
3. The single-spaced header on the
first page should include your Name and Document # from which your
analysis is drawn. There is no need for a header on any subsequent page. There
is also no need for a Title. Please be aware that if you should decide to
include in your submission a Title that this will not be counted towards
your minimum length requirement.
4. You will be penalized for any
submission that does not meet the stated minimum length requirement.
5. Because of the short length of these
assignments, please avoid directly quoting the document unless it is absolutely
essential to your argument. Instead, briefly paraphrase the passage(s) and
focus instead upon providing your analysis and supporting your
argumentation.
6. There is no need to provide a citation for
the single document you are analyzing. However, if you have used outside
sources beyond the document provided, please include citations using the MLA
Format. This will include in-text citations and a Works Cited Page. The
Works Cited Page should be on a separate page at the conclusion of your essay
and will not count towards the minimum length requirement.
If you need any help with the above formatting
guidelines or citing your sources, please do not hesitate to email me. A very
good online resource for any college-level writing assignment is the Purdue
Online Writing Lab (OWL).The following URL will lead you directly to their
pages related to MLA citations: Click Here
Finally, there should be no excuses for
attempting to use the ideas and/or words of any of your sources and attempting
to pass them off as your own. Plagiarism will not be tolerated under any
circumstances. Simply citing your source(s) does not give you permission to
copy them word-for-word unless they are being directly quoted and placed in
quotation marks. Even attempting to adjust the sentence structure or altering a
couple of words in a source will not absolve you of charges of plagiarism. The
skill of paraphrasing (or putting a source’s words or ideas into your own
words) is not a simple one to acquire. The Purdue OWL provides some helpful
hints and exercises to work on this: Click Here
The trick with paraphrasing is avoiding the
words and phrases of your source(s) as much as possible. The best technique I
have learned is to read your source and then either close the book or minimize
the website. Think about what you read and how it makes sense to you and the
argument(s) you are trying to make. Next, without the help of the open book or
visible website, write the information down in your paper. It will probably not
sound as good or be as polished as the original source, but hopefully it will
actually be your own thoughts about the chosen topic. The purpose of these Unit
Essays is for you to think deeper about a topic of your choosing and provide me
with your own thoughts on the matter. Outside research is certainly acceptable.
However, I am interested in what YOU think and not what others have said
about the questions/issues being addressed.
Once again, please email me with any questions
that you may have and I look forward to reading your original words and ideas
this semester.
Alternative formats
A note about Minimum Length Requirements
A note about Minimum Length Requirements
Please be aware that the associated page
length requirement stated in the writing prompt for these PDA
Assignments is merely a MINIMUM one and the expectation is that you will do
more work in this course than simply the bare minimum. The historical subjects
and events covered by these documents should provide you with enough material
to never have to be concerned with having too little to write about.
In my history courses, there is never such a thing as a maximum
length limit. Consequently, please refer to
the grading rubric for this assignment to understand the point penalties for
not clearly exceeding the minimum length requirement
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