Let the People Decide Paper Information
Note: The paper is due Wednesday, April 27. I am more than happy to have individual
meetings to discuss the paper or to go over a draft of the paper. If you would like to meet with
me about the paper, speak to me after class or email me to make an appointment.
Basic Requirements:
1- Write no less than three double-spaced pages and no more than four double-spaced
pages. Use standard margins and a normal, twelve-point font.
2- Do not use outside sources.
3- Do not use footnotes. When you quote from the book, just put the author and page
number in parentheses at the end of the quotation.
4- Turn in a hard copy of the paper. Do not email me the paper.
5- Staple the paper.
6- Submit an electronic copy of your paper to Safe Assign before you turn in your hard
copy.
7- Proofread the paper.
Safe-assign procedure: Before you turn in the hard copy of the paper, you must upload an
electronic copy of the paper to Safe Assign. To do so, go to the course information tab on
Blackboard, find the submission link for the assignment, and submit the electronic copy of
your paper to Safe Assign.
Paper Topic: How did the struggles for racial democracy in Sunflower County in the 1980s
differ from the freedom struggles there in the 1950s and 1960s? What dynamics had changed?
What dynamics remained the same? To what extent did the struggles of the 1980s build upon
the movements of the 1950s and 1960s?
Suggestions for Writing:
Here are some guidelines for a formal history paper. If you ignore them, the paper
will suffer.
1- Do not use the first person (I, we, us) or the second person (you).
2- Do not use the passive voice. Write, “John hit the ball.” Do not write, “The ball was hit by
John.” In other words, put the subject before the predicate.
3- Do not use contractions (don’t, won’t, etc.) in formal papers.
4- Pronouns must refer to clear and definite antecedents.
5- Use the correct case for pronouns. Determine whether the pronoun is being used as a
subject, or an object, or a possessive in the sentence, and select the pronoun form to
match.
6- Pronouns must agree with antecedents in number and gender.
7- Do not use run-on sentences.
8- Do not use sentence fragments.
9- Write concise sentences.
10- Omit needless words.
11- Do not ask rhetorical questions.
12- Each paragraph should contain one main idea.
13- Enclose parenthetic expressions between commas.
14- Place modifiers near the words they describe.
15- Place a comma before and or but introducing an independent clause.
16- Beware the comma splice. A comma cannot link two independent clauses. Use a
semicolon when you must link two independent clauses.
17- Colons, semicolons, dashes, and parentheses have specific functions. Use them
infrequently and appropriately.
18- Beware faulty parallelisms. Use grammatically equal sentence elements to express ideas
or items in a series. Correct example: “Quentin tells about the South and explains why they
live there.” Incorrect example: “Quentin tells about the South and explaining why they live
there.”
19- Introduce and explain the quotes that you use. Do not use long quotes.
20- Do not end sentences with prepositions.
21- Do not use slang or clichés.
22- Do not split infinitives. Write, “to understand better.” Do not write, “to better
understand.”
23- Underline or italicize the titles of books, newspapers, magazines, and journals.
24- Use quotation marks for the titles of chapters and articles.
25- Use “who” to refer to people and “that” to refer to things.
26- Introduce people by their first and last name.
27- Introduce organizations by their full names.
28- A novel is a work of fiction. Do not refer to monographs, memoirs, or other works of
non-fiction as novels.
29- Refer to what happened in the past in the past tense.
30- Refer to what the living historian writes in the present tense.
31- Use the present tense when discussing a work of fiction.
32- Explain and analyze the past. Do not make moral judgments about it.