Each student is required to pursue an independent research project during the course and will prepare a research paper that is to be of high quality and grammatically correct. You may write your paper on a person, event, or theme in American history. You should attempt to associate the subject of your paper to one of more of the themes and issues that are addressed during this course of study. You should use primary resources for the paper, while also addressing key historiographical issues. While your choice of subject is not necessarily confined to major figures or issues, you should endeavor to select a topic that has been significant in an important way to the history of the United States.
The research paper should be a minimum of 3750 words exclusive of front and back matter (the paper in total should not exceed 5000 words). It should include a title page, reference citations (from multiple sources), and a bibliography. Footnotes are required for the reference citations, and all sources, as well as the corresponding bibliography, must conform to Turabian’s Manual for Writers of Term Papers style for notes and references. Substantial research other than the required course readings is necessary. The bibliography and reference citations are not to be included in the word count. NOTE: Internet sources (web sites) should be rarely used, if ever. Exceptions are scholarly websites and documents available through the APUS Online Library (Wikipedia is not considered a valid academic source).
I will submit all of the final papers into TurnItIn which is a plagiarism checker. If I find evidence of plagiarism, I will give you a zero for the paper.