Short Research Papers Due Weeks 3 And 6 - 3 To 5 Pages

Short Research Papers Due Weeks 3 And 6 3 5 Pagesthis Document Provi

Short Research Papers Due Weeks 3 And 6 3 5 Pagesthis Document Provi

This document provides important information to help you write a great research paper. You must use the Chicago style for citations and bibliography. See examples below. You must use credible academic sources. See information below.

Resources to help you write a great research paper:

- This document

- Chicago citation examples below and under course policies, Newsletter 1.

- Guidance in the APUS library.

- Examples of great student papers in the APUS library and in the course.

Possible Topic Categories Please narrow down the topic once you select a category. For example, instead of Grant as President, write about corruption in the Grant administration. The topic selected must be substantially different than the one you write about in your short paper. This list is not all inclusive.

  1. Grant as President
  2. “Jim Crow”
  3. Boss Tweed
  4. J.P. Morgan
  5. The Transcontinental Railroad
  6. The Steel Industry
  7. J.D. Rockefeller
  8. The American Labor Movement
  9. The New Immigration
  10. Booker T. Washington
  11. The Growth of American Cities
  12. The Suffrage Movement
  13. The Indian Wars
  14. The Settlement of the West
  15. The Populist Movement
  16. William Jennings Bryan
  17. The Spanish American War
  18. Theodore Roosevelt
  19. The Conquest of the Philippines
  20. Theodore Roosevelt and the Monroe Doctrine
  21. The Building of the Panama Canal
  22. The Great White Fleet
  23. The Conservation Movement
  24. Woodrow Wilson
  25. The United States in World War I
  26. The Sinking of the Lusitania
  27. Wilson’s Fourteen Points
  28. Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference
  29. The United States and the League of Nations
  30. The Roaring Twenties
  31. Prohibition
  32. Herbert Hoover
  33. The Scopes Monkey Trial
  34. The Rise of Professional Sports
  35. The Stock Market Crash of ...
  36. Interwar U.S. Foreign Policy
  37. The Washington Naval Treaty
  38. Franklin D. Roosevelt
  39. The New Deal
  40. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)
  41. The Bonus March of ...
  42. The America First Movement
  43. U.S. Neutrality
  44. Lend-Lease
  45. America’s Entry into WWII
  46. George C. Marshall
  47. Any U.S. Military Leader of World War II
  48. Individual Battles and Campaigns of World War II
  49. The U.S. Army in World War II
  50. The U.S. Navy in World War II
  51. Allied Grand Strategy in World War II
  52. The United States and the Atomic Bomb
  53. Women in the Military: World War II
  54. The Battle of Midway
  55. Douglas MacArthur
  56. The Truman Doctrine
  57. Post War American Society
  58. The Early Days of the Cold War
  59. The Civil Rights Movement
  60. Martin Luther King
  61. The Occupation of Germany
  62. The Korean War
  63. MacArthur in Japan
  64. The Red Scare
  65. Senator Joseph McCarthy
  66. Eisenhower as President
  67. The Sixties
  68. John F. Kennedy
  69. The Bay of Pigs
  70. The Cuban Missile Crisis
  71. Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society
  72. Any Aspect of the Vietnam War
  73. Nixon and Vietnam
  74. Nixon and China
  75. Watergate
  76. The Arab Oil Embargo of ...
  77. Feminism
  78. Jimmy Carter as President
  79. The Reagan Revolution
  80. Arms Control Treaties
  81. Reagan and the Soviet Union
  82. George Bush and the End of the Cold War
  83. Desert Shield/Desert Storm
  84. The Impeachment of Bill Clinton
  85. The United States in the Post Cold War World
  86. The 2000 Presidential Election
  87. The Bush Administration
  88. The War on Terrorism
  89. Immigration in the 1990s
  90. Minorities in Contemporary America
  91. The Changing American Family
  92. The Drug Wars
  93. The United States and the Global Economy
  94. Pax Americana
  95. Contemporary American Foreign Policy
  96. The United States Military in the 21st Century
  97. U.S. Policy Toward Cuba
  98. Operation Iraqi Freedom
  99. The War in Afghanistan
  100. Kosovo Crisis
  101. The Middle East Technology Revolution

Acceptable Academic Research Sources

There have been many questions on what sources are acceptable for academic referencing. Below is something I copied from the APUS library.

How and where you access the source is not important; its academic validity is. Your best bets are books and journal articles. You can never cite Wikipedia or encyclopedias of any type. B. Peer-Reviewed/Refereed/Scholarly Journals Whenever you receive a research assignment in college, instructors normally assume that you will avoid citing “popular” web sites, magazines and newspapers.

While useful for context and anecdotes, such resources often lack the rigor needed for university studies. Similarly, you are advised to avoid citing Wikipedia. It can be an excellent launching pad; but, as an encyclopedia, is considered common knowledge and not to be formally cited. Instead, your professors expect you to reference and be party to an established professional literature. This typically includes monographic book-length studies, but especially focuses on articles from peer-reviewed or refereed scholarly journals.

What does “scholarly,†"refereed," or “peer-reviewed†really mean? Essentially, it implies academic “quality control"--articles by scholars that meet the publications standards as vetted by other scholars in the field. The submission has been inspected by a publication panel or individual reviewers, who are experts on the topic (that is, the author’s professional peers; hence, “peer-reviewedâ€). Reviewers or "referees" look for proper use of research methods, significance of the article’s contribution to the existing literature, and appropriate scholarly style. As signified by their publication in a peer-reviewed journal, accepted materials have earned the expert stamp of approval.

Online Library Research: But, with so many articles out there, how do you know if an article has been peer-reviewed? The Online Library’s article databases can help. The main suites, Ebsco and ProQuest, give you the option of limiting your searches to articles from scholarly journals Find and check this option below the search box, and your results will be only expert-approved articles. (See: Ebsco example). Other databases, like PsycARTICLES and Sage Criminology, automatically search only peer- reviewed journals. A simple click filters out popular sources that you can’t use from the appropriate literature.

Can’t find the article databases…or don’t know which are the best to search for yourtopic? Of course, if you’ve already found an article that you’d like to use in a research paper but you’re not sure if it’s popular or scholarly, there are ways to tell. The table below lists some of the most obvious clues (but your librarians will be happy to help you figure it out as well--e-mail libhelp@apus.edu !). SCHOLARLY Authors’ names, credentials and even addresses are almost always included (so that interested researchers can correspond). Authors will be experts in their fields.

Articles are written for experts (or college students!) in the field (lots of technical language and/or discipline specific jargon, statistical analyses, written in a formal tone). Articles typically report, in great detail, the authors’ own research findings (and include support from other research)…these articles will be more than just 1 or 2 pages. Authors always cite their sources throughout the article, normally in conformance with a Style Manual, and include list of references at the end. Articles seldom include photographs, but may include tables or graphs of data (may seem bland at a glance). The journal has very specific guidelines for articles to be published (often this information can be found on the journal’s web site), and a rigorous peer-review process (each article will list when it was submitted to the reviewers, and when it was accepted for publication…often several months apart!).

Chicago Style Format — Common Source Citations

Below are examples of how to cite common sources in Chicago Style:

Books

Single author: Brown, Joseph L. The Third Wonder of the World. New York, NY: Vintage Press, 1999.

Two authors: Sampson, Larry M., and Timothy B. Landers. A Review of Modern Western Conflicts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Multiple authors: Price, Nancy R., Stacey Sanders, Rice Moore, and Julie Finch. Studies of Women in Combat. Boston and New York: Pave Press, 1987.

Journal Articles:

Scholarly journal: Johnson, Adam S. “The New Deal in Retrospect.” Political History 88, no.1 (Spring 1995): 58-70.

Web Sites:

With author: Baring, Janey. “History and Eastern Asian History.” February 5, 2007. (accessed March 3, 2009). Sample link

No author: “Higgins Boats.” November 3, 1999. (accessed June 2, 2001).

There are many more examples and details about Chicago Style in the APUS library.

Paper For Above instruction

Choose a topic from the provided list, narrowing it down to a specific aspect or event that offers enough scholarly resources for research. For example, instead of broadly writing about "Grant as President," focus on "Corruption in Grant's Administration." Conduct thorough research using credible, peer-reviewed academic sources such as scholarly journal articles and monographs, ensuring sources are published in reputable outlets with rigorous peer-review processes. Utilize the Chicago style for all citations and bibliography entries, adhering to the detailed examples provided.

The research paper should feature a clear introduction outlining your specific topic and thesis statement, a well-organized body that presents evidence from scholarly sources, and a conclusion summarizing your findings and their significance. Incorporate primary and secondary sources appropriately, providing accurate citations throughout the paper to support your analysis and argumentation.

The paper should be approximately 3-5 pages long, double-spaced, using 12-point Times New Roman font, with proper academic formatting. Citations must follow Chicago style with footnotes/endnotes and bibliographic entries. Be sure to avoid unreliable sources like Wikipedia or popular web sites, focusing solely on peer-reviewed scholarly works.

Remember, the goal is to produce a scholarly, well-supported research paper that demonstrates your understanding of the topic and mastery of proper citation procedures. Carefully proofread your work for clarity, coherence, and adherence to academic standards.

References

  • Johnson, Adam S. “The New Deal in Retrospect.” Political History 88, no.1 (Spring 1995): 58-70.
  • Sampson, Larry M., and Timothy B. Landers. A Review of Modern Western Conflicts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
  • Price, Nancy R., Stacey Sanders, Rice Moore, and Julie Finch. Studies of Women in Combat. Boston and New York: Pave Press, 1987.
  • Brown, Joseph L. The Third Wonder of the World. New York, NY: Vintage Press, 1999.
  • Baring, Janey. “History and Eastern Asian History.” February 5, 2007. (accessed March 3, 2009). Sample link
  • Robbins, Carol L. “Time Stands Still: Revisiting Appomattox Court House.” Richmond Times, June 3, 2009, A8.
  • Briggs, Andrew M. “The Roots of Transcendentalism and Walden Pond.” Transcendentalism Today, May 2003, 40.
  • Johnson, Adam S. “The New Deal in Retrospect.” Political History 88, no.1 (Spring 1995): 58-70.
  • Sampson, Larry M., and Timothy B. Landers. A Review of Modern Western Conflicts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
  • Price, Nancy R., Stacey Sanders, Rice Moore, and Julie Finch. Studies of Women in Combat. Boston and New York: Pave Press, 1987.

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