Historical Analysis Prompt: Write a 3 page analysis paper on ONE subject from (the Ancient Medicine of Great Zimbabwe, Ibn Battuta The Greatest Traveller in History, Or The Kush Empire) Here are some links my instructor shared with me, other sources besides these links will need to be used. MLA format See the instructions below Ensure there is no Plagerism https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b86XE3TbXg0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4201&v=4iAoPgcvH9c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrigtxUMs-w

Classic Essay format: A classic essay format consists of an opening paragraph, a body, and a conclusion, peppered through with evidence and sources. The bullet points below offer guidelines to writing a classic essay. 1)Opening Paragraph: Is like the opening statements of a legal trial; you introduce a little backstory or 'context' of the subject, explain how this analysis will guide the reader through the work examined, and then will stake out a position. This staking out of a position is a thesis and is the main reason why the reader should care; i.e. what question are you trying to answer. You do not need to write "My thesis is...", but it should be clear to the reader. Typically this is the ultimate or penultimate sentence of the opening paragraph. 2)The Body: is where you will make your main argument and present most of your evidence. Continuing with our "trial" example from above, this is where you lay out each event, what it means, and how you know the meaning of these events for the jury. Most of this will be your analysis, but it will need to be shored up with evidence, which is where your in-text citations will come in. Just as each piece of evidence is numbered and catalogued in a trial, so too are your sources. In the MLA format (LINK (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.) that means a special introductory parentheses at first, with a truncated one later (AUTHOR, PG#). For Chicago Manual of Style (LINK (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.), this means unique, numerical, sequential, non-repeating citations that ascend in number (i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4...). You are free to use either style but sources must be cited in-text and at the foot or you will not earn full credit. Note: If you decide to use Chicago style, do not use Roman numerals of any case ('i, ii, iii, iv or I, II, III, IV); these have a special meaning in History and are not appropriate for this analysis. 3)The Conclusion: The final stage of the "trial" (or, in this case, essay) is the conclusion. Much like closing arguments, you will summarize the major points of the analysis and demonstrate how these all tie together to answer your thesis. It is completely insufficient to write "As all my work above shows, this is the reason why Dante did what he did..." or similar short statements. If you did this at trial, your client would lose. If you do that in the analysis, your paper will fail. You must tie it all together for the reader. 4)Footnotes: Some of you have gotten used to the 400 word essay where you list a source in the text and are done with it. Others list the source at the bottom ('Foot') of the essay and are done with it. Now you will have to do both. If you are drawing a direct quote from a source, are paraphrasing anyone else's material, or providing evidence in any way you must cite it in-text and as a footnote. See the links above for how to do that. Other necessities and tips/tricks for a successful essay: -Take yourself out of the narrative: Avoid using "I will," "I believe," "I think" and "I feel" or similar statements. In this scenario, you are a professional historian arguing the facts, not an opinion. Remember, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Facts, however, are immutable. Instead, substitute phrases like "As the passage shows...," "As Dante makes evident in...," "Literary author Jimmy Crack-corn states...," and "A careful reading reveals..." By taking yourself (I, me, think, feel, believe, etc.) you are removing sentiment which may cause the reader to doubt you. A lot of people "think" that black cats are bad luck, or "feel" like we live in a simulation of reality, or "believe" the earth is flat. Can they prove it through evidence though? -Active voice: "Kilroy was hit by a bus. Kilroy was broken up with by his girlfriend. Kilroy was accused of being boring." These are examples of passive voice. Things happen to the subject. This is also an incredibly boring, tedious, and horrible way to write. "Kilroy ate a shrimp cocktail. Kilroy completed the obstacle course in record time. Kilroy wrote an amazing analysis of Dante Allegheri's Inferno." These are examples of active voice. Kilroy makes things happen. He is in charge of his life. This is also a more entertaining, engaging, and excellent way to write. -Sources Regardless of what career path you are following, in this class you are an historian (for better or for worse). This means you will be held accountable for the sources you use to inform your analysis. I have noted this before, but it bears repeating: Good sources are those from trusted, peer-reviewed publications or institutions. For example, your textbook is fact-checked (i.e. peer-reviewed) before publication, after publication, during the selection of it for the college, and by me. This is a filtration process that gets rid of obviously bad or flawed history and analyses and presents a good- to very good version of historical truth. Similarly, institutions like the BBC, the Smithsonian Museum, the American Historcal Association, or databases such as EBSCO or ABC-Clio offer peer-reviewed journals and other sources that have been vetted by the Historical community and found to be accurate in their portrayal of historical events and perpectives. Similarly, though less rigorously, the videos and activities I provide weekly have all been watched and checked for accuracy by me. Other websites and sources that are not part of this process are vulnerable to manipulation, chicanery, or outright lies. Pages such as WIkipedia can be altered freely and sometimes erroneous information can be infamously difficult to correct. An historical blog site (.com, .net, .web, etc.) can have seemingly good information only to veer off and present outright lies, distortions, or misrepresenations. Why they do this is irrelevant and speaks to a larger social and philosophical discussion that we don't have time for. As a rule of thumb, if a site has banner ads for stuff on Amazon or herbal remedies, then it is probably not a great source of information (even if it comes up first on your Google search) and should not be used in this analysis. -Actually analyze the material. There is a compulsion for inexperienced authors to interject an opinion into their analysis, even innocuously though statements like "I really enjoyed the book." or "These visions prove that God spoke through Dante and I feel closer to Our Lord." Don't. While your opinion of the book is important, in general, your voicing of that opinion in the analysis is not appropriate in this context. Similarly, I want to hear you in this analysis. Some students default to letting the experts talk and stitch quotes together using the occasional conjunction or otherwise let others do the driving. This is not useful to the class, to me, or to you as a student. While you may back up your statements with short quotes or paraphrasings, don't lose your voice in the process and become a quote-o-matic robot who doesn't offer anything new in the end. -Live and die by transition. Your body will be several paragraphs long, each tackling an idea or theme, typically. It is important that each paragraph relate to each other well to create a harmonious anaysis. Transitions, however, can be a tricky thing to master and have frightened many students into offering bullet point topics or section headers instead. Don't do this. Write and re-write transitions if need be. Use the drafts, reading out loud, or reading to a friend/spouse/loved one to get things right.