Beijing Declaration-History paper
TIPS FOR THE DOCUMENTS PAPER
Question (Q): “What constitutes ONE primary document for our paper?”
Answer (A): Basically, a primary document as shown in Stearns, World History in Documents is just about anything in regular font (not bold face). (The chapter and document introductions, as well as the questions for that chapter, appear in bold face.)
Q: “How long should the document be?”
A: It should be at least 2/3 of a page long.
Here’s an example of a document that is too brief:
‘Brazilian Abolition. Law No. 3353, Abolishing Slavery in Brazil,’ p. 259.
This document is only a few sentences long. Furthermore, there is little that one can write about it. It would be better to skip this particular document.
Q: “I am interested in chapter 33, but I am confused about which items are individual documents.”
A: You raise a good point. Here are some of the documents from that chapter:
· “Beijing Declaration” (September 1995), pp. 372-373. The author is United Nations.
· “Love and Marriage,” 379-381. The author is Mahdu Kishwar.
This document (“love and marriage”) is broken up into two parts, both of which are needed to count as one document.
· “Male Daughters, Female Husbands,” 381-383. The author is Ifi Amadiume.
Content in other parts of this chapter require a little bit of explanation. I would count as one document, “Interview with a Zapotec Indian,” pp. 374-375. I would count as another document, “Interviews at a Birth Control Clinic,” p. 375 as one document.
For purposes of this assignment, Perdita Huston is the author of both of the above documents. To distinguish one document from the other when both documents have the same author, let’s write “Huston1” for the Zapotec woman document and “Huston2” for the Birth Control Clinic document.
Please disregard the example at the bottom of p. 1 of the documents paper prompt. (It said that all of the documents grouped under “China: Official Statements,” must be done to count as one document.)
So far, you have seen examples of documents authored by present-day scholars. I will show you how to do a notation for an earlier, historical writer. (The Mussolini document is on pp. 321-324. The Peron piece is on pp. 327-331.)
If, for example, you look carefully at the Mussolini primary document, you will notice that the full acknowledgment by Stearns (at the bottom of p. 320) is a bit long. I would like for you to write your notations using the format, one author-one book, but in a way that acknowledges the information came ultimately from a primary source.
Imagine that Peter Stearns is the sole author, and World History in Documents is one source. Here’s how you could do a second (or subsequent) endnote using Mussolini:
Stearns, World History in Documents, 321, citing Mussolini.
In this case, “321” means p. 321 in World History in Documents. Since I know that you will be getting all of the documents from the Stearns text, writing “Mussolini” is shorthand for the particular primary document by Mussolini that appears in the chapter of your choosing (in this case, chapter 29, “Authoritarianism on the Right.”)
The first time you cite this source, be sure to use a long-format notation. In the Mussolini example, it would appear as:
Peter N. Stearns, ed., World History in Documents: A Comparative Reader, Concise Edition (New York and London: New York University Press, 2008), __, citing Mussolini.
Q: “Can I pick documents from different chapters?”
A: No. Select just one chapter that most interests you, as long as it’s from ch. 16-36. (These are relevant to modern world history.) Also, the documents in one chapter are connected by a common theme.
Q: “Can I use outside sources” (ones not in the Stearns book)?
A: Because this assignment is only about five or six pages long (not counting the notations), it would probably be better to stick with just the documents in your chosen chapter. IF you do use an outside source, keep content from it very brief, so you don’t overwhelm the documents from Stearns.
Q: “Are there any other changes in the assignment that I should know about?”
A: No. But please follow the instructions regarding paper organization and ways you can analyze your chosen documents.
