750 words 8 hrs MLA format

750 words 8 hrs MLA format

3 pages, double-spaced, Times New Roman 12-point font, 1-inch margins

Comparative analysis of 2 primary sources on late 19th-century accident insurance

What you are writing about

This paper assignment will give you the opportunity to compare two very short (one- page) primary sources on late 19th-century accident insurance and to analyze how they conceptualize risk. One source is an 1866 advertisement for the Travelers’ Insurance Company of Hartford, Connecticut; the second source is an 1897 newspaper article entitled “Another Swindling Game.” (Both sources are posted in pdf format on Canvas.) In the thirty-one years between the appearance of the advertisement and the publication of the newspaper article, accident insurance policies became increasingly commonplace amid what historian John Fabian Witt has described as “an industrial-accident crisis of world-historical proportions.”1

In your essay, consider the following questions: Do the sources characterize accident insurance in the same way, or can you detect a shift in how they each describe the culture of industrial-accident risk? What kind of language, rhetoric, details, and statistics are marshaled in each source? What is the argument and purpose of each source? Do you see any evidence of what Arwen Mohun describes as a “vernacular risk culture”? (Please note that these questions are not meant to be a checklist or an outline for your paper but rather a way to help you start thinking about the topic.)

How your paper will be evaluated

In general, your paper will be graded on argument, evidence, and clarity. Most importantly, you need to make an argument (in a thesis statement and then in a sequence of topic sentences that organize your essay). But an argument is only as good as the evidence it rests on. You need to incorporate a lot of specific evidence—details and quotations—from both

1 John Fabian Witt, The Accidental Republic: Crippled Workingmen, Destitute Widows, and the Remaking of American Law (2004; repr., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), 22.

primary sources—in support of your ideas. All quotations must be cited correctly according to the conventions of the Chicago Manual of Style (see below for sample footnotes). Finally, your prose should be clear, direct, and free of grammatical and typographical errors.

How to get started

Start by reading and annotating both sources carefully with the above list of questions in mind.

Then take some time to think, making notes or using other prewriting strategies to arrive at a main idea that will be your overarching argument. The one- or two-sentence version of your argument will be your thesis statement, which should appear in your introduction.

Once you have formulated your thesis statement, make a list of topic sentences (not just topics) that will form the outline of your paper. Topic sentences should be ideas (not facts or quotations).

When writing a comparative essay, you will have a much stronger argument if you organize your essay by points of comparison (rather than source by source). For example, if you are comparing apples and oranges, do not write two pages on apples and then two pages on oranges. Instead, write one page on aesthetic appeal (comparing apples and oranges), then one page on taste (comparing apples and oranges), then one page on price (comparing apples and oranges).

You are writing an analytical essay, which means that you are making an argument based on evidence. (This is not an opinion piece, so please do not focus on which source you personally liked better or whether you think accident insurance is necessary or a waste of money.)

Writing is a process with many steps (that is impossible to do well if you start at the last minute!) I would recommend starting this assignment as early as possible so that your thinking can develop over a series of drafts. We are happy to discuss your ideas during office hours, and the History Writing Tutor is available to help as well. How to do footnotes Make sure to use the footnote function on your word processing application (rather than attempting to format footnotes manually!) For example, in MS Word, go to Insert > Footnote; other applications are similar. The word processing application will automatically number your footnotes sequentially. Every single time you include a quotation, you need a new footnote with a new number. I have formatted the footnotes for you; just cut and paste the citations below into your paper as needed. Advertisement, New York Observer and Chronicle, July 5, 1866, 212. “Another Swindling Game,” Omaha World-Herald, December 26, 1897, 7.

Guide to writing historical analysis

For more on how to write historical essays, see the Rutgers History Department guide: http://history.rutgers.edu/?option=com_content&task=view&id=106&Itemid=147

The History Writing Tutors’ webpage has a series of very helpful links that cover everything from thesis statements to active verbs to comma usage: http://history.rutgers.edu/undergraduate/history-writing-tutor 1. Argument

Make sure that you know what you are going to argue in your paper before you start writing it. I recommend making some kind of outline that includes your thesis statement and your topic sentences (essentially the skeleton of your argument) before you start writing. It is virtually impossible to sit down in front of a blank screen with no clear idea of your thesis statement, start typing, and end up with a cogent argument.

Your thesis statement (a precise one- or two-sentence statement of your paper’s main idea) should appear somewhere in your introduction. Your reader should not have to read several paragraphs before she discovers what your paper will argue. (Only mystery novelists should keep their readers guessing!)

o Lack of a thesis statement or a very weak thesis statement will undermine the rest of the paper.

o Weak thesis statements leave the critical points of your argument undefined and will allow readers to come to their own conclusions about your material.

o Strong thesis statements will unify the rest of your argument. With your strong thesis in mind from the outset, readers will interpret your material just as you want them to: as evidence for your main idea.

1. Structure

Your paragraph order should reflect a logical sequence of ideas, and each paragraph should have a specific place in the overall organization of your paper. In other words, you should not be able to switch around your paragraphs without disrupting the logic of your argument.

Ideally, think of each paragraph as a stage of your argument—a subtopic that requires its own substantiation. The topic sentence, which usually is the first sentence in the paragraph, should present the idea that you will develop and support in the rest of the paragraph. (When you have finished writing your paper, you should be able to cut and paste your topic sentences into a separate document and then read them together as a single paragraph. If the paragraph makes sense, then you have a logical sequence of ideas in your paragraph structure. If the paragraph doesn’t make sense, then you should revise your topic sentences so that they fill in any gaps in your logic.)

In an analytical essay, topic sentences should be ideas, not facts, questions, or quotations. 3. Evidence

• An argument is only as strong as the foundation it rests on—the sources that you use to

support your ideas. Remember that the success of your paper ultimately rests on your sources and how effectively you marshal evidence to make your case. You may have an

argument that sounds innovative and exciting, but if you don’t cite sources to back up

your claims, your argument won’t be convincing.

Most of your evidence will come from your primary sources. In your paper, you should incorporate direct quotations from your sources, and you should also paraphrase and refer to specific ideas from your sources. Remember that you need to provide complete and accurate citations every time you quote or paraphrase another person’s words. If your paper includes phrases or sentences directly taken from another source, and you do not have quotation marks around them, then you are plagiarizing. 4. Style

Writing vague prose will weaken your argument, so it is important to pay attention to how you are presenting your ideas.

To avoid vague prose, make sure that your sentences make precise statements of who is doing what to whom, and when. Identify your historical actors specifically. And historical essays should definitely have dates in them.

Use active voice, not passive, so that you will clearly convey the action of a sentence. The passive voice is designed to obscure the actor (e.g., “Taxes will be raised.”) and to deemphasize the action of the sentence (e.g., “The window was broken.”)

Don’t begin a sentence with “This” unless it is followed by a noun. (“This is an example of” is not a good way to begin a sentence because it is not clear to your reader exactly what part of the previous sentence “this” is referring to. “This amendment granted…” is a perfectly fine way to begin a sentence.)

Try reading your paper aloud, slowly and clearly, to listen for awkward sentence constructions or errors. (Don’t rely on your word processing application to proofread your paper.) An unsuspecting friend or roommate will make a good audience.