Ryerson University History Department
CHIS104 Ten Days That Shook the World Winter 2014

 Course Description

The course will explore approximately ten significant events in history that shaped the world in which Ryerson students and faculty currently reside and function together. Lectures and readings will focus on a selected number of epoch-defining historic dates and will explore the multiplicity of gathered forces and ideas that propelled events towards the crucial moment in question and their subsequent consequences on the nature of the world today.  From the Big Bang and the foundations of the first agrarian ‘fertile crescent’ civilizations some 12,000 years ago to the current post-9/11 age of ‘the clash of civilizations’ this course will survey selected events that illuminate how humans lived, worked, traded, related, governed, battled, acquired knowledge (especially historical) and defined supernatural parameters, articles of faith, moral, philosophical and ethical standards in different parts of the world at different times.  It will look at these events on various levels from macro-civilizational to micro-municipal-institutional exploring how the past both distant and recent shaped and shapes the world and our own region today.

            A variety of tools, methods, sources, problems, challenges, standards, theories and practices in the study of history and the historian’s craft will be introduced to assist students in their course assignments to independently map the origins of their own past and the possibilities of their future.

            Other course objectives include:  developing an understanding of how to use history to explain a current situation and project a future scenario and possible outcomes for it; how to find and use different sources of information; how to write narrative and/or analytical reports based on evidence, and how to collect that evidence and evaluate it discerning fact from rumour, news from propaganda, history from mythology.

EVALUATION:

COURSE  READINGS:      There is no assigned course text.  Reading references will be assigned and posted on the course website ( www.petervronsky.org/tendays ) for students to download from JSTOR, PROJECT MUSE, Academic Search Premier, etc, on the Ryerson Library journal database system.  See for example databases at http://library.ryerson.ca/articles/articles-by-subject/. Students are also expected to keep abreast of current events through the reading of Toronto newspapers (copies of the Toronto Star are available for free on the Ryerson campus in various locations) and the Star is also available on the internet, as are the Globe and National Post.  Newspaper readings should be supplemented with CBC, CTV News, CNN, and BBC news on television or streamed online.

How to do the readings:  While there is no course textbook, the assigned readings are many, long and dense but you are not expected to "memorize" their content in detail in the way you might have to in a science, biology or engineering curriculum.  From each article you should master what are the authors' primary theses, arguments and the evidence for them.  You should be able to name and explain any historical concepts the authors offer.  You should be familiar with the material to the extent that you can summarize it as you would a chapter from a book, its basic argument, significance in historical thought and evidence presented.

COURSE RESEARCH PROJECT:  Your term assignment will be to write your own history, i.e., a history of your historical roots.  The question basically is “What global and local historical forces brought you to be residing in Toronto?”  The objective is to trace these historical forces as far back as into the past possible (within essay length limits).  How and why did you end up in Toronto, Canada?  Unless you were personally instrumental in this, this process will likely begin with your own family history. Your assignment is to identify, describe and assess the historical forces that impacted on your or your family's decision to come to Canada.   

You will be working theoretically with three types of historical information:  your own personal memory as historian/autobiographer; primary sources consisting of interviews (if possible) with members of your family and family documents, letters, photographs and other artifacts, and secondary sources consisting of books and/or articles describing the geopolitical historical background to the civilization, nation or society from which you originate.  Not everything in the past is “history”; your challenge is to separate your ‘personal’ past from your ‘historical’ past. You do not necessarily need to describe in personal detail how those forces impacted your past or your family’s—that can remain a private matter should you chose to make it so. Remember, this is not a history of your family per se but of the historical forces that impacted your family in their decision to come to Canada.  In general, focus on the external historical forces. (Although the research assignment will be kept strictly confidential, any student uncomfortable discussing their personal or family history even in this way, may opt to research a non-personal history. Make an appointment to see me if that is the case.)

The assignment consists of two parts:

Part 1 Proposal:  2 to 4 pages maximum.  One or two pages should briefly sketch out the "five Ws" of your proposed history:  when, where, who, why and what.  Focus on the geo-historical forces you will be describing. These should be double-spaced.  

The other one or two pages can be single spaced and will present an annotated bibliography (see below for what annotation is) consisting of a minimum of six secondary sources along with a brief description of your primary sources.  The secondary sources should consist of books or journal articles and will not include sources like Wikipedia, encyclopedias, Encarta, text books, History for Dummies, Time-Life books, etc.  You are free to use those sources as a guide to your research sources, but you may not quote, cite them or include them in your bibliography.

An annotated bibliography consists of bibliographic entries using a Chicago Manual of Style (see the webpage for links if you are not familiar with this) accompanied by brief descriptions (annotation) of the source and how it is relevant to your subject matter.  Each annotation should be no longer than ten sentences.

Do not confuse annotations with citations. Citations (references or “footnotes”) are required for Part 2, your research essay but not for your proposal.

Proposal will be submitted in lecture on the due date, in hard copy, stapled, with your section number indicated, or it may not be accepted and late penalties will accrue until submitted as required.

Any assignment submitted without a correct course section number indicated will be penalized by a full grade deduction.

Part 2 Research Essay:

·  Essays will be approximately 2,500 words in length (10-12 pages not including your title page and bibliography and appendix if any.) 

• Standard  (like Arial or Times New Roman) 12 pt font, cursive or non-cursive, double spaced text, standard 2.5 cm margins, 11” X 8 ½” paper.  Except for the cover and first page, pages must be paginated.
• Unless quoting original American sources, essays will be written in Canadian English not American. ("centre" not "center"; "armour" not "armor"; "labour" not "labor"; "colour" not "color" etc.)--set your MS Word dictionary to "English (Canada)" in your spell checkers.   
• The cover page must have:  your name, student number, course number, section number, and essay title.

Paragraphs are to be indented without any additional spaces between paragraphs, unlike in this course outline, for example.  Any relevant images, maps, graphs included in the essay are to be placed into an appendix at the back. 

The essay should have a single descriptive title or a creative title with a subtitle.  For example:  The Russian Civil War: Escape to Canada or Economic Collapse in Argentina: The Search for Stability or The Revolution in Iran 1979, etc.   “History Essay” is not a title.  Marks will be deducted for essays submitted without a title and/or title page.

Essays will not be accepted without the prior submission of the Part 1 Proposal.

Essays not conforming to any one or more of these above standards will either have marks deducted or not be accepted and late penalties imposed until resubmitted in the required format.

Reference Citations (read carefully)

A history essay is like a courtroom argument—it is based on the presentation of proof conforming with the rules of evidence in an expositive argument.  The way hearsay is not admissible in court, Wikipedia for example, is likewise not admissible as evidence in historical discourse.  Just as court evidence is presented in a disciplined system: Exhibit A, Exhibit B, Exhibit C, etc, in the written historical argument, the Chicago Style footnoted citation is used to lead and guide the reader through the evidence backing the persuasive discourse of the text above it.

Why Chicago Style Footnotes? http://writing.yalecollege.yale.edu/why-are-there-different-citation-styles 

Some of the journal readings for seminars will have been pointed out to you as appropriate models for the citation style required for your essay.

Essays must have a bibliography and have footnoted citations in the Chicago style (at the bottom of the page).  Parenthetic in-text or inline style citations (APA for example) are not unacceptable for a history essay.   A well researched essay integrating multiple sources into its argument contains on average five to six citations per page -- approximately 50 to 70 citations per essay.

As a general rule, references should be given for direct quotations, summaries or your own paraphrases of other people’s work or points of view, and for material that is factual, statistical, controversial, assertive or obscure.  You must cite more than just direct quotes.  WHEN IN DOUBT, IT IS BETTER TO PROVIDE A REFERENCE.  You do not need to cite items of general knowledge like, for example:  water is wet, fire is hot, the sun rises in the east or Elizabeth II is the Queen of England.  

Essays submitted without specific page references in each citation will be automatically failed without any further opportunity to resubmit. 

Basically, the first citation of a source should have the full bibliographical data in it, while in subsequent references to that source, just the name of the author and page number(s) will suffice.  (If more than one source by the same author is used, then include the title as well.) This is an example of the basic required style for citations which are to inserted at the bottom of each page:
 
¹ Jane Doe, The ABC's of History (Toronto: Book Publisher, 1997), pp. 20-21
² Jane Doe, p. 43

To create numerically sequential footnotes in MS WORD 2007 go to the “References” ribbon and select [Insert Footnote]; in earlier version of MS WORD, go to the “Insert” menu and then select [Footnote].  The citations should be formatted to “Arabic numerals (1,2,3, etc.)”

It is not necessary to use archaic citation terms like ibid or op cit. and they are even discouraged as word processing drag or cut-and-paste editing can easily displace the logic of these citation terms as you edit your work.

Titles of books are to be put into italics or underlined. Journal article titles are put in “quotation marks” while the journal titles are in italics or underlined.   See the below webpages for further details and formats as to how to cite journals, multiple authors, collections, etc. or search “Chicago style footnotes” on Google.

Essay Style and Footnote Examples

http://www.okanagan.bc.ca/Assets/Departments+(Administration)/Library/PDFs/chicago.pdf

Chicago Manual of Style

http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html

Chicago Manual Of Style

http://www.msvu.ca/site/media/msvu/StyleGuideChicago(1).pdf

See Also

http://www.dianahacker.com/resdoc/p04_c10_s1.html

http://www.douglascollege.ca/library/chicago.html

Bibliographies

Essays MUST provide alphabetically ordered by author’s surname, bibliographies of all works consulted, whether or not they have been quoted directly in the citations. An adequate bibliography for this assignment will contain no less than six books or journal articles related to the topic.  General books, dictionaries, atlases, textbooks and/or encyclopedias DO NOT count towards this minimum number of sources, and their inclusion in citations will NOT be considered as constituting research. Any website that does not offer academic references to the information contained in it is unacceptable as a source (unless approved by the instructor.) Seminar readings are acceptable as citable sources.

An example of a bibliographic entry is as follows:

Smith, John.  History of Canada  (Toronto: Ontario Publishers, 1997).

Helpful Websites on How to Write History Essays

The History Student's Handbook on Essay

http://hist.ucalgary.ca/macmillk/sites/hist.ucalgary.ca.macmillk/files/Handbook.pdf

How To Write A Good History Essay

http://www.lancs.ac.uk/staff/haywardp/hist213/writing.htm

What is A Good Essay

http://history.berkeley.edu/faculty/Brilliant/Keys%20to%20a%20Good%20Essay.pdf

How To Write History Essays

http://historyprofessor.org/organization/how-to-write-an-essay/

History Essay

http://coun.uvic.ca/learning/exams/history-essays.html

History Essay Guide

http://www.history.uottawa.ca/pdf/history_essay_guide.pdf

If Submitting Your Essay by E-Mail

If you need to submit an essary electronically, e-mail it to pwronsky@ryerson.ca as an attachment before midnight of the due date, using the following file naming protocol:   "Last Name_First Name_CourseNumber_SectionNumber _Essay" (for example, “Smith_John_HST114_Sec021_Essay.docx”)  The subject line of your e-mail, should have the same file name in it as well.

Any attached file not using this exact naming protocol will not be accepted, an automatic ten percent reduction will be implemented and daily late penalties will continue to accrue until the assignment is submitted in the required format.

Only MS Word files (preferred) in .doc or .docx format or PDF files will be accepted.

Unless specifically arranged with me, an e-mail submission only secures a submission date.  You must submit a hardcopy at the next lecture or into the drop-off box, indicating clearly on the essay cover the date you e-mailed in your assignment.  The hardcopy must be exactly the same as the previous e-mailed copy.  Essays not indicating on the cover an earlier e-mailed submission date will be graded by the date of the hardcopy submission with no appeal.

Late Penalties and Extensions

Extensions may be granted on medical, religious or compassionate grounds.  Students requesting an extension should submit an e-mailed request to me before the deadline specifying precisely the date to which they are requesting the extension.  After the due date, students need to provide appropriate documentation relating to the extension request (i.e. doctor’s note, death certificate of relative, police report on their stolen laptop, repair bills for their crashed hard disc, veterinary reports on the contents of Fluffy’s stomach, etc).  Essays submitted under an extension must have my written response to the extension request attached to the front of the essay.  E-mailed submissions are to be attached as a ‘reply’ to my earlier response to the extension request.  Submissions without my extension approval attached to their front will be penalized as late with no opportunity of appeal afterward. No late work will be accepted after the last day of lecture or extensions granted beyond the last lecture day.  

Five (5) percent of the assignment mark per/day is deducted for late submissions, weekends included, until the day the essay is submitted to me.  If I do not acknowledge the receipt of your e-mailed essay within a few days, it is your responsibility to ensure I have received it.  Keep copies of all work, including marked assignments returned to you and e-mails of your submissions until your final course mark is released.  Re-submissions of earlier e-mailed essays “lost” in transmission, should such an unlikely scenario occur, will only be accepted in the form of a forwarded copy of the original e-mail.  There are no exceptions to this.

Hard disk failure, theft, damage or loss of your computer is not an acceptable cause for an extension beyond twenty-four hours.  All assignments must be backed-up regularly to a safe storage area on the cloud or physically away from your main computer.   

After the last day of lecture, no outstanding assignments will be accepted or missed midterm exams rescheduled for a make-up exam.

Earning Marks

The evaluation of your research, content, evidence, originality and argumentation is of primary concern in marking as is the quality of your sources as described above. Equally important is the syntax, style and structure of your work. Marks will be deducted from work containing excessive grammatical/spelling mistakes, typographical errors, from essays that are excessively long or inadequately short, or which fail  to provide properly formatted footnoting/bibliography as specified above. Essays based on frequent use of websites as sources will be penalized (unless explicitly okayed by me.)  Essays that consist of a frequently quoted passages or sentences, even if footnoted, will be severely penalized.  Be selective in direct quotations.  Ask yourself, “can this be said in my own words and then cited?” Is there a stylistic or argumentative reason for quoting the source directly? Be sure to edit and check your work carefully. Do not simply rely on your computer’s spelling or grammar checker.

Grounds for Assignment Failure

Essays which do not supply proper and adequate references with specific page numbers and bibliographies as per Course Outline instructions, or submitted after the final day of lecture will be failed with no appeal.  Essays based primarily on websites without the instructor’s permission, will be failed.  Any written work that quotes directly from other material without attribution, or which paraphrases extensive tracts from the works of others without citations, is plagiarized and will be failed with no opportunity to re-submit and will result in additional severe academic penalties ranging from a course failure to suspension or expulsion from Ryerson University. Please consult the Ryerson academic calendar for further information on plagiarism. If you have any questions or doubts about how to cite material, please feel free to contact me.

Essay Progressive Creation History File Requirements

As I do not use Turnitin, students must “save as” a minimum of ten different progressive versions of their essay as they research, write, and edit their work and save all their research notes as well.  I recommend that you use the “save as” command every time you finish a new page and for every subsequent edit of your finished essay.  If there is any doubt to the authorship of any submitted essay, you will be asked to submit all the copies of your essay files as you saved them through the research, writing, and editing phases. Failure to submit upon request the minimum number of progressive files will constitute evidence of plagiarism with all its consequences.  DO NOT SUBMIT YOUR PROGRESSIVE CREATION FILE HISTORY UNLESS REQUESTED.

CONTACTING YOUR PROFESSOR:  The best way to contact me is by e-mail: pwronsky@ryerson.ca. E-mails must contain the Course Code (HIS104) and your Section Number (011 or 021) in the subject line or they will be automatically deleted.  It usually takes 24 to 72 hours for me to respond depending upon how busy e-mail traffic is, and I do not review e-mails on the weekend.  It gets busier near deadline dates. Obviously e-mails regarding next-day issues are not going to be processed in time.  Although I have set officer hours, in which you can drop in without an appointment, it is always a good idea if you send me an e-mail advising me you intend to come by to fully ensure I am there and available for you.

MISSED TERM WORK OR EXAMINATIONS

Exemption or deferral of a term test or final examination is not permitted except for a medical or personal emergency. The instructor must be notified by e-mail prior to the test and appropriate documentation submitted. For absence on medical grounds an official student medical certificate must be provided.  This may be downloaded from the Ryerson website at www.ryerson.ca/rr.

Absence from mid-term examination or tests:

§  Instructor must be notified by e-mail before the test

§  Documentation must be presented at the next class

§  Depending on course policy, the instructor may arrange a makeup or re-weigh the course requirements

Absence from final exam:

§  Instructor must be notified by e-mail before the examination.

§  Documentation must be presented to the instructor, within three working days.

§  If the majority of the course work has been completed with a passing performance, and the documentation is acceptable, an INC grade will be entered by the instructor. An INC grade will not be granted if term work was missed or failed.

§  The final examination must be written within four months after the submission of the incomplete grade. Failure to do this will result in an F grade.

§  It is the student’s responsibility to contact the instructor at least two weeks prior to the end of the following academic term to arrange to write the final exam.

COURSE REPEATS

Academic Council GPA policy prevents students from taking a course more than three times.  For complete GPA policy see Policy #46 at http://www.ryerson.ca/acadcouncil/policies.html.