HST 454/554: Holy War in the Middle Ages
Department of History
Portland State University
Fall 2016
(c) John S. Ott

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General guidelines

• Papers should be typed in 12-point font, double-spaced, and about 4-5 pp.  Please number the pages, and include a title and your name on the first page.
• Beneath the title and before the text of your critique, please give a full bibliographic citation of the article or book chapter(s) you are reviewing, including author's name, title, journal volume and number (where applicable), year of publication, and page number range according to Chicago, APA, or MLA style guidelines for Bibliographic (Works Cited) citation pages.
• When referring to the secondary source and its contents, please cite by page number.  A number in parentheses--e.g., (87)--should be adequate for citational purposes. (In other words, there's no need to re-type the title, etc., every time you cite the work.).
  
• Your source should be selected from among the secondary readings on our syllabus this term. IF YOU ARE UNCERTAIN ABOUT THE STATUS OF A PARTICULAR SOURCE, PLEASE ASK FOR HELP.

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Late paper guidelines

Late papers (delivered after 11/29) will be assessed a heavy penalty.  Any paper received after that deadline will be deducted 30 full points (out of 150, so the highest possible grade is an 80% (B-). I will not accept papers after December 4.

Students may NOT request an extension on this assignment, as it is effectively due at any time during the quarter.

Late papers will be graded last and may not receive full comments.

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Assignment

Your assignment is to offer a critique of one of the secondary sources we have read this term. This may be an article in a journal, a book chapter (or chapters), or even Bonner's monograph on jihad.

You should cite and incorporate the source throughout your analysis, both paraphrasing and using (at times) direct quotations.  Always indicate pages for your references.

Critiques can/should address at least some or all of the following concerns:

• a (brief) summation of the selection's contents: Who is the author, what is his or her background, what is s/he writing about, and what is his/her argument?  Does the author locate his/her work within a wider scholarly debate or historiographical discussion?  If so, what does that debate center on?  What is/are the author's reason(s) for writing the piece?  Is it written for a particular audience, scholarly, popular, or otherwise?  Is it written for professionals working within a particular discipline?  Does the journal or book in which it appears have a particular "profile" in terms of the content it publishes, or does the journal or the work's author profess or seem to profess any particular biases, either methodological, philosophical, confessional, or otherwise?
  
• what kinds of claims does the author make for his/her work?  Are those claims persuasive?  Is the source primarily descriptive, or does it offer analysis?  If so, what is being analyzed and how much room does the author leave for analysis of his/her subject matter?  Does the author appear to be using one or more theoretical or critical approaches? How would you assess the quality, skill, and persuasiveness of the analysis?
  
• what kinds of evidence and sources does the author employ to make his/her argument?  Are they documentary (eyewitness, second-hand, third-hand, contemporary, later), philological, archaeological, visual, or other written and non-written authorities?  Does the type of source the author uses affect, direct, or predict the outcome of his/her argument?
• are the author's arguments persuasive?  If so, how?  If not, why not?
• does the work appear to make a contribution to the field in which its published? If so, how, and how do you know?
• is the work well written, clear, organized, concise, or full of jargon, poorly organized, muddled in its argument?
  

Try to be as precise as possible in your criticisms, and justify your conclusions by using evidence from the text itself. Good luck!