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Guidelines - essay

• Essays should be around 4-5 pp. long, typed, double-spaced, paginated, with your name and title of the essay on the first page. Please use 12-point font.
  
• For purposes of citation, in-text, parenthetical references or footnotes are fine.  Citation may consist of author name or title and page number(s) set off in parentheses.
• I do not accept electronic copies of papers; however, if you will miss class you may send me the paper as an e-mail attachment to validate that it has been completed and bring me a hard copy the following class or at the earliest possible date.
• Students may use up to five sources in addition to the primary source they've selected to assist them in their analysis of the text.  These should be encyclopedic sources, author biographies, or, in some cases, editors' or translators' introductions from published editions and translations.  They may also include, in some cases, periodical literature or monographs, but in general this assignment should not depend upon use of secondary source criticism, and I do not expect it.  Secondary or tertiary sources that you employ should simply assist you in contextualizing the source and its author.
  
• For students whose research paper is likely to incorporate visual sources, I would be willing to permit a visual analysis in lieu of textual one, with prior permission and consultation.
  

Guidelines - oral presentation

• Presentations to the class should last no more than 4 minutes. You should identify the source, author(s) or compilers, the date and historical significance of the source, information about when it was edited and/or translated (that is, year and edition, noting where more than one edition or translation have been done), aspects of the translation [is it abridged, complete, annotated, etc.]), diffusion of manuscripts containing the text when known (note that many scholarly introductions will have this information), and aspects of its content designed to convey, in the briefest amount of time, what it says, what is interesting or unusual about it, and its historical importance.  The idea behind the presentation is to familiarize your fellow students with the range of sources materials to work with and their historical and interpretive value.  You may use a Powerpoint slide presentation (keep it brief!) to communicate images and information.  Very often, digital images of manuscript copies of the text are available on-line.
  
• The assignment's final grade will be based on both paper quality and the clarity of oral presentation (80/20 percent).

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Assignment

In this assignment, students should select a primary source, in most cases textual, that is in some way associated with the period and subject matter covered in the class.  It should then be subjected to a thorough analysis and written explication, one that considers its author, audience, purpose, tone, style, content, and its author(s)' sources (textual, biblical, patristic, legal, etc.).  Ideally, this primary source may be pertinent to your chosen research topic, but it is not required to be.  Students may, if interested, also assess the known manuscript tradition of the source and its transmission through various print and pre-print materials.  The source need not be lengthy--indeed, one may easily analyze very brief primary sources such as single-page charters and still meet the paper length minimums.  The source may be, for instance, a single letter, a charter, a fragment of a chronicle, a collection of canons, a treatise, and so forth.  As you consider the document, ask yourself: What do I learn from it?  What may I speculate about its audience, purpose, author, and his/her agenda?  Do its contents reflect or touch on larger issues connected with the study of the medieval aristocracy in the Middle Ages?

If you would like assistance in identifying an appropriate source or want to talk about ideas, please consult with me.

You can/should feel free to utilize both the IMB and Iter databases, as well as the extensive collection of academic encyclopedias owned by PSU.