Critical Analysis
PRIMARY DOCUMENT ANALYSIS ASSIGNMENT
This assignment will have you analyze the primary source documents posted along with this assignment handout on the assignments tab of our course site to see what you can learn about the time period in which it was written.
The structure of the assignment should be as follows:
Part 1- Provide a short summary of the document (or part of the document) that you are analyzing. This is where you generally discuss what the source is, the time period it was written in, who wrote it (author) and why it was written. This should only be 1-3 paragraphs maximum. Then your analysis should be broken into two separate parts
Part 2 Explore the Document Try and answer the following questions
1. If possible, list at least 4-6 pieces of historical information that you can learn from the document. (Ex. What can you learn about what life was like during this time period/society: gender roles, the importance of religion in society, what were some of the social values, how did these people view/understand the world around them etc.) For this part it is important to analyze the words of the author to draw inferences about the time period — Avoid just repeating excerpts of the text verbatim.
*For this section include the quote or passage that you interpreted your historical fact from
2. What opinions or biases can you detect from this source? *For this section include the quote or passage that you interpreted your historical fact from
Part 3 Historical Context and Significance (No need to provide quotes or passages in this part, but you should cite any information that you paraphrase from your textbook or notes)
1. What larger historical events can you link this document to that we have discussed in the course? (What is going on at this time in history that would act as an influence to this author?) Use your textbook, lecture notes and seminar notes for this section.
Assignment Formatting: The Basics
Typed, double-spaced, in 12-point Times New Roman font, with 1-inch margins.
No cover page. Follow MLA conventions and put your name, the course code, my name, and the date in the top left-hand corner of the first page; your last name and the page number should be a running header in the top right corner.
Any paraphrases (or quotations) need to be followed by in-text citations in MLA style.
Include a Works Cited entry for the text you are writing on, again formatted in MLA style.
MLA Citation Help: The following link is an extremely useful source to help you learn about MLA Citations if you are unsure of what to do. Remember: MLA citations come in 2 places; in-text and on a Work Cited list at the end of your document.
