Historical research using primary and secondary sources between the years of 1970 and 2000.

Essay 2:
Mediated History Paper
Your Assignment:
For this paper, you will conduct original historical research using primary and secondary sources about a
topic between the years of 1970 and 2000. The purpose is to examine how media represented certain
topics that are now between 20 to 50 years old. The topic can be about anything you want, but it must fall
within the time frame above and have a connection to media.
Examples include the O.J. Simpson trial, the rise and fall of Disco, Disney’s purchasing of major media
corporations, how Hollywood movies reinforce gender stereotypes, trends found within video games,
race, gender, & class in Star Wars, media representation of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the rise of digital
media delivery, the maturation of the sports industry…whatever you like. You can also write about the
development of a specific medium if you wish.
I encourage you to find a topic that interests you. Do not just use my list above. Very rarely are you
allowed that kind of academic freedom in undergraduate study, use it to your advantage.
It does not have to be something from the United States.
The main question your paper will answer is: How was your topic represented in media?
Examples:
How did media represent the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003?
What trends were represented in Super Nintendo video games in the early 1990s?
How was gender represented in NBA television broadcasts in the 1990s?
What was the progression of rap-rock music from the late 1980s to late 1990s?
How did media represent the maturation of the sports industry?
How did media report on the Mt. St. Helens eruption?
History does not happen without some effort. You will conduct secondary and original primary research
on your topic. You must cite 3 scholarly sources and 7 periodicals with a mix of primary and secondary
sources in your paper (for a total of 10 sources). There must be at least 2 cited primary sources. The paper
in its final form should be 7 to 8 pages.
Requirements:
• Give background information about your topic.
• Make sure the main question is answered.
• Use 3 scholarly sources and 7 periodicals or supplementary texts (in this case they can be any text
such as a newspaper, show, song, album, video game, magazine, books or an encyclopedia). You
must include at least 2 primary sources.
• Your finished essay should be approximately 7 to 8 pages not counting your bibliography. Your word
count should be close to the page count or you will lose points. Since this is a more involved
assignment, going over the page count is not a problem. Under the word count is always a problem.
• Grammar and spelling count — so does proper style.
• This paper requires in-text citations and a bibliography page. You should cite the sources that
you use (both secondary and primary) both in the text and at the end of your paper in a bibliography
using an acceptable style such as APA or Chicago.
•Statements of fact that aren’t yours must be cited in the text.
•In your bibliography, list primary sources first and secondary sources following that,
with headers clearly stating, “Primary Sources,” and “Secondary Sources.” For each
entry note what part of your paper you used each source for (examples below).
•All information retrieved online should include the complete URL in your
bibliography. Refer to each style’s respective guide on how to format them properly.
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/general_f
ormat.html
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/chicago_manual_17th_edition/cmos_formatting_and
_style_guide/chicago_manual_of_style_17th_edition.html

Sample Bibliography
Primary Sources:
The Chicago Sunday Tribune. (1919). Retrieved from
http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1919/09/28/page/82/article/the-school-counselor
• This source helped me put myself in Chicago with the context I needed. It talked about what styles
and things were going on at the time.

“100 Sailors at Great Lakes Die of Influenza,” Chicago Tribune, 23 Sept. 1918, 1.
• This gave me the information about influenza and how it was a real scare for people, especially
seeing how fast it would spread. They would put people on house arrest to stop it from spreading.

John Dill Robertson, Report and Handbook of the Department of Health of the City of Chicago for the
Years 1911 to 1918 Inclusive (Chicago: 1919), 62. Retrieved from
https://books.google.com/books?id=1Dk-AQAAIAAJ
• Gave me a sense of what people did when they thought they had influenza, how common and scary it
was, also how unhygienic people were at this time
Secondary Sources:
Sean J. LaBat. (2005). Encyclopedia of Chicago. Retrieved from
http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1383.html
• Again this helped me with context about Chicago, what was some major points in history about it and
the political leaders ruling the city.

The Chicago Race Riot of 1919.(2016). Retrieved from History.com. A&E Television Networks.
• This short film gave me a visual of what the city looked like and how the air was very dense with dirt.
Also how cruel things were at this time with violence.

A FEW STYLE GUIDELINES:

NOTE: This guide is provided in order to limit the number of obvious errors that tend to recur in student
papers. Because you have been provided with this in advance, errors noted here that occur in your paper
will result in an automatic 5-point deduction from your grade, regardless of how well-reasoned or
interesting your paper is. If your paper is full of errors, your final grade will reflect that as well as the 5-
point deduction.
With the exception of the bibliography, class assignments are not written in AP style; therefore, the names
of newspapers, books, magazines, and radio/television shows should be in italics. (i.e., USA Today, The
New York Times)
Pronoun-antecedent agreement:
Instead of fretting over which pronoun to use to reference an antecedent noun, we will subscribe to the
guidelines set down by The Washington Post:

It is usually possible, and preferable, to recast sentences as plural to avoid both the sexist and
antiquated universal default to male pronouns and the awkward use of he or she, him or her and
the like: “Journalists should never disclose their sources,” not “A journalist should never disclose
his or her sources.”

When such a rewrite is impossible or hopelessly awkward, however, what is known as “the
singular they” is permissible: “Everyone has their own opinion about the traditional grammar
rule.” The singular they is also useful in references to people who identify as neither male nor
female.

Other options if you don’t want to use “they” as singular pronoun:

Pick a pronoun and stick with it, or vary it, using the masculine alternating with the feminine (unless
you’re referring to the same person each time).
• A journalist should never disclose her sources.
• A journalist should never lie to his readers.

The least desirable option is to use his/her, he/she, s/he, or some other derivation of that approach. It is
usually, but not always, awkward, and, if repeated too many times, just sounds silly.

Typical errors in history papers:
• There is no apostrophe in constructions such as 1970s, 1980s, the 70s, the 80s.
• “Media” is the plural form of “medium.” If you’re talking about newspapers, TV, radio, etc., then
it’s always “media.” If, however, you’re talking about a single form of media—“the medium of
television”—then it’s singular. The word “mediums” would be a gathering of people who talk to
ghosts. Remember to use the correct verb form with the plural: “the media are,” or “the media
have.”
• The past tense of broadcast is broadcast, not broadcasted.
• Using the correct verb form when writing about the past is tricky business. You may use either
past or present tense, or something called “conditional perfect.” Just pick one and stick to it. For
example:
o “We listened to the radio every day.”
 This means you are talking about something that happened in the past as someone who
is writing about that time from any time in the future, as in—“When I lived at home in
1940, before going to college, we listened to the radio every day. Now I don’t have has
much time, so I rarely listen to it.”
o “We listen to the radio every day.”
 This is most effectively used to give the reader a sense that you are actually living in
that past time and is a much-used stylistic device. For example—“I rush home every
day from work to listen to my favorite radio show.”
o “We would have listened to the radio every day.”
 This keeps you in the present while imagining living in the past. For example— “If I
had lived in 1940, I would have listened to the radio every day.”
• We all suffer from colloquialisms such as:
“This paper is based off of my interest in the Jazz Age.”
The correct grammatical construction would be:
“This paper is based on my interest in the Jazz Age.”
Other common colloquialisms include being as or seeing as instead of because.
“Being as it was the 1930s, nearly everyone had a radio.” The correct form
would be: Because it was the 1930s, nearly everyone had a radio.” Another
option: “Since it was the 1930s, nearly everyone had a radio.”
Another common colloquialism is using anyways instead of anyway.
“The radio was a better form of entertainment anyways.” Anyways is not a word. Anyway is
the correct usage.
• Theater is the accepted American spelling. Theatre is the British form. Use American English
forms.
Use of quotation marks: (pretty much everyone has trouble with this.)
• Periods and commas always go inside quotation marks.
• If a question is in quotation marks, the question mark should be placed inside the quotation
marks.
Examples:
She asked, “Will you still be my friend?” (In this case, the quoted question is at the end of the
sentence, so no further punctuation is needed.)
Do you agree with the saying, “All’s fair in love and war”? (Here the question mark is outside the
quote because the sentence itself is the question, not the quote.)
• Use single quotation marks for quotes within quotes. Note that the period goes inside all quote
marks.
Example: He said, “Julie said, ‘Do not treat me that way.’”

• Single quotes are never used to replace double quotes unless used as in the previous example.

Quotation marks or Italics?
What do you put in “quotation marks”?

• Article titles from magazines, newspapers, journals – “Censorship is Harmful to Society”
• Essays – “Feminism in British Literature”
• Short Stories – “Gramma” (short story by Stephen King)
• Poems – “The Tyger” (poem by William Blake)
• Book Chapters – “The American Economy Before the Civil War”
• Specific pages within a website – “Crohn’s Disease” (page found within the CDC’s website)
• Specific episodes of TV shows – “The Trouble with Tribbles” (an episode of Star Trek)
• Specific episodes of radio programs – “A Conversation with Margaret Atwood” (a specific
episode of the radio named All Things Considered)
• Songs – “Thriller” (song by Michael Jackson)

What do you italicize?
• Books – Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
• Newspapers – USA Today
• Magazines – Sports Illustrated
• Journals – Journal of Fiction Studies
• Websites – CNN.com
• Online databases – Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center
• Plays – Romeo and Juliet by Williams Shakespeare
• Pamphlets – What You Should Know About the H1N1 Virus (pamphlet from the Center for
Disease Control)
• Films/movie titles – The Breakfast Club
• Television shows – Glee, Nightline, CBS Evening News
• Radio programs/broadcasts – All Things Considered
• Album titles – No Line on the Horizon (album by U2)
• Operas – La boheme (opera by Giacomo Puccini)
• Dance Performances – The Nutcracker
• Long Musical Compositions- Symphonie Fantastique (composition by Berlioz)
• Paintings – I and My Village (painting by Marc Chagall)
• Sculptures – The Minute Man (sculpture by Daniel Chester French)
• Ships – USS Arizona
• Aircraft – Airforce One
• Spacecraft – Challenger

Other uses for italics
Foreign Words or Phrases
If a word or phrase has become so widely used and understood that it has become part of the English
language — such as the French “bon voyage” or the abbreviation for the Latin et cetera, “etc.” — we
would not italicize it. Often this becomes a matter of private judgment and context. For instance, whether
you italicize the Italian sotto voce depends largely on your audience and your subject matter.

Words as Words For Example:
“The word basically is often unnecessary and should be removed.”
“There were four and’s and one therefore in that last sentence.” (Notice that the apostrophe + s used to
create the plural of the word-as-a-word and, is not italicized.)
“She defines ambiguity in a positive way, as the ability of a word to mean more than one thing at the same
time.”

For Emphasis
Note: It is important not to overdo the use of italics to emphasize words. After a while, it loses its effect
and the language starts to sound like something out of a comic book.
I really don’t care what you think! (Notice that just about any word in that sentence could have been
italicized, depending on how the person said the sentence.) These rules do not apply to newspaper
writing.

Words as Reproduced Sounds
Grrr! went the bear. (But you would say “the bear growled” because growled reports the nature of the
sound but doesn’t try to reproduce it. Thus the bees buzz but go bzzzz and dogs bark woof!) His head hit
the stairs, kathunk!

Use of the Apostrophe
Use an apostrophe to create plural forms in two limited situations: for pluralized letters of the alphabet.
Jeffrey got four A’s on his last report card.

We should also use an apostrophe when we are trying to create the plural form of a word that refers to the
word itself. Here we also should italicize word itself but not the ‘s’ ending that belongs to it. Towanda
learned very quickly to mind her p’s and q’s. You have fifteen and’s in that last paragraph.

Do not use the apostrophe + s to create the plural of acronyms—especially pronounceable abbreviations
such as IRAs and URLs.