HST 121 Paper Assignment

Assignment: Following the guidelines listed below, write a paper on the topic I have assigned to you.
 

Paper Topics
    1. Compare and contrast the causes of the three major slave wars.

    2. Compare and contrast the Roman response to each of the three major slave wars.

    3. Discuss the various reasons that all three slave wars ultimately failed.

    4. Discuss the role of religion in slave rebellions during the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE (including the three major slave wars).
 

Guidelines
   1. Source for your paper: use ONLY the book by Brent Shaw (Spartacus and the Slave Wars).   Use of any other source (especially an online source such as Wikipedia) will result in a failing grade.

    2. Type of paper: your paper must have an argument or thesis that addresses the topic assigned to you. You should indicate this argument/thesis in the first paragraph of your paper.  You must then prove your argument by citing evidence from the Shaw book. You may cite from the introduction (Part I) and as many documents (Part II) as you like.  You must, however, cite AT LEAST TWO documents from Part II of the book.

    3. Form of Citation: you must cite all information you get from the Shaw book by listing the page number from which you got the information in parentheses at the end of the appropriate sentence or paragraph.  If you are taking information from the book word-for-word, then you must enclose that information in quotation marks.  If you fail to do either of these things, you are plagiarizing.  See item #10 below.

    4. Overuse of quotations: as noted in #3, you may use quotations from the Shaw book to support your argument. You may not, however, simply pack your paper with quotations to fill up space.  If over half of your paper is composed of quotations, then it is not really YOUR paper.  It is Shaw's paper.  Basically, he wrote most of your paper for you. This is unacceptable and you will receive a failing grade for the paper.

    5. Title Page: this is unnecessary. Simply put your name and date in one of the upper corners of the first page of your paper and begin typing below that.  If want to give your paper a title, you should simply place it between your name/date and the first paragraph of your paper.

    6. Length of paper: 3-4 pages

    7. Format of paper: Typed and double-spaced

    8. When to turn in the paper: papers must be turned in at the beginning of the class for which they are assigned.

    9. Late papers: these will only be accepted for really good reasons AND your grade will decrease one full letter grade for each DAY that it is late.  (This does not mean for every CLASS period that it is late.  It means for every single DAY that it is late.)  Also, no extensions will be given.

    10. As indicated on the syllabus, plagiarism will not be tolerated.  If you plagiarize, you will be referred to the Dean of Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences for disciplinary action.  Such action will likely include failing the course. You are plagiarizing someone's work (book, journal, newspaper, magazine, webpage, etc.) when you take their work and put it into your own work (either paraphrased or word-for-word) without citing it (i.e., telling me where you got it).  The rule of thumb for verbatim usage of someone's work is the following: if you are taking four or more words in a row, you must enclose them in quotation marks.