PURPOSE
This analytical essay will serve as a summary and comparison exercise.  It is designed to enable students to develop depth in a specific subject area and to reflect that depth in written form.  Writing provides us with perhaps the most precise way we have of expressing our thoughts, of revealing what it is that is on our minds.  This exercise, then, moves beyond the course in its intent to assist you in refining your basic writing skills so that your papers will reflect clear thinking, cogent arguments, and an understanding of the use of evidence.

SUMMARY
You have been assigned two sets of reading material that will serve as the basis for your essays.  Your fist objective will be to summarize the authors various theses and the evidence they use to sustain their arguments.

ANALYTIC COMPARISON
There are two objectives within the analytic portion of the assignment: historiographic comparison and thematic analysis.

1.  First, the comparison is that part of the essay which moves beyond the summary, concentrating on the meaning extracted from the various readings.  The comparison itself should consider the different interpretations the historians have advanced regarding the historical topic under study.  How do the historians' arguments differ and why?  Which interpretations appear more valid and why?  What evidence do they use and how well do they use their evidence?  Is that evidence reliable?  Why are some interpretations less valid?  Do the authors appear to have a particular bias created by the times in which they live that tints their objectivity?  These are just a sampling of the kinds of questions you should address in your essay and which will raise the intellectual levels of your papers far above mere summary.  Your content grade for these assignments will be based primarily on how well you move beyond summary.  At times, some of the reading selections may not focus on precisely the same topic--in those instances you will have to evaluate the excerpt on its own merit without comparison.

2.  Second, the thematic analysis will be that portion of the essay that attempts to make some sense out of the various interpretations of the various subjects--where you will try to bring some order to the confusion by discerning a common thread, or a theme, that defines perhaps not only the subject you are studying. And about the authors, is there any uniformity or central theme about the manner in which they approached their subject?

METHODOLOGY
The guidelines above specify only areas which each paper must address; they do not, however, restrict your conceptual approach to addressing those areas.  You may summarize first, compare second, and analyze third.  You may summarize, compare, and analyze all at the same time--whichever you feel is the clearest, most efficient, and aesthetically pleasing mode of delivery.  However, any good history paper should at least begin with an introduction that clearly spells out your thesis.  In other words, begin with your conclusions!  You are not Agatha Christie--there should be no mystery here.  Tell me what you are going to tell me, and then go ahead and tell me!