Short paper due on Canvas by Friday November 19 at 5pm

Short paper due on Canvas by Friday November 19 at 5pm
100 points; 10% of the final grade.

Prompt:
Your paper is an analysis of four primary sources about the Black Death (or Great Plague as it was called
at the time), which lasted from 1330 until the late 1700s. It must interpret two texts and two images.
Links to the sources are below. Your paper must answer these questions:

What do these writings and images tell us about the history of the Black Death?

Who are the authors (writers, artists, governments, cities, etc.), and how does their identity inform the content of the source?

Compare the kind of historical information that they present. How do they differ in the perspectives they present?

Texts: Petrarch, 1349 Laborer’s Ordinance, Boccaccio, Massacres of Jews, Pistoia Ordinances for Sanitation:

Images: Image Gallery for online exhibit The Black Death: The Plague, 1331-1770, Tintoretto’s St. Roch Healing the Plague-Stricken

Directions:
Submit Word or PDF documents only. Googledocs and other file formats are NOT accepted.
Place your word count at the end of the paper (should be between 900-950 words).
Do NOT use footnotes, endnotes, or a bibliography. Instead, all citations should be quoted directly from primary sources with the author or subject given in parentheses at the end of sentence. The period to end the sentence is placed after the closed parenthesis.
Examples of sentences that include citations or reference images:
Boccaccio writes that people “came to neglect their customs…and had no concern for their belongings. Beyond all this, they began to behave as if every day were the day of their certain death, and they did no work to provide for their future needs” (Decameron).
The drawing based on descriptions of Boccaccio’s Decameron depicts the burials and mourning of corpses in Florence (Plague in Florence, 1348).

Grading rubric:
50 points: Content
Have you answered the main question: what do the sources (two texts and two images) tell us about the plague? Have you cited and closely analyzed all of the sources in the context of historical information?
20 points: Structure
Provide a clear introductory paragraph in which you state your thesis.
Make transitions between paragraphs.
Offer a concluding paragraph in which you restate the points you made earlier.
20 points: Writing, grammar, spelling, citations
Your writing must be clear and easy to understand.
To submit a paper with misspelled words in an age of spellcheck is inexcusable.
There are several free apps that check grammar, such as Grammarly.
Use formal language. Make sure the words you write are in the dictionary. Keep your audience in mind: this is not a conversation or social communication. It is a presentation of ideas, and an interpretation of texts. Don’t use informal phrases or terms.
Read your work out loud. Are there run-on sentences? Break them into shorter, complete sentences. If something doesn’t make sense to you, it won’t make sense to your reader.
10 points: Required length
Three double-spaced pages of writing equals roughly 900-950 words.
Use the word count feature to confirm that the length of your paper is within these limits.

NOTE ON PLAGIARISM:
Plagiarism means falsely presenting another person’s words as your own (i.e., copying and pasting from the Internet into your paper). Plagiarism constitutes a violation of academic honesty policies in this University. It leads to bad outcomes for everyone involved, especially the person who plagiarizes. Both Emily and I can easily spot cases of it – we read a lot and have graded many papers. If we find evidence of plagiarism, the paper will receive an automatic zero with no possibility for make-ups, and as professor I am required to report the incident to the Office of Student Conduct. A report of academic dishonesty becomes a permanent part of a students’ academic record. Would such a consequence be worth the few hours of thinking and writing that you saved by cheating?

WRITING TIPS:
Give yourself several days to write and revise your paper. Obviously, don’t wait until the night that it is due. But you knew that already!
UD has a Writing Center with trained staff who can read your papers and help you to revise them. https://www.writingcenter.udel.edu/
There are generally three stages in writing: planning, writing, and revising.
In the planning stage, read the sources and make notes. What passages, images, or themes do you want to discuss? Make an outline of your paper. Draft a working thesis for your introduction. Roughly sketch what points you want to make in each paragraph. How will the paragraphs fit together to support your thesis?
Write a rough draft based on the outline. Fill in the quotes and image descriptions you plan to use, and include your interpretations of them.
Edit your rough draft. Before you submit the paper, check again for correct spelling and clarity. These errors cost you points and are easy to fix.