Cuban and Haitian War and History of the Caribbean Make up paper: 12-15 pages in length (counting notes.

Please remember that a strong essay will argue a thesis. What is the point of your essay? Do not write mechanically or perfunctorily. Construct an argument with evidence gleaned from your readings and from the course lectures. You should make your position clear from the beginning, carefully choosing and identifying the strongest main themes you will address in depth. Your analysis must be substantive and thorough to sustain a paper of this length. Engage the primary sources and analysis you find in the readings. Do not simply repeat information at face value. You should use primary source material from the readings on conquest and U.S. imperialism, augmented by information and secondary source analysis from Dubois, the lectures, the Cuba Libre documentary, and the textbook, but no outside sources.

Make sure your analysis focuses on the primary sources and on historical information from the secondary sources (i.e. a quote from another historian does not “prove” a historical point). Your paper must also be clearly and effectively organized. It should not only have an introduction, body, and conclusion, but the main points within the body should connect and build the larger overall argument (i.e. not come across as a series of smaller 3-5 page papers pasted together). Avoid wordy phrasing and other amateur page-filling tricks. These are not only obvious; they render the paperless effective.

Cuban and Haitian War and History of the Caribbean Prompt

Answer the following prompt: Compare and contrast the Haitian and Cuban Revolutions. Identify and analyze themes that these two revolutions have in common, though they occurred 150 years apart. You may consider but are not limited to, the roles taken by prominent leaders, economic regime changes, and relationships between new governments and the larger Atlantic World, as well as more abstract themes of liberty, slavery, and self-determination. Your analysis should consistently consider the role of colonialism in shaping the course of both revolutions as well as how the rest of the world responded to each revolution.

Cuban and Haitian War and History of the Caribbean Citation

Correctly cite your evidence using the Chicago/Turabian style. Citations should be in footnotes, no bibliography required. All papers must adhere to the standard scholarly format: 1-inch margins, regular 8.5×11 size setting, double spacing, and 12-point Times New Roman font, with page numbers. Footnotes should be indented and single-spaced with a double space between each note, also in Times New Roman font.

As this assignment replaces work deemed in violation of university academic honesty policies, the maximum possible grade is capped at a 60%. This does not mean that a D-level effort will suffice. Sloppy, perfunctory, or otherwise sub-par work will be graded accordingly, beyond the 60% handicap. Such work may not prove sufficient to pass the course. As such, this paper must reflect your very best efforts.

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Thesis/Argument/Content

Cuban and Haitian War and History of the Caribbean Style Guidelines

• -10 points for lack of a thesis or argument within the first paragraph of your paper. If in doubt, use this form: “In this paper I argue that…”
• -5 points if the thesis is not evaluated in the concluding paragraph.
• -10 points for not citing at least 3-5 readings, lectures, or primary sources. Format
• -2 points for no cover page (name, the title of the paper, the question you are answering, course title, date submitted)
• -20 points for less than 3 pages or more than 6.
• -2 points if margins larger than 1 inch
• -10 points for not using Chicago Style citations.
• -5 points if not stapled
• -2 points if pages not numbered. Grammar/Style
• -2 points for every passive sentence with a maximum of -10 points. Example: “The man was bitten by the dog” is a passive sentence. It should read: “The dog bit the man.” Passive sentences are the most common cause of vague writing.
• -1 point for shifting tense with a maximum of -5 points. When you are narrating history, always use the past tense, not the present. Leave the “would become/would be/would come to be known as” future-speak to bad documentaries. The one exception is for scholarly secondary works, which remain in the permanent present tense.
• -1 point for each run-on sentence, fragment, or improper punctuation, up to -5 points.
• -1 point for each contraction up to -5 points.
• -2 points for each idiomatic expression or cliché. Example: “Columbus was going

nowhere fast before turning over a new leaf in Spain. After that, the cat was out of the

bag and all bets were off for the New World.”

• -1 point for not supplying a citation when needed.
• -1 point for each misspelled word. Spell check is built-in!
• -1 point for not italicizing books, journal titles, and foreign language words.
• -1 point for misplacing punctuation outside quotation marks (except semicolons and

question marks) up to -5 points.

Conventions

• Spell out numbers less than 11. Spell out numbers for centuries.

Examples: nine, 22, sixteenth century. When referring to decades, do not use apostrophes. Example: 1770s.

• Try to use capitals as little as possible beyond standard sentence and proper noun conventions. Do not capitalize words such as republic, colonial, audience, encomiendas, etc., unless part of a proper name or title. Example: the Roman Catholic Church should be capitalized, but referring to a church building should not. Official titles are only capitalized when included with or directly referring to a name.