Women Suffrage Movement and the Nineteenth Amendment
I. Introduction: In this section of your essay, you will introduce your readers to the historical event you selected. Specifically, you should:
A. Provide a brief overview of your historical event. For instance, what background information or context does the reader of your essay need?
B. Based on your research question, develop a topic statement that states your claim about the historical event you selected. Your topic statement should be clear, specific, and arguable, as it will give direction to the rest of your essay.
II. Body: You will use this section of your essay to provide further detail about your historical event while supporting the claim you made in your topic statement. Make sure to cite your sources. Specifically, you should:
A. Describe the causes of the historical event. In other words, what were the underlying factors that led to the historical event? Were there any immediate causes that precipitated the event?
B. Illustrate the course of your historical event. In other words, tell the story or narrative of your event. Who were the important participants? What did they do? Why? How do the perspectives of the key participants differ?
C. Describe the immediate and long-term consequences of the historical event for American society. In other words, how did the event impact American society?
D. Discuss the historical evidence that supports your conclusions about the impact of the event on American society. Support your response with specific examples from your sources.
III. Conclusion: In this section of your essay, you will discuss the impact of historical thinking. Specifically, you should:
A. Explain why this historical event is important to you personally. In other words, why did you select this event to research?
B. Illustrate how your research of the historical event impacted the way you thought about the event. In other words, how did thinking like a historian change the lens through which you viewed the event?
Support your response with specific examples.
C. Explain how a historian would pursue further study of your topic statement. In other words, if a historian were to continue researching your topic statement, what would be the future directions or next steps?
IV. Provide a reference list that includes all of the primary and secondary sources you used to investigate your historical event and support your topic statement. Ensure that your list is formatted according to current APA guidelines (or another format, with instructor permission).
V. Communicate your message in a way that is tailored to your specific audience. For instance, you could consider your vocabulary, your audience’s potential current knowledge of historical events, or lack thereof, and what is specifically important to the audience.