What is Loyalty?

This is an open-ended discussion on my blog for both my students at AMU and all that are interested (even the peanut-gallery)  so feel free to chime in.

What is loyalty? To whom you owe loyalty to first? (family? country? unit?) What about shifting loyalties; under what conditions?  Our focus is American History to 1870 so examples from the period would be helpful to prove your points.

A Challenge for My Students in HIST101 D004 Fall 09

Here is a good Civil War Challenge for extra credit on your final. First person to correctly post identifying the battlefield and specific location BOTH earns 5 extra points! of this site:

AT the time:

TODAY:

Keep History Alive!

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Research Plan

Well here we go again, another year a new plan.

For my students, please note that it is imperative that you have a plan before you begin. No plan ever survives contact with the enemy so it is okay to make changes but you MUST have a plan.

Here are the steps you need to do to develop a successful project and I suggest you do the same:

1. Plan a weekly/daily/monthly plan with deadlines and try to stick by it.
2. Develop a series of questions that you wish to answer from your research.
3. Develop a preliminary bibliography-separate by primary & secondary.
4. Collect your sources.
5. Use each source by taking notes
I prefer note cards for much of my work but on last year's project I also put information into a spreadsheet/timeline with various tabs for events. This proved very effective in keeping long quotations etc as my handwriting now leaves something to be desired.
6. Develop an outline.
7. Organize your research according to your outline.
8. BEFORE you beg the first rough draft make sure you now develop an effective Thesis Statement. Without one your historical writing will lack focus and direction.
9. Right a rough draft.
10. Review the draft-PRINT IT OUT-you will be amazed what you cannot see on a computer screen for some reason. READ the paper out loud, again you will be amazed.
11. Have someone else read it to see if your Thesis Statement is proven in your paper.

Sound like a lot of work? To answer that, I guess it boils down to how good do you want it to be!

For me, this week I will be spending time developing my plan for the next 11 months.

Keep History Alive.
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Progress

Well, I have submitted by research to AMU. Now I have only one thing on my plate: working with Deeds Publishing to come up with a good marketable print edition. Then, towards the end of January, I should hear about next year's grant.

More news when it is available.

Keep History Alive!
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Back to Work

Well, this Sunday I will be back at work on my second draft. Thanks to last weekend at PMC/Widener I have numerous items I wish to add to the project.

AMU is asking for next year's grant applications by 1 December. That means I must decided if I wish to do this again and if so how. The options are:

1. Don't apply, chill for the year - NOPE - doesn't sound like me.
2. Apply and expand Robinett in a full biography - not sure that is really interesting to anyone as I have the most critical events in this one.
3. Make Robinett volume one of a series on the cadets of DMA/PMA in the Civil War. This hold great merit as no work has been done on them and there are a ton of interesting cadets involved in the war. I am leaning towards this for my grant proposal. Your ideas are greatly appreciated.

I have been talking to a friend of mine, Bob Babcock who owns a publishing company and is also an accomplished historian himself. He think s the best potential is for a series of mini-books on these guys. You can check out his works here. What Now Lieutenant? is a great read and still relevant for today. He has also written a nice work on the 4th ID in OIF 1.

http://www.deedspublishing.com/

Keep history Alive!
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