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ORAL PRESENTATION DATES:
Week Five 2/3 Week Six 2/10 Week Seven 2/17
Week Eight 2/24 Week Nine 3/10 Week Ten 3/17
Week Eleven 3/24 Week Twelve 3/31 Week Thirteen 4/7
Week Fourteen 4/14 Week Fifteen 4/21 Week Sixteen 4/28
C) RESEARCH PAPER PROSPECTUS (DUE 9 MARCH ) (10% of course grade):
All students must submit a minimum four-page prospectus of their intended research paper project
for approval by the instructor no later than 9 March. I give students as much latitude as possible to
pursue topics that they are genuinely interested in: it results in better papers! So, you can propose
any historiographic study of military or diplomatic history (perhaps one connected with a desired
capstone research agenda?). You can also choose one of the historiographical issues and debates
covered in seminar. You can also write a paper on a specific aspect of diplomatic theory and/or
practice or a paper on military theorists and their impact on military history. Nonetheless, it is the
prospectus writer’s responsibility to demonstrate the appropriateness of their proposed research
paper to the course, its contents, and themes. The purpose of the prospectus is to assist you in
generating a realistic and feasible research agenda that you can complete and get a good grade
for! So, it is for your benefit. For me, it allows me to understand where you want to go, to assist you
in refining your topic into one that is feasible and meaningful, and thereby getting you off to the best
start on your topic and as early as possible!
Over the first part of the semester, you should develop and refine research agenda in consultation
with the instructor. At the center of all historical enquiry, is identifying a central research agenda
that you want to examine and the historiography associated with it. Once you have identified the
focus of your research agenda, you need to develop a short list of the most relevant titles that have
shaped the historiography of this research agenda. This you can do by checking bibliographic
references from the books in the class, via online literature searches, reviewing reference sources,
browsing in libraries, looking for historiographical review essays in journals, and consulting with the
instructor for suggestions and guidance. You will develop a short list of titles you intend to examine
in your historiographical review. You can ‘lump’ multiple sources into a single historiographical
school and treat that school collectively (i.e., you could examine one representative example). You
goal is to accurately identify the major interpretative trends over time relating to your research
agenda and seek to suggest reasons for those interpretive changes. You can develop a basic grasp
of the literature by examining book reviews online or from journals, examining review articles
(articles written by experts reviewing the literature), and by obtaining and reading the most
influential interpretive secondary source books and articles themselves. If you are going to focus
on an aspect of diplomatic theory or practice (or a specific diplomatic crisis), you will likewise want
to identify the most important works written on or related to the focus of your research.
Your prospectus should be a synopsis of your planned paper. It should explain what the focus of
your historical/historiographical research paper is. You should also outline the literature you have
identified to date and plan to use and discuss you preliminary understanding of what divergent
interpretations the secondary sources you have identified offer. You should include a brief
annotated bibliography of the major secondary sources you have identified/plan to analyze and
briefly assessing (in a couple of sentences) their perspective/contribution to the historiography on
your research agenda.
Submit your completed research prospectus as a MS Word file in the appropriate Assignment
Dropbox on Blackboard (Assignment D) by 9 March.
