Monmouth College History 112: Spring 2010
Instructions
 | Hand in a thoughtful and thorough essay with perfect grammar and beautiful prose in answer to one of the following questions. Your essay should be no shorter than five pages--and that is five pages to the bottom of page five. This essay is due at the beginning of class on Monday 3 May 2010. |
| I encourage you to work with each other on this exam. Discuss the book among yourselves, and talk through your essays. |
| Do not plagiarize each other’s exams, however. If you do, both of you will be asked to rewrite your papers, and a penalty may be assessed. If you plagiarize from the book, you will also have to rewrite your paper, and a penalty may be assessed. |
| Direct quotes from the book must be inside quotation marks. The page number from whence the quote came must be noted in parenthesis after the period (that is, outside of the sentence). The Scots Guide contains the College’s plagiarism policy, which I follow strictly. |
| Your job, in large part, is to convince me that you have read this book and understood its major concepts. To that end, your essay should include quotes from throughout the book which help to support the points you are making. On the other hand, don't use quotes when you can convey it in your own words just as well. |
| THE BIGGEST MISTAKE YOU CAN MAKE IN WRITING THIS EXAM IS TO HAVE THE BOOK OPEN ON THE DESK NEXT TO YOU AS YOU WRITE. Doing this will almost always cause you to plagiarize--and it will usually cause you to order your thoughts the way the book is ordered. Don't do that. Write with the book under the mattress. Put the points you are making in YOUR OWN ORDER. Use YOUR OWN WORDS, except for direct quotes. I want to see evidence of your analysis, your synthesis, your thought, your words. I've read the book! I don't want to re-read a slight variant of it. |
| If you have any questions at all, call me, e-mail me, or stop by my office. I will be happy to look at a draft of your essay. I’ll be happy to look at your thesis statement, or your outline, or your opening paragraph--whatever will help you to write a really excellent essay. |
| Don't forget that the writing center on campus is staffed with people who can help you with your prose. Get a draft done early and take it to them, or bring it to me. If you go to the Mellinger Center, remind them that this class follows the Chicago Manual of Style, not the MLA. |
| This is a 60-point exam. |
| Note on the questions: please write an essay on the main topic suggested below. Do not answer each individual question--those are thinking prompts! |
Options:
1. In a thoughtful and thorough essay, explain what Katherine Skiba's war was like. Historians pay attention to the way humans experience war--soldiers, generals, strategists, civilians, and journalisists on both sides. Studied all together, we have a better sense of the totality of the conflict. Skiba left an account of her time before, during, and after Iraq. What was the the experience of this war like from the perspective of an embedded journalist?
2. Katherine Skiba titled her book Sister in a Band of Brothers, borrowing from Shakespeare's well-known phrase. Write a thoughtful and thorough essay that explores what she experienced as a woman in the midst of her (mostly) male unit. Consider her relationships with the male soldiers and leaders, as well as the experience of training for, enduring, and surviving the experience of the war. If you'd like to, consider also what sort of relationship Skiba had with the women soldiers as a comparison.
3. In a thoughtful and thorough essay, consider the role of embedded journalists. For example: What was the purpose of the embedding program? What was her training like and why was it necessary? What were the pros and cons of this program? What did Skiba actually accomplish in her job? Was it a success?
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