Sharecropping in the South

.Assignment:  Each student will write a 6 to 8-page research paper on a topic that contributes to the study of American history since 1877.  The purpose of this assignment is to write a research paper in history that analyzes sources to answer a research question.    Detailed instructions:   1.  Thesis statement.  Take a clear position and precisely state the argument you will make in your research paper. You must have a thesis statement and defend it with carefully chosen, detailed evidence.  The thesis must be clear and contain (in the succinct form) the main points you will cover in your paper.  The structure and order of the thesis should reflect the structure and order in your paper.   2.   Organize your evidence carefully.  Each paragraph should have a topic sentence that clearly links back to your thesis.  Avoid making historical claims without making sure you provide sufficient evidence to prove your claim.  You must use in-text citations per MLA format.   3.   Document, document, document.  For the research paper, at a minimum, you must use two scholarly, academic, well-researched secondary sources from the timeframe covered in the course that comes from offline scholarly, academic printed books and academic journals. You cannot use textbooks (including your course textbook), encyclopedia articles, website articles that are not from an offline published academic journal, juvenile non-fiction books or articles, blogs, chats, or wiki sites (especially Wikipedia) as the two mandatory sources for your paper.  Keep in mind that every borrowed idea or phrase must be documented with in-text citations and a “Works Cited” section using MLA format.