Both of the above mentioned articles contain questions that you may want to consider in preparing your essay, but these questions are just a starting point. You are free to structure your essay as you please as long as it describes the rampant prejudices and discriminatory practices of white Louisianans against African-Americans, Italians, and other minorities from this time frame until the present and incorporates the assigned readings. You must also discuss why these prejudices existed, how they started, why they were condoned and sometimes encouraged by the political leaders of Louisiana of that time, and the current status of the racial equality in Louisiana today. Is racial discrimination still condoned by government leaders and/or authority figures in Louisiana today? After carefully reading the material, please write an essay of at least three (3) full pages and no more than four pages. This will be a scholarly essay/book review and should be written in the third person (ex. use “he/she/one” instead of “I,” “my,” or “you.” If you need help making sure your paper is formatted correctly or the use of footnotes is done correctly, you can get help from the WAC (Writing Across the Curriculum) Lab at Nicholls which is located on the first floor of Peltier Hall. You may want to check with the WAC Lab for an appointment to have someone proofread your paper or help you before you turn it in to make sure your paper is done in a scholarly manner.
All quotes or paraphrasing from the resource material must have footnotes or endnotes to show their origin. For citing sources in history essays, please use the Chicago Documentation Style. You can find help with this type of documentation style at http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html .
Since your paper will be submitted via the link on Moodle and run through Turnitin, it will be processed for plagiarism. As the instructor, I will be given a percentage amount and the content that is either a "match" or connected closely with the wording of your paper located on the Internet. Please realize that every student or other person who has previously written an essay, review or other information concerning this book will be compared with yours in the analysis by the Turnitin program. If you plagiarize (copy either directly or indirectly from the author without quotation marks or appropriate citations or use a portion of another student’s work), it will be identified in the program and you and the person you copied from (if he/she is enrolled at Nicholls) will be subject to the rules and regulations concerning cheating in the Student’s Handbook. A new policy in effect at Nicholls is that all teachers are required to file a report on every student caught plagiarizing material. Footnotes must be used to identify any direct quotes as well as the paraphrasing of someone else’s (even the author’s) ideas. There must be several of these throughout the paper to illustrate your ideas and/or arguments and make it more convincing.
FORMAT: Use Times New Roman , 12-pt, with margins of 1 inch on all sides and page numbers (either top or bottom right corner). Your heading (on the left side of the page) should be as follows:
Your Name
(Double Space)
History of Louisiana
(DS)
Date
(DS)