Topic: Choose a person that lived during the Colonial Era. They must have either lived in Colonial America or influenced Colonial American settlement. Why are they important? How did they shape the Era? Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes

Topic: Choose a person that lived during the Colonial Era. They must have either lived in Colonial America or influenced Colonial American settlement. Why are they important? How did they shape the Era?

Focus on the years 1600-1763.

–Consider the questions: how did they influence Colonial American History? Did they change History for the better or worse? Make sure you are NOT writing a biography- he/she was born, lived, married, and died. Tell me why the person was important to American History. Saying that they were born in Pennsylvania in 1754 does not tell me why they were important and should be remembered as a Historic figure.

–Length: the essay should be at least 2 FULL pages not including your title page or Bibliography. Include an opening and closing paragraph. Make sure in an open paragraph to state your thesis and mention the main points of the paper (without saying The main points of my paper are..). In your closing restate the thesis and mention some main points of the paper. Do not introduce any new information.   Keep the essay to 2 pages. This will force you to be concise with your writing. Include only important information and analysis that will support your thesis.  

–Grammar: be sure not to say I think Keep I, we, us, our, etc out of formal essays. By the way you write you are telling me how you think. I know this can be hard. But you want to write something like: William Penn was the most influential person that has ever lived in Colonial America. And NOT: I think William Penn was a very important person that we all should care about. Be concise and well thought out. Be sure to re-read your paper after writing to check for misspellings. If you can, have someone else read and comment on your essay. Run spell/ grammar check.  

–Format: Be sure to add your name to the doc title i.e. YOURnameEssay2.   Include a title page with your name, date, assignment title. Place page numbers at the bottom of each page. Use Times New Roman- 12 pt. Double space.

–Research: You MUST include citations (i.e. endnotes or footnotes in Chicago Format and a Bibliography). You should have several citations to help prove your point but not so much that all you are doing is either paraphrasing or stringing quotes together.  Include at least ONE primary source.  Label your primary source in the bibliography.  

**For adding citations in Word this link might help: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/insert-delete-or-edit-footnotes-and-endnotes-HP001226522.aspx  Make sure to change the endnote/ footnote numbering from Roman numerals to 1,2,3 and so on.

**You will need to create a Bibliography. This link will show you how: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/create-a-bibliography-HA102809686.aspx?CTT=1  Make sure to choose Chicago Format.

Grading:  You will be graded on argument, style, Historic analysis, organization, grammar, and research