A significant portion of your grade in this class will be based on writing. To lessen the stress of your research paper, you will be handing in a preliminary paper. This is due 17 February, so it ought not interfere with any activities on the 14th.

This course is an interdisciplinary exploration of issues in American medicine. There are many many more issues than we can possibly discuss, or in which you have interest. This paper provides you with the opportunity to explore that interest. Your topic needs to be about some issue relating to medicine in the United States, in which you have some personal or direct interest. To facilitate the writing and research, you will begin with a preliminary paper, composed of two parts:

1. Explanation of your topic. In ~2 pages, you will describe what it is you will be researching, and what you hope to discover or uncover. I will be looking for a well-organized paper (introductory and concluding paragraphs bracketing nice supporting paragraphs). You need to have a clearly defined thesis statement -- a thesis statement is what you are going to prove. (This means a review of existing literature on the problems caused by hangnails is not acceptable. If, however, you want to argue that hangnails are the unacknowledged source of personal pain for many people, that's a whole different story. And an interesting thesis!)

2. Annotated bibliography. You will list at least 5 sources you have already identified and examined, and after citing them the proper (Chicago Manual of Style) way, will offer a brief description of what these books, articles, etc have to offer. Encyclopedias and basic reference works are unacceptable. At least one of these sources needs to be a primary source.

What follows are samples of proper citation form. For more questions, you can ask. Or look at any essay in Warner and Tighe. This is actually footnote/endnote form, but since you'll need to use that for your final paper, consider this practice.
Book: Naomi Rogers, An Alternative Path: The Making and Remaking of Hahnemann Medical College and Hospital of Philadelphia (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1998).
Article: Howard Markel, "‘The Eyes Have It': Trachoma, the Perception of Disease, the United States Public Health Service, and the American Jewish Immigration Experience, 1897-1924" in Bull Hist Med 74(3): 525-560 (Fall 2000).
Excerpt from book: James C. Whorton, "Patient, Heal Thyself: Popular Health Reform Movements as Unorthodox Medicine" in Norman Gevitz (ed), Other Healers: Unorthodox Medicine in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988).

As always, read your paper before you submit it. It should contain no syntax, grammar, or spelling errors.