Essay Formatting Requirements.
Research requirements:
• Just a reminder that your essay needs to have a minimum of 5 academic/ scholarly sources in addition to any course readings used.
Format requirements:
• Length: approx. 6-8 pages (approx. 1800-2400 words or so, not including notes). Please do not exceed 8 pages…6 is fine!
• Double space your essay.
• Use 12-point Times New Roman or similar font (such as Cambria). Please don’t use any fancy fonts.
• Use standard margins (in other words, please do not increase or decrease the margins)
• Do not use more than a couple subheadings (best to use none)
• Number text pages in lower right
• Include a title page with your name, student number, course code and essay title if you have one.
• Use one of the citations styles given in the “Citation Quick Guide” handout, also posted in the Essay Materials folder on D2L.
• Include an alphabetical WORKS CITED or BIBLIOGRAPHY page at the end. You do not need to include annotations with your bibliography entries.
• You will submit ONLY an electronic copy to Turnitin through D2L. I’ll post instructions on how to do this when the time comes. You do not need to print off a hard copy to hand in (unless you made special arrangements with me to opt-out of Turnitin during the first two weeks of class)
*Not following required format will impact your mark.
CHST701 Research Essay: Finding a topic. Tips and suggested topics.
Obviously, your essay topic needs to be related to the history of modern science and technology. The only other rule is that I want you to focus on something earlier than around 1960 (so anything in the general time frame of around 1860 to 1960). Pick something that interests you and that you want to learn more about. There’s a good chance you already have an idea in mind, but if not, all you really need to do for starters is browse the course materials: look through our Coursepack of readings or other course materials assigned; review lecture notes; or browse Chapters 23-25 of Robert Friedel’s book A Culture of Improvement (Chapter 23 was assigned reading for class, and a link to the e-book is on the course website). The most important thing is that you pick a topic that you are interested in.
Below, I give further leads and tips for finding a topic, including some general topic suggestions that you might choose from. The main thing for starters is think of a general starting point—maybe you’ve found the readings on late nineteenth century electrical science and technology really interesting—and gradually work to narrow it down further. Even within a topic such as “late nineteenth century telegraph development” there’s lots of room to narrow this down. For starters, you could think in terms of the development and impact in the United States, which would raise more specific questions about who the key figures and companies were. Or, another line might be to think in terms of following up on the Hunt reading in the Coursepack—Hunt deals with the British dominance of the global telegraph industry in the nineteenth century, but he concludes with some statements about how they lost that dominance. Why? What factors were responsible?
Often, when students find themselves having trouble coming up a topic, I like to suggest a biographical approach—consider examining the key work of a particular scientist, inventor or engineer. You general should not try to write a complete biography of someone’s life (too much for 8-10 pages), but a look at the context around a certain crucial invention or discovery is not a bad way to go. By doing so, you are automatically starting from a pretty focused point.
Here are some additional resources to consult (but remember that the topic must fall within the time period 1860-1960):
• Peter Bowler and Iwan Morus, Making Modern Science (hardcopy)
o http://catalogue.library.ryerson.ca/record=b1833512
• Lesley Cormack and Andrew Ede, A History of Science in Society: From Philosophy to Utility (hardcopy)
o http://catalogue.library.ryerson.ca/record=b1736718
• James McClellan III and Harold Dorn, Science and Technology in World History (hardcopy)
o http://catalogue.library.ryerson.ca/record=b1723539
• Robert Friedel, A Culture of Improvement: Technology and the Western Millennium (ebook)
o http://catalogue.library.ryerson.ca/record=b1918547~S0
• William Bynum, A Little History of Science (ebook)
o http://catalogue.library.ryerson.ca/record=b2453701~S0
• Keith Laidler, To Light Such a Candle: Chapters in the History of Science and Technology (ebook)
o http://catalogue.library.ryerson.ca/record=b1313270~S0
• James Trefil, Science in World History (ebook)
o http://catalogue.library.ryerson.ca/record=b2364091~S0
• Ronald Numbers, ed., Galileo Goes to Jail and other Myths about Science and Religion (ebook)
o http://catalogue.library.ryerson.ca/record=b2527141~S0
• Charles Singer, A History of Technology (5 volumes; ebook)
o http://catalogue.library.ryerson.ca/record=b1643614~S0
• Bryan Bunch, The History of Science and Technology: The Browser’s Guide to the Great Discoveries, Inventions, and the People Who Made Them.
o http://catalogue.library.ryerson.ca/record=b1702005~S0
Here are some other suggestions. Feel free to choose from these, or read them over for inspiration in thinking up a topic of your own. Keep in mind that many of these are still quite broad, and would need to be narrowed down further to be most effective for the essay (so, you might think about focusing on an important individual or institution involved).
1. Communications technology. Look at the early development of radio, telephone, or television. Could focus on technical side of story, or social impact etc.
2. Medical technologies: Penicillin, birth control pill, or MRI machines.
3. Early developments in petroleum refining (1890-1930)
4. Electrification in Ontario after the US electrification of Niagara Falls
5. Agricultural context of genetics and eugenics in the US, 1900-1930.
6. Some aspect of development/impact of synthetic chemical research/industry. (such as Dupont & synthesis of nylon, late 1930s)
7. Look at role Development of the transistor (Bell Labs, late 1940s) or some other aspect of solid state physics.
8. Rocketry in the early Cold War, US or Soviet Union.
9. Development of synthetic rubber.
10. Development/impact of photography.
11. History of some aspect of the post-war development of early nuclear power industry
12. Development & impact of agricultural science in late nineteenth century, especially in the US or Germany.
13. Examine the development & impact of a specific medical technology—microscopes, x-ray machines, centrifuges, etc.
14. Students often are interested in technology related to WWI or WWII, and these are certainly potential topics, but they can also become very big and get out of hand quickly. The important thing here would be to really work hard at developing a fairly tight focus, and maybe to think outside the box a bit—so, not just obvious things like aircraft or submarines, but maybe something like radar, sonar, gas masks.
15. Although we cover early automobile history in class, and focus on Ford, there are many, many other aspects of this early history that could be examined especially in the period of around 1880-1930.
16. An important theme of the course is the persistent marginalization of women in science and tech, so you could consider a biographical-type essay (see note at the beginning, above) that focuses on a woman (and especially someone other than the few familiar examples such as Marie Curie, Lise Meitner or Rosalind Franklin)
17. Some aspect of chemical industry history, especially in relation to Germany or the US. For example, one could look into the development of certain pesticides.
18. Another major theme of the course is unintended or unforeseen consequences and impacts of applied science and technology. As we’ll see, often it is the case that new scientific tech gets commercialized very rapidly and provides many immediate benefits to society, but after a while a more negative side begins to emerge. There are many possible case studies one might choose to examine this theme that fall within the essay time frame—pesticide or fertilizer development and application are great examples.
19. We can only cover so much in this course, so obviously there will be many scientific disciplines that we won’t have a chance to look at in the class, but that might be interesting to look into in more detail. The science of experimental embryology, for example had a lot of really important and exciting things going on in the late 19th and early 20th century.
20. New sciences emerged in the first half of the twentieth century that proved to be of major significance for dealing with the impacts of science and tech on human health and the environment. You could look into some aspect of industrial health/medicine, sanitation science, toxicology, or ecology. Obviously, more narrowing down would be needed—such as focusing on work of a key figure or episode.