General Assessment Criteria for HIST 419 (Undergraduate Thesis)

HIST 419 course is designed to be an exclusive research study aiming to enhance senior students' research and systematic writing capacities. Moreover, this course seeks to provide a certain perspective on time utilization and work discipline by establishing certain deadlines. In this sense, the final grading of the course rests not only on the student's ability and capacity to write a thesis but also on the punctuality of submitting specific parts of their thesis work. In short, the course evaluates students' performance on two grounds: work discipline and ability to compose a proper thesis in an academic style.

Each student must meet the instructor to assign an advisor for HIST 419 at the beginning of the 7th semester. Students who fail this course can take it in the 8th and subsequent semesters.

Writing the thesis begins with establishing a "research topic". In the introduction section, the aim of the essay must be expressed explicitly and formulated "as an argument". The student should express shortly why the research topic was selected and why it should be regarded as a problem, and how this issue can be evaluated.

The main body of the thesis will be assessed according to the following criteria:

Historical Knowledge and Understanding

This section evaluates the extent of the student's ability to demonstrate their level of historical knowledge and understanding of the research topic. The extent to which the historical information utilized in the essay should be appropriate and drawn from a suitable range of sources that are also considered relevant in the evaluation.

Critical Analysis and Reasoned Argument

This section mainly evaluates how the historical information, materials, sources, data and evidence are analyzed in the essay. What is assessed is whether the essay presents ideas logically and coherently and whether the essay develops a reasoned argument concerning the research topic. Special attention should also be given to the conclusion part. The extent to which the essay incorporates a conclusion relevant to the research topic and that the conclusion is consistent with the reasoned arguments presented should be evaluated.

The Format

This section evaluates the layout and appearance of the essay, including the formal elements: title page, contents page, page numbering, bibliography, etc. What is specifically expected is whether the essay utilizes a consistent form of quoting and documenting the sources used as well as a referencing system with an accepted format.