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Ancient History Report Outlines

Sections in the outline of a history term paper, primary and secondary sources

By N.S. Gill, About.com

Advance your own answer, supported by reasoned analysis and presentation of facts from the ancient (Primary) sources, modern (secondary) sources, to ONE of the following....
Ancient History 26 - University of Pennsylvania
The Report Paper

Imaginary Outline for Report on Herodotus' Reputation

  • Herodotus is called Father of History, but why?
  • Body
    1. Ancient writers:
      1. Herodotus (what did he do?)
      2. Thucydides (what did he say about H?)
      3. Cicero
    2. More recent and modern writers
      1. Momigliano
      2. Summary of Journal articles
  • Conclusion

For school papers that report on a topic in ancient history, you will probably need to read primary sources in translation or in the original language (if you can), as well as modern articles and sections of books. The use of ancient and modern sources provides another framework on which to pin your outline.

Again, as in the research paper written to support one side of an issue or to answer a question, you need an introduction and conclusion, but your opinion is less important. For the report paper, instead of or in addition to having a pro and con section, you will probably have an ancient and modern section. The modern authors will most likely disagree with one another on some points, and those disagreements can be fillers for subsections of the formal outline.

Those who find outline writing nearly impossible anyway, really can't write an outline that reports on research without doing the research first. If it's an emergency and you only have a day or two, find the most general article you can that covers the topic. An encyclopedia is the logical choice, but if this isn't an option, the Internet should suffice.

Next page > Outlines in General > Page 1, 2, 3

© 2001 N.S. Gill

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