Single or double-spaced?

Here's another question some of you are probably asking yourself:

Hi Dr. G,

I just read the blog about the page numbers ... I have been searching for a way to ask this question without sounding whinny, but can't figure out how to phrase it, so I figured I would just ask:
Do you mean 25 pages single spaced?

My reply:

Sorry ! That is important information -- and I forgot to give the word count, which makes more sense since we all like to use different fonts and margins. Let's say 15 pages (double-spaced)= 4,500 words and 25 pages = 7,500 words.

Question and answer about final paper

Here's another email question I just fielded that might help the whole class:

Dr. Garrigus,

I know that the paper length for our colloquium is set at fifteen pages, but as I continue to write I am finding it more and more difficult to concisely and completely explain all eight books in such a limited space.

Is there any possibility of writing over fifteen pages?

I replied:

Of course, -- I thought that 20 pages might be better but that really seemed to intimidate a lot of colloquium members. I think one could write an excellent paper in 15 pages, but I agree with you that have 20 pages [or so] is actually easier.

I found while grading the papers this semester is that the shorter they were, the more quality suffered; authors didn't really seem to be thinking through the key ideas. They would mention a topic and then move on, as if that covered it.

Even 25 pages would be okay. The point is to edit well and keep the paper on track, focused.
Good luck!
Dr. G.

So -- to the rest of the class -- I hope this helps! By the way, check out your grade on WebCT. Does it look as though I haven't graded one of the papers you wrote this term? Send me an email, because WebCT is my gradebook. If it isn't there, I've probably forgotten to grade it or to upload the grade.

A common Zotero problem

I fielded a question about Zotero recently that might describe a problem that many of you are having. After a coup
Here's the question --

... The specific problems I am having are that 1) when the note is inserted, it does not capitalize the title, and it sometimes uses semicolons in places where it shouldnt. Basically, I have to go in to the note and fix all this manually. I even went in to fix all the mistakes on my seminar paper, and then the zotero update link in the Add-in section transformed them all back to the grammatically incorrect version it gets from the notes saved in zotero.

I replied

You have to fix the formatting in Zotero, not in the word processor. To change the capitalization of the title, right-click on the title field of the record in Zotero. You’ll see a “transform text” menu and you can chose to capitalize all words or change them all to lower case. For semicolons and the like you have to go in and change each one manually.

After a while I’ve learned to get kind of picky about where I go to get Zotero data. Google Books data is usually formatted all wrong; often they have only the first half of the title. I go back to WorldCat again and again, though I’ve also had good luck with the UTA catalog, now that it’s Zotero friendly

To conclude -- the key is to fix the capitalization problems in Zotero itself. Once you have a database with all the correct citations in place it really pays off when you’re working on a series of projects [like a masters thesis or dissertation chapters] where you reference the same works again and again.

Salvador and Brazilian identity

A view of modern Salvador as seen from Bonfim.

Here's a quote from one of your papers on Sidbury that caught my eye as I was reviewing the Reis book:

Sidbury sees the use of “Africa” and the idea of Africanness in the writings and institutions of black Americans as “rhetorical constructions of the nation ” similar to those that occurred “in Anglo-American political thought”.

Finally, here's the church of Senhor de Bonfim... site of the Islamic/candomble syncretism Reis talks about -- which is on display in this image.

Final paper questions

Here are the two versions of the question we narrowed down in class on 11-23. Regardless of which one is finally chosen [note the cunning use of passive voice to obscure how this is going to happen], I will be looking for a thesis statement in your first paragraph that answers the question. Then you've got roughly 10 to 15 pages to prove to me that your thesis works! In the process you'll hopefully demonstrate your mastery of these books and your understanding of how each fits into the field of transatlantic studies.

In spite of the many methodological and philosophical divisions among scholars who have worked on topics within the "Age of Atlantic Revolutions," what are the essential underlying similarities and shared understandings of this concept? Discuss this question, using the 8 books we have read this semester.

and

Is the Age of Atlantic Revolution a useful concept? With so many differing interpretations, how can we speak of a single Age of Atlantic Revolution? Discuss this question, using the 8 books we have read this semester.

Eddie Izzard ... as promised

I meant to play this at the end of the semester! Thought you might enjoy it anyway ...

It's the British comedian Eddie Izzard, from his 1999 HBO show Dress to Kill, which should be required viewing for history majors. It's fun, but there is a lot of casual profanity, so don't watch if that upsets you. The show is available on DVD but you can find many of the best bits on YouTube.


Thanks, Mylynka!! She sent me the Lego version of the Eddie Izzard skit -- which reminded me to put this up in the first place! Not only is it much briefer but there's no profanity, which makes it easier to show to younger students.

Google Docs

If you didn't get an email message from me around November 16 or 17 with a link to access the Google Doc page we’re using to edit a question for the final paper, here's alternative. Click on the link below to go to the doc [a kind of on-line word processor, if you haven't used it before] and make your edits.

Here's the link.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Dr. G.

Tonight [Nov 9]

I have the Dubois papers graded and will be uploading them just before class.
More Zotero busy-work -- next time I'd like to see you insert not only a Zotero footnote [yes, I checked ...] but a Zotero footnote with a comment inserted in addition to 2 citations. Confused? i'll demonstrate tonight.

New Atlantic History at the American Historical Assocation Meeting

Interested in what is going on across the country in terms of TransAtlantic history scholarship? This year the American Historical Association has put the program of its annual meeting [San Diego January 6-10, 2010] on-line in a searchable format. This includes the descriptions of the individual papers, so there's a lot more information there about each session.

One special attraction for scholars of Atlantic history is a special roster of papers gathered under the heading Slaving Paths: Rebuilding and Rethinking the Atlantic World. Take a look!

Stephanie's GoogleEarth on Brown, Moral Capital

Thanks to Stephanie for being the first to try to do a Google Earth project! If you'd like to download her file, go to our WebCT site and browse into the area labeled "Course Contents". The download is there under the Palmer reading. You can't miss it -- there's a huge version of this generic Google Earth image. But don't worry -- the download is a small file. My screencast tutorials for nearly everything Stephanie did are here in this blog, below.
Let me know if you'd like to do one of these projects for the books by Dubois or Lynch. People are already signed up for Reis and Sidbury.

Zotero news

For those who aren't subscribed to the Zotero blog,, The Center for History and New Media announced that

the National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Research Centers Program in the Division of Engineering Education and Centers has hired the Center for History and New Media (CHNM) to provide a customized interface for NSF’s internal use.

The importance of this for us, as individual users, is that it's just more confirmation that Zotero is going to be around as a major tool for scholars, and will continue to develop more features. As the blog post puts it:

This contract reflects Zotero’s growing role as a critical element in the cyberinfrastructure that sustains scholarly research in general and the sciences in particular. Because NSF has requested a new, custom item type, this project will mark Zotero’s first major step in the direction of user-defined and shareable item types. Other areas of improvement expected ultimately to benefit the broader Zotero community include significant enhancements to saved search functionality

If you haven't already downloaded the Zotero plugin for Word, I'd encourage you to do so. That way you can start learning how to make and edit footnotes and bibliographies using the Zotero citations we're building on our class Zotero library.

Google Earth 'takers' so-far

We have [so far] three people who are interested in doing a Google Earth tour of one of the upcoming books, instead of a paper. I think one tour per book is enough -- I'll ask the folks to show us their creations in class. The "taken" books are: Brown's Moral Capital, Sidbury's Becoming African in America, and Reis's Slave Rebellion in Brazil.

Atlantic World Research Network from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro

The Atlantic World program at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro has assembled a very useful list of links to sources and programs in Atlantic history. They publish this list as a pdf, convenient for downloading. I've put some of the links here and listed the rest below, to get you to visit the UNCG page.

Atlantikos, a journal of transatlantic scholarship published by graduate students at Michigan State University

The African Diaspora and the Atlantic World Research Circle at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

The International Seminar on the History of the Atlantic World, 1500-1825 at Harvard University

Atlantic World Research at the Archeology Program at Millersville University

Carolina Lowcountry and Atlantic World at the College of Charleston

Carnegie Mellon University library

The John Carter Brown Library, a research center for sources about the Americas,
located at Brown University

The Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on the Global Migrations of African
Peoples at York University (in Canada)

The Newberry Library, a research library for Western Europe and the Americas in
Chicago

The Atlantic World: America and the Netherlands, part of the Library of Congress
Global Gateway Project, in collaboration with the National Library of the Netherlands

The Atlantic World Workshop at NYU

Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University, documenting the history and culture of peoples of African descent

Institute for Research on the African Diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean at the City University of New York

Other links -- but you need to go to the UNCG Atlantic Links page to download their pdf.

• Year of the Atlantic World: 2007-2008 at Kennesaw State University in Georgia
• The STAR Project (Scotland’s Transatlantic Relations), a Postgraduate Seminar in
• American Studies at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities in Edinburgh
• Forum on European Expansion and Global Interaction (FEEGI)
• African-New World Studies at Florida International University
• Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture, co-sponsored by
• William and Mary and Colonial Williamsburg
• Jamestown in the Atlantic World, sponsored by Virginia Tech, UVa, Jamestown and
• the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
• African-American Religion: A Documentary History Project: Atlantic World at
• Amherst College
• Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery at Monticello
• Atlantic Ocean Page of the CIA World Factbook
• Trans~Atlantic Project at Brown University
• Trans Atlantic Consumer Dialogue, a forum of US and EU consumer organisations
• H-net, Atlantic history discussion
• Early Encounters in North America
• Eighteenth Century Collections Online
• Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy by Gwendolyn Midlo Hall
• Ecclesiastical Sources in Slave Societies at Vanderbilt
• Virtual exhibition on New France
• Portada de PARES by the Ministry of Culture in Spain
• Primary Source Documents Pertaining to Early American History
• The Archive of Early American Images John Carter Brown Library, Brown University
• The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy
• The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record
• Images of Native Americans - The Bancroft Library
• American Journeys: Eyewitness Accounts of Early American Exploration a
• Settlement: A Digital Library and Learning Center
• Library of Congress - Web Guides - A Guide to the American Revolution,
• 1763-1783 - External Web Sites
• Probing the Past: Virginia and Maryland Probate Inventories, 1740-1810
• Wisconsin Historical Society - Ratification of the Constitution Series
• AcademicInfo - Colonial America Digital Library - Online Historical Documents,
• Exhibits, Publications, and Archives
• Atlantic Studies hiring initiative at Louisiana State University
• Nuevo Mundo/Mundos Nuevos
• Transatlantic Slave Trade Database
• De Nederlandse Sontregisters
• VOC East-Indian Company Data base
• Journal of Backcountry Studies, connected with the University of North Carolina at
• Greensboro

Other Catalogues of Sources

• Resources Index at the Seminar on the History of the Atlantic World at Harvard
• Atlantic World section, Carnegie Mellon University Libraries website
• Atlantic World Online Resources at the Virtual Jamestown website (Virtual
• Jamestown—supported by Va Tech, UVa and the Va Center for Digital History at UVa)
• Teaching and Researching Links for the Atlantic World at Vanderbilt
• FEEGI Research Centers link
• Stanford’s Library of Academic Information Resources African Diaspora Studies
• page
• eBlack Studies
• H-Atlantic Catalogue of links

A number of people have emailed to say that they felt better about Zotero after the in-class demonstration.

In the spirit of helping you get more comfortable, I'm attaching a well-done introduction to Zotero from the George Mason library. It's a 7-page pdf, but it has lots of illustrations, so it will only take a few minutes to absorb. It covers some of the basics of Zotero that you might have missed because of the way I introduced the program.

New: grades expressed as points on WebCT

I know that my system of weighted averages doesn't get communicated very easily with the WebCT grade book. To make this more transparent, I've translated the percentages into points. I increased the weight of the 6 book essays by 5% so we could keep the 100 point scale i've been using for those assignments. Participation and the Set-up Assignment yielded those extra points.
I've updated the WebCT gradebook to reflect this new system. We're reading 8 books and you're only writing on 6 of them, as you know. But I was too lazy to write a formula that would drop the two lowest paper grades, so the "cumulative" point total says there are "1,200" available points. That isn't correct; the total possible points is still 1,000. If you want to write on all 8 books [or do a Google Earth project] we can just drop the lowest grades by hand.
Let me know if you have questions!

Participation; assessed 3 times @ 40 points each	12%	120
“Set-up” assignment	8%	80
6 book essays worth 100 points each	60%	600
Final essay	20%	200
TOTAL	100%	1000

Chartle.net discussion next week

Last night we didn't have a chance to look at the attractive Chartle images many of you cooked up for us [see below, where I've posted them].

Once we got in class I thought our time would be better spent trying to contextualize the Inikori book. But NEXT WEEK, I'd like to ask the 6 Chartle people to be ready to explain how they think their charts illustrate Inikori's tables.

If you'd like to tinker with the chart and put up a new one, just send me the embed code! For example, you might want to constrain the width of the graphic to about 400 so it will fit in this column. Or you might want to redesign some aspect so the main idea comes out better. Anyone can click on the chart as posted below in this blog and have access to the data and graphics tools.

Class improvements? Summary of 9-28-09 discussion

Here is a summary of my notes and thoughts on the "how is the class working for you" survey. I really appreciated your honest thoughts about the colloquium. I'm putting down my notes here so we can come back in late October and see if anything is "working" better along these lines:

People noted concerns about these issues: [and I'm putting my thoughts about each point in brackets]
a. "Websites," which seemed to be mostly about Zotero.

• it isn't entirely clear why we are using this software [I didn't think to say this last night, but I'd like you to use it to pull together all your citations and your bibliography for the final paper; my goal is to give you command of a tool you could use in many other classes and projects]
  
• we need to use it, or demonstrate its use, more in class [agreed; I'll try to do 2 or 3 more 15-minute demonstrations like the one last night]
  
• some people are having problems getting the software to function [if we sit down together, just the two of us, we can probably figure things out. A couple of folks have already helped me learn more about Zotero by asking me for help]
• [we didn't talk about Diigo or the blog, but I think we could get more out of both these tools if more people were using them. Still, I don't want to overload you with 'tech'.]
  

b. "Class discussion" issues

• vague reading targets for the 'setup day' [We agreed that 50% of the chapters will be 'due' for the 'set-up' day; I'll try to remember to announce this before each new book]
  
• the need to get more people involved in discussion [This was better for Pestana day #2 but then not as good last night, which was Inikori day #1. Inikori is challenging and discussion may flow better after you've written the paper. We'll keep doing the mix of break-out groups with specific tasks and larger discussions. It sounds like "Dr G. calls on people" should be part of the mix as well.]
  

c. papers

• a feeling that the size limit on the paper is constraining. [Easy! If you need to add another page-or-so, do it! Just be sure you edit so the writing is reasonably concise and to-the-point.]
• confusion about the grades because of the way the WebCT is set up. [I have to go in and rationalize the grade book. Coming up ....]

Chartle.net illustrations of Inikori's tables

Here are some of the charts done by our colleagues!
Christopher Woodall

Appendix 9.3




Karen Beasley
Appendix 9.6:
Commodity Composition of Foreign Products exported from England to Americas 1699-1856





Karen Beasley
Combo: Appendices 9.6 and 9.7
Comparative Data of Exports to both Americas and Southern Europe





Matt Winslett



[Matt's chart modified by Dr. G. on Chartle for a width of 410 to fit the blog width a little better]


Jessica Brown


Mylynka Kilgore
Appendix 6.9




Karl Wallace

Three Google Earth Tutorials

Here are three of the screen-cast tutorials I made for GoogleEarth for a previous class. I post them here in case you're considering doing a GoogleEarth presentation on one of our books instead of the usual paper. This will give you some ideas about what the program can do.

TechnoScholar sessions at the UTA library

I encourage you take advantage of the UTA library's workshops on technology. Here are two upcoming sessions and there's a longer list -- that includes a Firefox session in November

Research Newswire: Keeping Current in Your Field using RSS

Tuesday: Sep 22, 2-3:30 pm, Central Library, Rm. B-20

Traditionally, e-mail lists, a handful of publications, and your colleagues have kept you current with what's happening in your field. Now, there are tools that will help you hear about the latest developments. These tools bring you blog entries from academic researchers, news from your field's associations, newly published research articles and more. This session will get you started using RSS for research purposes.

Information on what will be covered: http://libguides.uta.edu/content.php?pid=22684&sid=343932

Search Smarter: Re/searching on the Web

Wednesday: Sep 23, 12-1 pm, Central Library, Rm. B-20

When you use Google are you searching the whole web? Learn how to go beyond the surface and focus on what is relevant to you. We will cover searching the social web, the deep/invisible web and the archived web.

Information on what will be covered: http://libguides.uta.edu/content.php?pid=22684&sid=525569

for next week (Inikori activities)

Just wanted to post the link to Chartle.net for those who didn't get it in class.


And if you can't remember what you put your name down for, for next week, here's the sign-up sheet:
5-minute summary of chapter
Chapter 1.: Brad
Chapter 2: Matt D.
Chapter 6: Kevin
Chapter 7. Ty
Chapter 8. Stephen

Setup: Intellectual biography Stephanie
Historiography: Nate K.

Chartle (email me the 'embed' code)
Christopher
Mylnka
Karen
Jessica
Nate G.
Matthew W.
Karl Wallace

Bring your questions on Pestana tonight -- but bring L&R too

Tonight we'll learn about Pestana and start to talk about this book. But bring your notes on Linebaugh and Rediker's book too -- it will be useful for us to finish up our earlier discussion on the Hydra as we compare the two books.

Don't forget to check out [and join] our Zotero class group!

On-line resources for news of the history profession

If you're interested in working as a history professor in a university, it wouldn't be a bad idea to start keeping up with events in this arena. Here are two useful resources.
InsideHigherEd is a high quality on-line publication that compares well with the esteemed [and expensive] Chronicle of Higher Education. You can get the Chronicle on campus through the UTA databases. But I think Inside is worth subscribing to via a blog reader. For example, they're running an article today on the way that the economy has affected university history departments.

Here's an editorial from last week on the plight of adjunct instructors.

InsideHigherEd got its information on historians from the American Historical Association. If you don't know it, the AHA is the major professional organization for all kinds of historians, and it puts out a monthly magazine, Perspectives on History, as well as the venerable American Historical Review, which you can get through JSTOR.
Perspectives often has good articles on graduate school, job hunting, teaching, history salaries, technology and it is available on-line. It's a good idea to get in the habit of looking at it -- and I'd encourage you to think about joining the AHA in the future.

Class schedule with sign-up names

Date and Topic
9-14 Setup for Pestana
Intellectual bio: Mylynka K.
Important literature in this subfield: Karen B.
Source materials: Matt D.
Everyone else -- bring one sheet of discussion questions, and a copy for me.
9-21 Discuss Pestana

9-28 Setup for Inikori
Intellectual bio: Stephanie M.
Important literature in this subfield: Nate K.
Source Materials: __???_____________
Everyone else -- bring one sheet of discussion questions, and a copy for me.
10-5 Discuss Inikori
Visualizing Inikori’s data using www.Chartle.net

10-12 Columbus Day Setup for Brown
Intellectual bio: Christopher W.
Important literature in this subfield: Stephen R.
Source Materials: Matthew W.
Everyone else -- bring one sheet of discussion questions, and a copy for me.
10-19 Discuss Brown

10-26 Setup for Dubois
Intellectual bio: Brad B.
Important literature in this subfield: Karl W.
Source Materials: Jessica B.
Everyone else -- bring one sheet of discussion questions, and a copy for me.
11-2 Discuss Dubois and alternative readings

11-9 Setup for Lynch
Intellectual bio: Ty Smith
Important literature in this subfield: Kevin S.
Source Materials: Nate G.
Everyone else -- bring one sheet of discussion questions, and a copy for me.
11-16 Discuss Lynch

11-23 Discuss Sidbury
11-30 Discuss Reis
12-7 Final exam period – final paper due on 12-7

Anonymity ....

I forgot to tell you -- in a world where papers are submitted electronically (even under your own log-in) -- it's a good idea to put your last name in the name of your file. After doing this for 10 years it still seems weird to me to name a file on MY computer "Garrigus_Linebaugh.doc" But when I send it to someone else, it makes a lot of sense on his or her computer.

Thanks to everyone from 6337 last fall who remembered!
It's also a good idea to get out of the habit of putting blanks in a file name. On the web those blanks turn into "%20" as in "Garrigus%20Linebaugh". Confusing!

So let's use this easy file-naming protocol for papers from here on out: "YourLastName_LastNameOfAuthor". Example: "Brown_Linebaugh.doc" That'll help me keep track of your work. WebCT puts each of your papers in a separate directory named with your initials, and then zips the whole thing for me to download. You'll save me a few minutes if you can name your files this way!

Using Zotero in our grad class

Those of you who are on our Diigo list have already seen this, but on his blog EdWired T. Mills Kelly of George Mason explains why he is having his graduate class post all their thoughts and bibliographies and notes to Zotero [sound familiar?']
You can access the blog post, entitled "Irony of Ironies", here.

Interested in joining our class Diigo Group? [optional]

I've set up a group for our class on Diigo, a site that lets you share bookmarks, AND share your highlights and comments on those bookmarked websites.

You can find some of the places I looked as I researched Palmer, Linebaugh, and Rediker for tonight's class.

Go to Diigo, download the software into your browser, and then search for the group, which is called

UTA_Hist6303

I invited some of you [again, this is just optional] if I had your email handy. But not everyone got an invite, so be sure and look for the group if you are interested.

Prepare for class tonight [8/31/09]

I hope you've had a good weekend!

Tonight we're going to be talking about the Palmer articles [14 pp available on WebCT] and the first couple of chapters of Linebaugh and Rediker. Ideally we'd talk about the first half, but I know some people had trouble getting the book -- but be sure to read the first two chapters, let's say.

What you need to bring to class [as usual for these "set-up days"] is a single-sheet of discussion questions about the book and articles. [just one for the whole thing]. Can you bring a copy for me, too? Or you can email it to me.

Also please have your Zotero questions ready. By now you should have downloaded and installed the software, played around with getting book data into it, and registered on the Zotero website. This will allow you to get into the Zotero groups and to join the Transatlantic History Doctoral Program: University of Texas at Arlington.
There's a subfolder in that group for our class, and that's where we'll be posting the citations and notes that we want to share.
If you can't figure this out, ask me!!

My job for tonight is to give the first "setup" talks -- for both Palmer and Linebaugh/Rediker.
I'll be giving short intellectual biographies of all 3 scholars, talking about books that influenced these two projects and describing the sources and archives they used. Backup information for all this will be available to you in our Zotero forum.

See you tonight! -- Dr. G.

Zotero comes to the UTA library at long last

Zotero has been around for about 2 years, and during all that time it hasn't worked with the UTA library catalog. As you may have seen, our library just updated its catalog software -- and now Zotero recognizes and imports bibliographical data from our catalog website just like it does from most other library sites! Between UTA and the WorldCat page, you should be able to get Zotero data on almost any book. Besides Worldcat, another good site to try is the Royal Historical Society Bibliography site -- http://www.rhs.ac.uk/bibl/

Text for next week.

If you haven't seen the syllabus, take a look on WebCT or my home page.
Our first readings are not only from the Linebaugh and Rediker book, but we're reading some classic pages from R.R. Palmer [pictured] on the concept of an "Age of Atlantic Revolution." You can find the text on-line, but I went ahead and saved you the trouble of cleaning up the text. You can link to the document from our WebCT page -- look under "Course content".

Welcome!

Welcome to HIST6303: Revolutions and Transformations in the Atlantic World! This will be the "information center" for the course and I encourage you to use Google Reader to subscribe to the feed from this blog. I'll also have the feed from this blog displayed on our class WebCT homepage.