JOHNSON CITY – When Dr. Melvin Page, professor of history at East Tennessee State University, was asked to create a fourth edition of the late Richard Marius' handbook for apprentice historians, A Short Guide to Writing About History, he included the best student examples available.
The two ETSU students whose work was selected for inclusion are:
Penny Sonnenburg, who wrote "Manifest Destiny: A Characteristic of Nations" for Page's course on European colonialism and imperialism, graduated with a bachelor's degree in history in 2000 and is now a graduate student at ETSU pursuing a master's degree in history.
Sabrina Shilad, who contributed a review of Alfred F. Young's 1999 book The Shoemaker and the Tea Party, graduated from ETSU in 2001 with a degree in history and biology. Her work was originally submitted to ETSU's Dr. Dale Schmitt in a course on the American Revolution, and she is now a student in ETSU's James H. Quillen College of Medicine.
The guidebook is a very practical, and popular, text for history students, and is used in many institutions of higher learning around the country. The book grew out of Marius' work in the Expository Writing Program at Harvard University and Page's course on historical methods, required of all ETSU history majors. It is printed by the Longman division of Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers and carries a 2002 copyright.