For this assignment, your challenge is to write a brief history and analysis of a particular “fad” diet—though “fad” is very broadly conceived here; your diet doesn’t have to have any official label as such. The particular diet you choose to analyze is less important than how you analyze it. You should Google “fad diets” or “fad diet history” something similar to find some lists of possibilities, just as we looked at this list).
Your essay should be 600-800 words. If you have considerably less than that, you probably haven’t analyzed the diet thoroughly enough.
One of the premises of this class is that you’ll be able to better critique and evaluate whatever you read about diet and health, particularly because you’ll have an awareness of historical context and how things came to be as they are (especially as the are on the web). A brodaer aim of the course is to make you more critical of information and knowledge claims, particularly in terms of evaluating argument and evidence.
Your essay should include three distinct sections.
Your essay should begin by providing some historical context about the origins of the diet (unlike most of the descriptions you’ll find about it!). So, you will need to find (and cite in your essay) a few primary sources (things written about the diet around the time it was created) that talk about your diet and the motivations behind it. Use the library catalog to search for your fad diet or things related to it.
Do not summarize your diet from a secondary source—it may not be an accurate summary! Go back to the originals and read for yourself. A good historical research project uses all relevant sources, but we don’t have time for that. Aim for at least 3 primary sources that will help you understand the origins of the diet.
This assignment will test your ability to carefully critique not just an article or diet from one website, but to critique how websites in general talk about your diet (approximately the first page of search results for your diet). Do they report the same thing? Do they give any historical context to understanding the diet? Do they present similar or dissimilar claims about how the diet works or does not? You’ll want to comment in your essay how well more recent descriptions of the diet matches the primary sources. Why might you believe some websites more than others when it comes to understanding your particular diet?
Do not comment on each website individually; synthesize! What kinds of group or categories of websites talk about your diet?
The last section should discuss the relationship between the course and your diet, both its origins and its modern existence. You should use (and cite) the course readings to suggest how the history of diet and health in general can helps us understand where the diet comes from, its motivations, how people argue for it, etc.
Real paragraphs! This is a standard written essay, but you should draw upon your experience creating and organizing outlines to structure your paper. You don’t need to make an outline first, but make sure your paragraphs and sentences have a clear purpose to them (as they necessarily must in the outlines).
You should cite passages from the readings with author-date notation, like (Shapin, 15), and provide a foot- or endnote with a full reference to that source (either a URL or regular bibliographic citation). You can use any format you want, but be consistent.
In the process of getting your ideas on paper, you might end up with something like: “This article does not cite any research. The lack of research means it is difficult to understand if it should be trusted.” (22 words)
During revisions, you should rephrase this to: “The article’s lack of research compromises its authority.” (8 words) This gives you much-needed space for more analysis!
Note: Revisions are hard! But they are the only way to make your writing shine.
Please email me anytime with questions or concerns, including whether a particular diet or source will work with the assignment. It is always worthwhile to talk about these things in class, too. Don’t hesitate to ask!