Title: Research, Citation, and Generative AI
Course: The American West: Power, Place, and Memory > Section: Start Here: Fall 2026 Course Orientation

THE AMERICAN WEST

Research, Citation, and Generative AI

Research workflow

1. Begin with a historical question and a source trail, not a prewritten conclusion.
2. Record creator, collection, item title, date, stable URL or call number, and rights information as you work.
3. Distinguish primary evidence, scholarly interpretation, reference material, and public commentary.
4. Verify quotations and factual claims in the original source.
5. Preserve uncertainty: state when evidence is incomplete or conflicting.

Generative AI

Course principle: AI may support production, but it may not substitute for historical judgment.

Permitted with a Decision Record: brainstorming search terms after recording an initial question; testing organization or counterarguments; requesting clarity, accessibility, or sentence-level feedback on the student’s own draft.

Not permitted: using AI during designated in-class reasoning, source markup, conferences, showcases, or oral defenses; submitting generated thesis language, source analysis, evidence claims, citations, translations, images, or transcripts as one’s own; replacing required reading; or uploading restricted, private, culturally sensitive, or personally identifiable archival material.

Accountability: students must verify every quotation, citation, factual claim, and source description in the original source; retain notes and meaningful drafts; and be able to explain every submitted claim and interpretive choice.

Common Decision Record

{''.join(f'
1. {html.escape(item)}
' for item in DECISION_RECORD)}

Northwest resources: Student Guide to AI.

Citation

Use Chicago Notes-Bibliography unless the instructor approves another historical style. Public artifacts may use concise labels, but must still include a full bibliography and image/source credits.