In no particular order

• “Bias” means something that distorts the meaning of the text. A preference or opinion may be evidence of bias, but you’d have to show how that actually introduced some error into the record. Conversely, just because you know who someone is doesn’t make them trustworthy or free of bias.
• The questions in the assignment prompt are not a checklist: not all of them will be equally helpful and quoting them certainly isn’t going to advance your analysis
• The emphasis should be on analysis: the content and historical use categories are really the most critical, though the Context and authorship categories are also very much worthwhile.
• Looking up stuff to fill in gaps in your understanding is fine, but you have to remember to evaluate the quality of the source you find (a test wikipedia often fails), and the question of whether what you’ve found actually belongs in your paper. I don’t care, for example where or how de Busbecq died, as long as it wasn’t related to these writings.
• If you use a source, you should cite it. If you use the textbook, tell me what page or pages. If you use an outside source like the Encyclopedia Brittanica, you need to list the source and article or page. Using information from a source without citing it is a form of plagiarism and will not be tolerated if detected.

Regarding the tests:

• When I said pick one, I meant one. There are no questions on this test where Picking more than one option was the correct choice. And even if one of your choices was correct, I can’t really give you credit for it without everyone wanting to try it.
• I did, however, give partial credit if you missed an “all of the above” answer, and for partially correct responses to the “Why” question on the Renaissance.

I will have the grade distributions for the Document and Test later today.