history essay writing

history essay writing

Effective Strategies for Writing History Essays

1. Introduction to History Essay Writing

The purpose of most essays lies in informing people. Historians inform those people about events in the past that will help them successfully carry out purposeful activities in the present. This is why people write papers, and it is also why papers are usually structured along certain lines. Those requirements may not be unbreakable rules, but a writer who intentionally ignores them is taking the chance of being misunderstood by his or her readers. A suggestion is that readers expect to see a thesis, or purpose, supported by evidence, organized within a framework, and composed in a certain style. Whether or not a student wishes to accept these rules, awareness of their existence is critical. By not actively thinking when they prepare papers, even the student writer who believes in the limitations of writing sooner or later finds that their work runs into these constraints.

Writing is a craft. All writers must first learn their trade. Just as a skilled soldier must be prepared to fight in unfamiliar and difficult conditions, a historian’s most useful weapon is the ability to write clearly and persuasively. Writing not only requires a sense of the main components of a good paper, it also requires a clear understanding of the cultural context in which the paper is written and a thorough examination of the task. Writing a paper is an act of sharing your thoughts with someone else. There are few things that a dissertation reader dislikes more than using valuable time to work through poorly formed writing.

2. Researching and Gathering Sources

Make sure that you build your sources from the first to the last chapter so you will not use outdated history information. You need access to the most recent information in order to write effective essays. Double-check your resources, as this will help improve the quality of your work and help you gain the highest possible marks. If you use varying techniques and strategies, then you can focus on a specific issue which will help bring the subject to life using the reader’s imagination. Try to mix sources with personal opinions and quality academic resources, as this will help give the resource depth as well as structure. Always remember to check if the sources contain errors, contradictions, or weaknesses. This is important to the success of your essay; any mistakes will significantly hurt the overall essay. If you find any errors or weaknesses, then attempt to include them at a minimum. Always use a variety of sources for essays, this will help you gain the highest possible marks. Another great way to help sustain a high standard of quality is to use differing quality of sources.

In order to produce a good history essay, you need to gather lots of factual documents, including history essays, books, films, CDs, and the internet. Using just one of these sources will make a good essay, but it will be difficult to write a great essay. You should take the opportunity to apply yourself to your studies and prepare your essays with care, as this will improve your writing. Before you start collecting the sources, you should read up on the topic that interests you to absorb the essential information in order to ask meaningful questions and to understand the topic. Then check the house style for essays, as this is a must-have to effectively follow the writing process.

3. Crafting a Strong Thesis Statement

In a negative claim thesis, the thesis revisited should read as an “inquiry” or “why this result can pressure.” Finally, the discussion should clearly state “To demonstrate that my interesting hypothesis works in a broader range, I consider the robustness tests,” as opposed to “To demonstrate the causality of my interesting hypothesis, I consider the identification strategy.” These are important differences for the paper. At this point, exploration has begun but no rewards have been found. When you sit down to write your thesis statement, make sure that you have a clear opinion about your chosen topic. Are you arguing a point? Are you challenging the views held by your peers or the overall topic? Either one of these can easily be at the heart of your statement. If neither of these works, then perhaps asking the reader a question would be suggested. Being sure to be direct and precise is often a characteristic of the best thesis statements. Be sure you can support your reasons with evidence. If a reader’s initial attention is immediately at stake, you are much less likely to be effective in persuading that he or she has the ability to handle the paper. Avoid trash talk. Your thesis should absolutely not be “This paper will define the theme of that Gothic text,” instead of “The ‘Queen Reflection: Edith Wharton and the Problem of Latina Mana.”

Crafting a strong thesis statement is always the first step in planning a paper, but it is also the most difficult for many students to master. Consider that the thesis statement is a declaration, yet it is sometimes a negative claim instead of a positive one. An example of a negative claim could be “Jewett’s story is not an example of Gothic fiction.” A positive claim could be “Is it that Jewett’s story no longer gets the Gothic definitions it gets elsewhere because many of the prevailing definitions of Gothic rest on a conception of the feminine as the other?” Note that a question could be both positive and negative. Thus, the statement “I think Diego Rivera’s work is interesting” is not a thesis; it is a response to a statement. This is not a particularly good thesis for a paper because you don’t have to defend the value of Diego Rivera’s murals. Such a thesis will potentially lead to a paper on the value of Rivera’s work. To be a thesis, it must be structured on specific evidence. The intended audience would be a person who has read “something” about Edgar Allan Poe to begin with, as well as to be prepared for substantive argument. The evidence stapled to the thesis is always fundamental and positive, either because they are the definition of the thesis or the limits. It includes the part of the specification, the part of the identification, and the condition. Adding the part of the “others” puts forth the negative.

4. Structuring Your Essay for Clarity and Coherence

The first paragraph of your essay should introduce the reader to the text being discussed. It should include an outline of the major points that you are going to make in order to prove your thesis. It serves as an introduction and works to grab the reader’s attention. The second paragraph that follows should contain the main body of your essay. This is where you get to develop your argument. Your ideas should be outlined well and presented in a way that the reader finds easy to understand. Each paragraph should consist of a topic sentence, along with evidence, facts, examples, and explanations. It is the heart of your history essay. This is a sign of a proud and well-organized essay. Be sure to use the latter in abundance. Introduction: Introduce the argument. Major points: Build your argument or thesis. Conclusion: Sum up the argument.

Historical essays need to be clear and structured. You should begin with an introduction in which you lay out your central claim. You should also say how you plan to support it. It is good to begin an essay with a question that you can keep in some kind of suspense, so that the reader will be motivated to read on and learn more. You should just answer the question or questions set out in the introduction to give your reader a sense of your general argument. It is going to help to make the process of writing less labored. Do not just throw your essay together in a hurried fashion. It makes a big difference.

5. Effective Use of Evidence and Analysis

When writing a historical essay, it is important to understand that writing about the past is argumentation. History becomes recognizable and argumentative when convincing use of support of evidence is given. Evidence is based on the use of primary sources. These primary sources that are given are material artifacts of a particular time. Evidence then becomes the testimony of the primary sources with the need for a plausible interpretation of that evidence. Once reliable evidence is used, the evidence needs to be integrated with it outweighing the importance of evidence through the analysis conducted.

Historical essays are asking for students to understand the larger picture, to understand historical consciousness and analysis that allows it to be convincing, informative, and supportive. The best way a student can answer this question is by supporting their position and by providing evidence. An essay is an organized, fluidly written position. It can be thought of as a linear argument where the issues are looked at with a rebuttal or reinforcement. When details are given, those details should be deep and thus pertinent to the argument of the paragraph. Each sentence should be used to support and make readable the evidence of your claim. By doing so, links can be made throughout the evidence, allowing historical writing to be made. Ideas should not be lost in transition; instead, the links of logical discussion should be evident.

Effectively using evidence and synthesis