Writing About History

Body of the Paper

Once you have crafted a clear introduction for your essay, you must elaborate on the argument you are pursuing. Discuss relevant facts, arguments and counter arguments and explain why you think your thesis is correct. Early in the paper you should place your topic in its proper historical context but resist the historian's temptation to begin your essay with Noah's adventures in the Great Flood. Go back into the history of your topic only so far as that background is relevant to your argument.

Do not neglect important evidence or counter arguments that might call your conclusions into question. At the same time, do not spend too much time on other people's arguments. Your argument is what the professor is generally most interested in.

Above all, analyze. Do not recite a series of facts in the form, "This happened, and then this happened and then this happened, etc., etc. . . . " The purpose of your papers is always to analyze a text, a series of events, or a set of data. Your professor already knows what happened. What he or she wants to know is your analysis of the events, sources, trends, etc., in question.

At the end of your paper there should be a conclusion. In the final paragraph you should sum up, without simply restating, the arguments you have made. One good way to make sure you have remained true to your thesis is to compare your concluding statements to the thesis. Be sure they agree with one another. If you began your paper blaming the Catholic Church for the lack of opportunity for French women and concluded your paper by blaming French men, you have a problem that needs to be dealt with.

As you can see, writing a paper is a balancing act. You need to include as much relevant information as possible without cramming every piece of information you can find into your paper. Much of what you learn you simply may have to leave out of the paper because that extra information is just not necessary to the task before you. Likewise, if your argument is a controversial one you may need to provide enough information to convince the reader that you really do know what you are talking about.

So how do you manage to achieve this balance? Read on...

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