Overview

Good historical writing is analytical, precise, accurate and interesting. Once they have completed their research, the best historians are able to construct a compelling narrative that makes sense of the evidence they have gathered without forcing the facts to fit into a predetermined analytical structure. The hardest part of this process is deciding what to include and what to leave out, since there is usually far too much evidence and not nearly enough space on the page (or in the book).

During the course of the semester you will have several opportunities to confront this basic dilemma faced by all historians. I expect you to use the essays not to answer questions that I pose in class, but rather to answer questions that you have about the primary evidence made available to you via the class web site.

Why write papers at all?  Writing several papers over the course of a semester is an essential part of the learning process because the act of writing forces you to take your knowledge of a subject and other information that is available to you on that subject and organize it all into a coherent and concise presentation. Moreover, when you argue something in print, you must convince your reader of the validity of your argument through clear prose and the careful use of fact rather than with eloquent speech or the conviction in your voice.

There is another very practical reason why you must learn to write well. After you graduate from the University, many of those with whom you will have contact in your professional life will judge you and your work based upon your writing. Whatever career path you select, you will have to write letters, reports, applications for funding, speeches, proposals and even books that others will read before they ever speak to you personally. These individuals will develop their first and often most lasting impression of you based upon your writing skills.

Writing is a skill and like any skill is sharpened through practice. When you write your papers, attention to the following points will improve the final product:

Thesis Statement

1) Stop! Before you start writing the paper develop a carefully constructed thesis (see #2 below). Every paper must have a thesis. Your thesis should be stated clearly at the beginning of your paper so that the reader is not left to wonder just what argument you are making. If you cannot say what you want in one or two sentences your thesis is probably unclear or too broad and your essay will reflect that lack of precision.

For example: Let us say that you are trying to write your paper about the changing role of women in France at the turn of the century. You need to begin your paper by telling the reader what exactly you intend to prove, demonstrate or illuminate in your paper. One example of how your thesis could be written in this paper would be: The Catholic Church in France was the agency most responsible for preventing French women from achieving greater social advancement at the turn of the century. This simple sentence leaves the reader with no doubts about the main point you intend to make.

2) The thesis statement does not have to be the opening sentence of your paper (although it can be) but it should appear somewhere on the first page of the essay. In the paragraph that contains your thesis you also should mention the sort of evidence you are going to offer to support your argument and how your topic fits into a broader context.

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 the one I am 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. I know what happened. What I want to know is what you think about the matters 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? My advice is to follow a few simple steps:

a) Assemble as much information as you can before you begin writing. If you write a page or two, then assemble more evidence, then write some more, and so on, your paper may turn out choppy and hard to follow.

b) Write several drafts of your paper. The first draft is your first effort--not the version that you turn in to me. Take the evidence you have assembled and write what you want to say. Now that you have a first draft, begin improving upon what you have written. Every paper can be improved. Is your paper too long? Is it too short? Are parts of it very clear and others very difficult to follow?

Two good methods for finding problems in your paper are to ask a friend to read it and, without having them rewrite it for you, point out the sections that are hard to follow. Also, try reading your essay out loud to yourself. If you have trouble reading parts of it out loud, it is very likely that what you have written is unclear or too wordy. If you cannot read a sentence without stopping to take a breath, that sentence should probably be broken up into two or even three shorter sentences.

c) Spelling and grammar mistakes make it difficult for the reader to pay attention to your argument. When a paper contains many of these sorts of errors, the reader spends all of his or her time correcting your writing rather than assessing the effectiveness of your analysis. Do not let your computer do the editing for you! There is no substitute for careful proofreading. Careless editing of your essays will be reflected in your grade.

Citing Sources

Throughout your paper you need to cite your sources. If you quote directly or indirectly from an article, journal, interview, document, or data set you need to indicate the source of your information by inserting either a footnote or an endnote.   Most of the major word processing software packages make this process easy, so there is no good excuse for not doing it. If you fail to cite your sources, it is possible that you may be accused of plagiarism [see George Mason University Honor Code]. If you have questions about when to use citations, please see me.

Footnotes: Footnotes or endnotes should be in the following format:

1.  Ivo Banac, Eastern Europe in Revolution, (New York: Cornell University Press, 1993), pp. 11-13.

Bibliography: At the very end of your paper there should be a bibliography. The bibliography lists all books, newspapers, journals, documents and data you have been using in your paper. Cite only those sources you actually used (not every book or article you happened to look at), but be sure to cite all of those that you did use. One simple check is to reread your footnotes and make sure that every source mentioned in your footnotes is included in your bibliography. However, just because a source does not appear in a footnote, that does not mean it should not appear in your bibiliography.  If a source influenced your thinking about the paper, then it should appear in the bibliography.  Bibliographic entries should be in the following format:

Banac, Ivo, Eastern Europe in Revolution, (New York: Cornell University Press, 1993).

On-line Sources: Almost all of the sources you will use this semester exist on-line rather than in print.  To cite these sources properly, you need to follow similar conventions. The Columbia Guide to Online Style, the citation of a website should look like this:

Burka, Lauren P. "A Hypertext History of Multi-User Dimensions." MUD History. 1993. http://www.utopia.com/talent/lpb/muddex/essay (2 Aug. 1996)

Remember, if you are using an on-line source, you must be certain that this source is valid.  In other words, each time you consult an internet site, you must ask yourself the question, "How do I know that the information contained on this site is a valid historical source and not a forgery or simply an invented source?"

Helpful Hints

In addition to all of these suggestions about your papers, I have several other specific pieces of advice that arise from the many hundreds of papers I have graded over the years.

1) Tenses: It is important that you choose a tense (past, present or future) that is appropriate to your paper and then try to avoid jumping from one tense to another. After you have written your first draft, go back through your paper and check the tenses of your verbs to make sure you are being consistent.

2) Voice: A common failing of many writers in the English language is not using the active voice as much as one should. Use the active voice whenever possible. For example, instead of writing, "Among the many books that were written by L'udovit Štur before the revolutions . . ." you should write, "Among the many books L'udovit Štur wrote . . ." The difference is often a subtle one but the more "active" your writing is, the more forceful your arguments will be.

3) Pronouns: Because English pronouns are not declined as they are in other languages it is often impossible to tell what an indefinite (this, that, it) or personal (he, she, they) pronoun refers to in a clause or sentence. Therefore, you must be very careful with your pronouns. Make sure the reader knows what each pronoun refers to. For example: "The French Revolution led to the development of the modern national states of Europe. This was the most important event . . ." The reader is left wondering if the Revolution or the development of the nation-state was the most important event since the pronoun "this" could refer to either one. One of the easiest ways to avoid this problem is to avoid using pronouns as the subject of a sentence.

4) Please avoid sentences that are either nonsensical and sentences that state the obvious. Here are a couple of real examples from previous student papers of the sort of sentence I mean:

"In April 1941, Nazi Germany officially invaded Yugoslavia." [Is it possible to invade unofficially?]

"For working class women in England at the turn of the century, death was, at times, inevitable." [And at other times they lived forever?]

"During the reign of terror, Robespierre killed everyone..." [I have this vision of poor Robespierre, standing in the middle of Paris, shouting "Hello! Is anyone there? Where is everyone?"]

"Italy was divided into several states: the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont, the former republics of Lombardy and Venice, the clutches of Tuscany, Modena and Parma, the Papal States, and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies." [No matter how hard you try, you just can't make those Tuscans let go! The author meant to say "duchies".]

"After the socialists' success in becoming a legally recognized party, they were able to transform Germany into their political idea." [Once their state became an idea, where did all the Germans move? Surely not to France!]

"Bismarck kept Austria's involvement in German economic affairs to a bear minimum." [That's just below the lion maximum...]

"Paris was then surrounded by German troops. The city held out under siege with the help of French army gorillas." [All the dancing bears had been captured by the Germans earlier in the war...but those gorillas were tough customers!]

"The combination of intense overcrowding, food shortage, and filthy loving conditions produced environments in 19th century western European cities conducive to disease and low life expectancy rates." [Imagine what life would have been like if the loving had been clean!]

On the status of women in ancient Greece, one student wrote: "Male childbearing was more readily encouraged..." [Things sure were different back then...]

One final piece of advice--come and ask me for help as you are working on your essay. I would rather work with you on your paper before you hand it in than read and grade an inferior product.