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How to Write a Good History Essay
Module: Individual History Project (HIS3089-N)
65 Documents
Students shared 65 documents in this course
University: Teesside University
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How to Write a Good History Essay
Some Suggestions for the Time-Conscious Student
The following outline is intended as to provide one example of how to write an essay. Treat it
as food for thought, as providing a set of suggestions some of which you might incorporate
into your own method for writing essays.
1. Why do historians set essays?
It is useful to begin by considering why essay-writing has long been the method of choice for
assessment in history. The chief reason is that no other method provides as effective a means
of testing a student's comprehension of a topic. We want you to show us that not only have
you acquired a knowledge of the topic but also that you fully understand the topic and the
issues raised by it. Essays test understanding by asking you to select and re-organise relevant
material in order to produce your own answer to the set question.
An undergraduate essay need not be particularly innovative in its approach and insights, but it
must be the product of the student's own dialogue with the subject. Essays which do not
answer the question can only be regarded as demonstrating some knowledge of the topic,
they cannot be said to show understanding of the topic. Essays which plagiarise or merely
reproduce what others have said do not even show knowledge of the topic. Plagiarism is thus
not merely a matter of theft, it involves an entirely unacceptable subversion of the learning
process.
2. Is there a right and a wrong answer?
History essays are less about finding the correct answer to the set question than they are about
demonstrating that you understand the issues which it raises (and the texts which discuss
these issues). With most historical problems (certainly the most interesting ones) it is seldom
possible to arrive at a definitive answer. The evidence almost always permits a variety of
solutions, and different approaches generate divergent conclusions. There are, however, limits
to the field of possible solutions, since they must fit in with 'the evidence'. Of course, exactly
what constitutes 'the evidence' is almost invariably one of the issues under discussion among
the historians who are most deeply engaged with the problem, but in general for each
historical question there will be a body of evidence which is recognised as being relevant to
it. This body of evidence will typically comprise what the primary sources tell us about the
events and phenomena under discussion. A good answer will need to harmonise with all of
this evidence, or explain why particular items have been dismissed as having no bearing on
the problem.
It follows from all of this that there certainly are wrong answers — that is, answers which
fall outside the field of possible solutions or which fail to take account of received evidence
— even though there is no 'absolutely right' answer.
3. Analysing the Question
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