BEDFORD CUSTOM TUTORIAL FOR HISTORY
Planning and Preparing a Long
Essay in History
If this is your first college-level history class, there is a good chance that
you have never written an essay on a historical topic. This tutorial will
help you learn to do the following:
•
•
•
•
Understand the essay assignment
Read historical material strategically and analytically
Organize your thoughts and ideas
Write a history essay
Even if you have written history essays before, there are many different
types of essay questions that your college instructor might ask you to
answer. You might, for example, be asked to do one of the following:
• Consider a question about historical cause and effect
• Analyze change and continuity over time
• Respond to an existing historical interpretation of a period or event
This tutorial will help you prepare for these types of writing assignments; in turn, you can apply the approaches you learn here to other types
of assignments in your history classes and other college coursework. The
first section of this tutorial provides strategies to help you write essays that
answer historical questions, assess the strengths and limitations of historical interpretations, and form new historical questions and interpretations
of your own. The second section of the tutorial offers strategies for writing
answers to essay questions that appear on history exams.
Many students come to college-level history classes assuming that they
already know quite a bit about history from their previous twelve years in
school. In elementary and high school, history education typically emphasizes “what happened,” leading students to assume that history is a collection of facts about kings and queens, popes and presidents, wars and
revolutions, and that memorizing and regurgitating such facts are the keys
to earning good grades in their history courses.
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2 Planning and Preparing a Long Essay in History
History instructors assign essays not only to ensure that their students
learn about the events and developments of the past but also to provide
them with opportunities to practice and demonstrate their historical thinking and writing abilities. Thus, although you will still learn a great number
of facts about the people, places, and periods that are the focus of your
college history course, you will also learn a specific set of historical skills
that will help you understand and evaluate change and continuity over
time, make appropriate use of historical evidence in answering questions,
and develop coherent interpretations and arguments.
How to Plan and Prepare History Essay Assignments
When it is time to begin working on an essay assignment for your history
course, it is important to remember that your instructor has assigned the
essay for two different but related reasons. First, she or he wants to assess
your understanding of the facts connected to a particular topic and the ways
they relate to one another. In a unit on the Columbian exchange, for example, an instructor might ask students to write an essay to show that they can
list the distinctive types of empires that existed in Europe, Africa, and the
Americas before 1492, describe how the interactions among those empires
in the sixteenth century altered each of them individually, and recapitulate
the ways that expanded global exchange transformed the entire world.
Second, your instructor has assigned the essay because she or he wants
to see that you can take all the information you have learned about burgeoning European trade and exploration, the ambitions of the Spanish
monarchy, the Roman Catholic Church, the Aztec empire, and African
kingdoms, and put them all into a larger framework that offers a well-­
supported argument in answer to a historical question. In other words, any
instructor who asks students to write an essay is looking for more than a
laundry list of personalities, institutions, and events. The instructor wants
to see that students have begun to develop the ability to form their own
thoughts and reach their own conclusions about the ways in which historical change takes place.
Planning and preparing to write a history essay consists of more than
examining and taking notes on the sources or texts that serve as the basis
for the assignment. It also requires you to engage in some rigorous thinking in order to produce your own historical arguments. The process of
preparing for and writing an out-of-class essay typically requires a considerable commitment of time, so be sure to give yourself several days to
follow the steps below and engage in the reading, thinking, and writing
necessary to finish the project.
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How to Plan and Prepare History Essay Assignments 3
Step 1: Understand the Assignment
As with any out-of-class assignment, you must begin preparing to write a
history essay by making sure you understand what your instructor is asking you to do. Look carefully at the words the instructor uses. Any assignment that asks you to “illustrate,” “show how,” “critique,” “analyze,”
“explain,” “compare and contrast,” or “discuss” indicates that the instructor wants you to write an analytical essay which, in addition to showing
what you know, also shows that you are able to think historically about
the source/question/topic at hand. Most likely, the essay prompt provides
instructions about which sources you will need to consult, the themes or
topics you should address, and how long the finished essay should be.
Some essay prompts are very explicit, providing important context and
laying out the issues you need to read and think about as you prepare to
write your essay. Below are three examples of such essay prompts:
· The Columbian exchange exposed people on both sides of the Atlantic to surprising new people and goods. It also produced dramatic
demographic and political transformations in the Old World and the
New. How did the Columbian exchange lead to redistributions of
power and population? Discuss these changes, referring explicitly to
the textbook and relevant primary documents.
· Asians, Africans, and Native Americans experienced early modern
European expansion in quite different ways. Based on the readings in
the course thus far, how would you describe and explain those differences? How were each of these groups active agents in the historical
process rather than simply victims of European actions?
· In what ways were the major phenomena of the first half of the twentieth century — world wars, the Great Depression, fascism, the Holocaust, the emergence of the United States as a global power — rooted
in earlier times? Read the materials assigned in the course and offer
your own analysis to answer this question.
Prompts like these make an assertion, guide you to relevant readings, and
ask you to make an argument that answers a specific historical question.
They are not asking you to describe or summarize the readings, but to use
the information you glean from the sources as evidence to support your
own answer to the question.
Sometimes, however, instructors supply essay prompts that are less prescriptive, giving students greater freedom to choose the focus of their
essay. Here are three examples of this type of prompt:
· Discuss three major cases of cultural diffusion between the fifteenth
century and the present.
· What event or development constituted the most significant ­historical
watershed of the twentieth century? Why?
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4 Planning and Preparing a Long Essay in History
· Discuss the impact of the Industrial Revolution on family structures,
focusing on both change and continuity.
Although they lack specificity, essay prompts like these are also asking
students to use information from history texts or historical sources to take
a position and make a convincing, well-supported argument. If you have
any questions about an assignment after reading the instructions — ­including
what types of sources you should use, how long your finished essay should
be, or what kind of citations you should use—consult your instructor as
early as possible.
Step 2: Identify and Assemble Sources
The second step in preparing to write a history essay is to identify and
assemble the material the assignment asks you to address. In most introductory history classes, instructors ask their students to write in response
to readings they have done as part of their coursework, but sometimes
they might also ask students to digest additional materials that complement or expand on texts they have assigned in class. Once you know
which specific sources you will need to consult in order to plan and write
your essay, make sure that you have access to all of them. If the essay
requires you to include information from a source you cannot physically
obtain, such as a museum artifact or a public lecture, you will need to
make arrangements to consult that source in the relevant place and/or
time and take thorough notes that you can refer to later as you are considering the other material you are using for your essay. Once you have gathered all of your materials you can begin to read and analyze them.
Step 3: Read and Analyze
This task is the most time-consuming part of preparing for a history essay.
Assuming the assignment is asking you to respond to sources your
instructor has discussed in class you are probably already somewhat
­
­familiar with their content, but broad generalizations are not sufficient to
write a good analytical essay. Fortunately, because your essay prompt or
assignment sheet tells you what question or questions you need to
answer, you will not have to reread every bit of the material. Even very
general and open-ended essay prompts provide some guidance to the relevant portions of assigned readings, and more detailed prompts can serve
as road maps that steer you directly to the relevant topics in your texts.
After you have pinpointed them you can read those sections closely,
­honing in on the information you will need to formulate and support
your own historical argument. Once you have identified all the relevant material, you need to examine each piece of it in-depth — closely and
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How to Plan and Prepare History Essay Assignments 5
critically — in order to compile all of the data you need and start to draw
your own conclusions.
Let’s imagine that you are preparing to write an essay on the first model
question listed above:
The Columbian exchange exposed people on both sides of the Atlantic to surprising new people and goods. It also produced dramatic demographic and
political transformations in the Old World and the New. How did the Columbian exchange lead to redistributions of power and population? Discuss these
changes, referring explicitly to the textbook and relevant primary documents.
The question specifies that you should (1) examine the Columbian exchange,
which began in 1492 and unfolded over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; (2) compare and contrast the changes that took place as a
result of the Columbian exchange in both the Old World and the New World;
and (3) specifically address the ways that new global relationships redistributed power and population. It also tells you to refer explicitly to your textbook
and the relevant primary documents that have been assigned in the course.
Your textbook, which is a compilation of the work of many secondary
works written by historians, is the broadest and most comprehensive
source of information you have to consult for this essay and it makes sense
to begin with it. Using the question as your guide, turn to the chapters of
the text that focus on the period of the Columbian exchange and read them
carefully, paying particular attention to the sections that pertain directly to
redistributions of population and power. When you encounter information
that is relevant to your topic, write it down. In this case, it might make
sense to construct a list or a table through which you can record facts and
start to identify patterns that will help you craft your argument when it is
time to write. For example, a table like this one makes it possible to record
facts and information useful for comparing the Old and New Worlds and
show change over time:
Europe:
politics/
power
Before 1492
1500s–1600s
1700–1750
• Lack of unified
political authority but
ambitious kingdoms
and city-states in
W. Europe
• Roman Catholic
Church is a powerful
political institution as
well
• European state
building comes with
growing wealth and
population; causes
competition, wars, etc.
• Spain and later
England emerge as
major imperial
powers due to New
World possessions
• European states
continue to gain
economic and
political power
globally
• Domination of
Americas brings
wealth and experience that lay the
groundwork for later
domination in other
parts of the world
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6 Planning and Preparing a Long Essay in History
Europe:
population
• Total population
around 60 million in
1400
• Population grows
dramatically due in
large part to New
World food crops of
corn and potatoes and
influx of other wealth
from Columbian
exchange: 200 million
by late 1600s
• Europe’s population
continues to grow
dramatically, despite
continuing migration
to the Americas
Africa:
politics/
power
• Songhay Empire in
W. Africa; Akan states
on “Gold Coast”;
kingdom of Kongo in
Central Africa
• Political institutions
become increasingly
tied to European
networks and the
slave trade, which
leads to corruption
• Economic stagnation
and political
corruption are
widespread due to
importance of the
slave trade
• Developments of
1500–1600s continue
and European states’
power globally
dwarfs Africa’s
Africa:
population
•Continental
population of around
100 million in 1400
• Coastal states
equivalent to
European mini-states:
densely populated
and resource rich
• Population remains
relatively steady in
Africa as New World
crops cause
population growth
that counterbalances
population loss due
to slave trade
• Rate of population
growth in Africa
dramatically lower
than in other parts of
the world
• Increasing growth of
slave trade disrupts
African societies and
continues to prevent
substantial population growth
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How to Plan and Prepare History Essay Assignments 7
Americas:
politics/
power
• Aztec Empire
dominates Mesoamerica politically and
economically: tribute
• Inca Empire
dominant in Andes
region politically and
economically
• Chiefdoms and
confederacies in
North America, e.g.,
Five Nations, Cahokia
• Clans powerful in
some regions of N.
America
• Indigenous political
structures decimated:
Aztec and Inca
empires disappear
• Chiefdoms and
confederacies persist
but Native American
societies in North
America are
weakened by
population loss and
European domination
• Spanish and
Portuguese colonial
governments develop
in Central and South
America
•European/American
colonial political
institutions emerge
to govern white
settlements and
effectively control
Native Americans in
North America
• Indigenous political
power continues to
decline in Americas
•European/American
political institutions
continue to evolve:
Britain becomes
dominant in North
America, while Spain
and Portugal
continue to dominate
Central and South
America
• American colonial
bodies become
increasingly
important
Americas:
population
• Diverse hunting/
gathering and
agricultural societies
in North America
with relatively low
population density
• Population density in
South and Central
America probably
higher
• Estimates of total
population vary from
25 million to more
than 100 million
• Indigenous population experiences
precipitous decline
due to disease and
warfare that come
with European
contact
• 350,000 Spaniards
and ≈2 million
Africans brought to
New World as slaves
•European/white
population of North
America ≈250,000 by
late 1600s
• Native population of
South and Central
America is about 1
million by 1650
• Native population of
North America shrinks
by about 90 percent
• Indigenous population recuperates
slightly but remains
low
• Population of white
colonists continues to
increase due to
natural reproduction
and continued
migration
• By 1750 population
of North America is
≈1,180,000 (incl.
slaves)
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8 Planning and Preparing a Long Essay in History
After you read the textbook and any assigned secondary sources and
take notes on the information they contain, you can turn to the primary
sources the assignment asks you to include. Primary sources, documents
created by people living at the time they describe or represent, will likely
be a good source of specific evidence and examples you can use to develop
and support your argument. Again, use the essay prompt and your existing
notes to determine which of your course’s primary sources might be particularly relevant. In this case, you want to read and take notes on sources
that contribute to the topics from the table above. Likely sources include
those that document Native American societies and pre-Columbian political structures in the Americas, African kingdoms and their relationship to
the slave trade in the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries, Europeans’ discovery and conquest of the Americas, and the growth and development of European and American colonial economic and political power
during that same period. Just as a detective examines evidence for clues
about what took place during a crime, you must analyze primary sources
for clues about their origin, purpose, and relevance for answering your
questions about what took place in the past. Write down any specific
examples and/or quotations that help you formulate your answer to the
question and that might serve as illustrative examples in your essay.
Step 4: Prepare to Write Your Essay
Before you sit down at the keyboard to write your essay, it is worthwhile
to spend some time contemplating your ideas, developing your thesis, and
considering how best to organize your paper. Experienced writers approach
this process in a variety of ways. This is a good time to take some of the
following steps:
1. Take another close look at the assignment to remind yourself
what you are aiming to do.
2. Reiterate for yourself the big ideas in the source or sources you
are responding to.
3. Read through your notes again, revisiting your thoughts about
and reactions to the original sources used in your assignment.
4. Group your ideas into patterns or categories to help figure out
what major points you want to make.
5. Talk to someone else about your ideas in order to clarify them.
This person could be a classmate who is struggling with some of the
same issues, or it could be someone who knows nothing about the
topic but is a willing listener.
6. Take a short break in order to let your thoughts jell while you are
doing something else.
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How to Plan and Prepare History Essay Assignments 9
Your primary goal in this process is to articulate your ideas and conclusions about the sources you have examined in a preliminary thesis statement that can serve as the foundation for your essay, to select the best
examples you can find to validate your thesis, and to figure out how to
organize your points to make the strongest possible case for your interpretation. Some writers find comprehensive outlines helpful and take the
time, at this stage, to construct one for their entire paper. Others work
better from a short list of topics, filling in the details as they hone their
ideas during the writing process. If you are not sure which technique to
use, try both in order to figure out what works for you.
Again, using the example of the essay on the Columbian exchange,
remember the critical question you want to answer: How did the Columbian exchange lead to redistributions of power and population in the Old
World and the New World? Looking back over your readings and your
notes, you should be able to see that the process of the Columbian exchange
enriched the power and population of Europe (and its American colonies)
at the expense of African peoples and indigenous Americans. With that
preliminary thesis in mind, you should then be able to strategize about
how best to organize your essay to both demonstrate and explain in greater
detail how the Columbian exchange did just that, which will require showing change over time in both regions and advancing your own thoughts
about why Europe ultimately benefited so much from its contact with the
New World. At this point you might construct a working outline that looks
something like this:
Preliminary thesis: “The Columbian exchange enriched the power and population of Europe (and its satellite American colonies) at the expense of Africa and
the indigenous American empires, confederacies, chiefdoms, and clans.” Still to
figure out: reasons WHY this happened — possibilities — European diseases
impact on indigenous Americans, European technological superiority, discontent
among subject people in Aztec Empire
I. Introduction: provide general background and context, including defining the
Columbian exchange, and presenting more analytical thesis
II. Describe population and political power of Americas, Africa, Europe
­before 1492
III. Describe/explain process of Columbian exchange and its impact on the
three regions — at least one paragraph per — beginning with Columbus and
moving ­forward chronologically. A. Americas B. Europe C. Africa
IV. Describe/demonstrate population and politics/power of Europe, Americas,
Africa in global terms in mid-eighteenth century to illustrate vast changes
brought by Columbian exchange
V. Conclusion
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10 Planning and Preparing a Long Essay in History
Step 5: Write Your Analytical Essay
Now that you have read and understood the assigned texts, reflected on
their meaning and significance, and formulated a preliminary thesis statement and argument, you are ready to use them as the basis for your essay.
Essays of this type generally begin with an introductory paragraph that features a strong thesis which states the author’s argument, proceed to a “body”
which systemically lays out the argument and the supporting evidence in a
logically organized and convincing fashion, and end with a conclusion that
restates the thesis and summarizes the argument. A strong introduction is
essential to a high-quality essay. Like an attorney’s opening statement at the
beginning of a trial, the essay’s introduction and thesis should establish the
problem it will address, tell the reader what the essay is going to argue, indicate briefly how the evidence supports the case, and prepare the reader to
follow its logical organizing scheme through to the conclusion. It is vital that
your thesis be both specific and analytically rigorous. A strong thesis statement does not simply describe the contents of the essay but specifies your
own “solution” to the historical problem at hand.
Returning to the example of the essay on the Columbian exchange, let’s
assume that you have begun your introduction and are working on crafting
and strengthening your preliminary thesis statement. Your first task in the
introduction is to establish the historical question or problem the essay
addresses and to introduce the ideas your thesis incorporates before you
present your argument. In this case, you might begin the essay by writing
something like the following paragraph, which provides the necessary historical context for your argument and defines the Columbian exchange for
the reader:
In 1491 the total population of the Americas rivaled that of Europe and Africa, the Aztecs and Incas ruled large American empires and built impressive
cities and civilizations, and the indigenous people of North America created
a wide variety of regional chiefdoms and confederacies, many of which participated in far-flung trade networks. Europe at that time was primarily a
peasant society and only a marginal player on a world scene which was
dominated by more powerful civilizations in the Asian and Muslim worlds.
When Christopher Columbus and his sailors made landfall in the West Indies in 1492, they believed that they had found proof of a new sea route to
Asia. Columbus and his supporters were undoubtedly delighted about his
“discovery,” which they believed could make Spain and other European
states more competitive players in the profitable Eurasian trade networks
that the Ottoman Empire had dominated since 1450. But although Columbus
had not, in fact, discovered a new route to Asia, his arrival in the Western
Hemisphere initiated a process known as the Columbian exchange — the
transmission of people, cultural practices, plants, foods, and organisms from
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How to Plan and Prepare History Essay Assignments 11
the Old World to the New World and vice versa—which would transform the
globe over the next two centuries.
Now that you have laid the groundwork for your essay, you can concentrate on framing the question your essay addresses and developing a thesis
that offers your answer to that question. Here, again, it is probably useful
to reread your essay prompt again to remind yourself that your task is to
answer the question, How did the Columbian Exchange lead to redistributions of power and population? And it is crucial that you ensure that your
thesis statement actually offers a thoughtful and analytical answer to that
question. It should not just reiterate the language of the assignment: “The
Columbian Exchange led to dramatic demographic and political transformations in the Old World and the New.” Nor should it be a narrative about
the development of your thinking about the question: “In examining the
readings on the Old World and the New World in the periods before, during, and after 1492, I came to a new understanding of the development
and the changes it created. In my paper I will discuss the ways that the
Columbian exchange produced demographic and political transformations
in both hemispheres.” Instead, your thesis must introduce your conclusions about what the evidence reveals about what happened. In this case,
you might continue your introduction, laying out your essay’s historical
question and presenting a strong thesis like this:
Although the term “Columbian exchange” implies that the New and Old
Worlds benefited equally from the new transatlantic interaction of the late
fifteenth century, its impact was profoundly unbalanced. The Columbian
exchange introduced Old World diseases, military technology, and cultural
practices to the Americas that decimated its population and political structures, while the concurrent transfer of New World food crops and natural
resources to the Old World spurred massive population growth and wealth
accumulation that made it possible for Europe to dominate global politics in
the 1600s and beyond. Ultimately the Columbian exchange, the growth of
European empires in the Americas, and the tremendous expansion of the
African slave trade into North and South America enriched the power of
Europe at the expense of Africa and indigenous people of America and laid
the foundation for the modern world.
Following your introduction, the body of your essay should lay out the
evidence to support your position as stated in your thesis. The body should
consist of paragraphs that describe and explain each aspect of your case,
giving specific examples from the readings to bolster the assertions you
make. In this example, you might devote the first section of the body to a
discussion of the political and demographic characteristics of the America,
Europe, and Africa before 1492; the second section to the processes of transformation that occurred between 1500 and 1650 or so as the Columbian
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12 Planning and Preparing a Long Essay in History
exchange unfolded in the Americas, Europe, and Africa, again supporting
your general points with sufficient specific examples and quotations from
primary sources; and the third section to the state of each region’s demographic and political status by the end of the 1700s, providing specific details
to make your case convincing. Finally, you should end your essay with a
concluding paragraph that ties all your points together. Like a lawyer’s closing argument in a courtroom, your conclusion should reiterate your thesis,
summarize your argument, and demonstrate its significance for our understanding of the topic in question.
Step 6: Revise Your Essay
Once you have completed your first draft, the final step is to go back and
review your own essay as a critical reader. It is important to find and correct misspellings, typos, and grammatical errors, but it is also important to
assess the quality of your argument and your own use of evidence. Is your
paper organized in a way that makes logical sense and supports your argument effectively? Do you explain, in every case, how your evidence supports your thesis? Do as much as you can to tighten your essay’s argument,
organization, content, and style before you hand it in to your instructor for
evaluation.
How to Prepare for and Write Essay Exams
It is quite likely that as a student in a college history course, you will be
expected to write essays on midterm and/or final exams. As with standard
essay assignments, instructors give essay exams in order to assess students’ understanding of the facts connected to a particular topic and the
ways they relate to one another, and to see that students can reach their
own conclusions about the ways in which historical change takes place.
Writing exam essays has much in common with writing out-of-class essays.
Exam essays are necessarily shorter, less polished, and probably less
detailed than out-of-class essays because they have to be planned and
written in a limited period of time, but they should follow the same basic
format. Every exam essay should include an introduction with a strong
thesis, a body consisting of several paragraphs that lays out the evidence
supporting your thesis, and a conclusion.
Preparing to write exam essays is also somewhat different from preparing to write an essay outside of class, though the preparation process varies with the instructor’s approach to teaching. Some instructors hand out
potential essay questions or topics in advance so that students can focus
and direct their studying. If your instructor hands out essay questions in
advance, you can prepare for the exam by rereading the relevant material
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How to Prepare for and Write Essay Exams 13
and selecting the important individuals, events, developments, and dates
you will need to use as evidence to write the essay. Instructors generally
discourage students from writing entire essays in advance and trying to
commit them to memory so that they can reproduce them during the
exam. It is, by and large, much more effective to prepare for the exam by
writing a brief outline that records your argument, your main points, and
the specific facts and details you need to make your points and demonstrate your understanding of the material, and then to write your essay
during the exam.
If you are preparing for an exam and have not received the essay questions in advance, the best preparation strategy is to review your lecture
notes and readings and, during that process, to come up with potential
questions on your own. If you focus on the big ideas and themes you
encounter in your notes and readings during your study process, you
should be able to identify the major analytical questions that emerge from
them, especially if you keep in mind historical concepts such as causation,
change over time, and comparison. It can also be helpful to look at the
review questions that are included in most textbook chapters and ensure
that you can answer them using specific facts from the readings and lectures. If your command of the material is sufficient to answer the review
questions and the “making connections” or “big picture” type of questions
interspersed through the typical history textbook, you should be in a good
position to write a successful exam essay.
When the time comes to write your essay during the exam, there are
several strategies you can employ to maximize your chances of success.
First, read the questions carefully and make sure you understand what
each question is asking you to do. If you can choose from several questions, decide which ones you are best prepared to answer and focus on
those questions. Consider the amount of time you have to take the test and
the point value of each section of the exam, then make a plan for how
much time to spend on each section. If you have 90 minutes to write an
exam that is worth 100 points and includes a short essay worth 30 points
and a long essay worth 70 points, plan to devote 25 to 30 minutes to the
short essay and the remaining time to the long essay. It can be advantageous to spend a few minutes before you actually launch into writing your
essay to gather your thoughts by jotting down a very brief outline of the
major points you want to make. As you are writing your essay, you can
refer back to these notes to remind yourself where you are going with your
argument and to manage your time most effectively.
Once you begin to write, remember that while proper grammar and
punctuation are important, your prose does not have to be elegant. Your
goal is to make a logical and organized argument that answers the question using appropriate historical evidence. Be sure to stay focused on the
topic and avoid any irrelevant tangents, no matter how interesting they
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14 Planning and Preparing a Long Essay in History
might be. Remember that your exam essay must include the following
elements:
· An introductory paragraph that includes a strong thesis statement. It
is not vital in this circumstance to frame your thesis by restating the
question and providing context and background.
· A body in which each paragraph focuses on one point that supports
your argument. Begin each of these paragraphs with a topic statement, and be sure to relate each example or piece of evidence back
to your thesis, explaining how it proves your case.
· A conclusion that summarizes your thesis and major points, and ties
your essay together.
Chances are you will not have much time to review your essays once
you are finished, but if you do, it is worthwhile to take a quick look back
over your work to make sure it is legible and contains all the information
you meant to include. After you turn in your exam, it can also be valuable
to think about how well your studying prepared you to answer the questions. Did you do a good job anticipating what some of the essay questions
would be or were you taken by surprise? Did you feel like you had a good
enough handle on the facts to provide sufficient evidence to support your
arguments, or should you have done more to remember important names,
dates, places, events, and developments? What, if anything, would you do
differently next time you are preparing for a history exam? Even if you do
not feel like you have done well, exams can be valuable learning tools when
you use the experience of taking them to perform better down the road.
Conclusion
As you now know, history instructors assign essays to their students so
they can assess how much their students know about what happened in
the past and to help their students develop historical thinking and writing
skills. Learning how to write a strong and persuasive history essay will not
only bring you success in your history courses but also build reading,
thinking, and writing competencies that will be valuable in your other
college courses and in your future professional life. By following the guidelines in this tutorial you should be well on your way to writing successful
essays for in-class exams or out-of-class assignments.
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Strictly for use with its products. Not for redistribution.
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