The first step toward well organised and effective writing is a good plan. Second, the contention should serve as the focal point or ‘backbone’ of an effective essay or extended response. First, it shows that you have contemplated the question and formed a confident and cogent answer. It should be revisited and restated regularly through the body of your writing, then reiterated in the conclusion. In an essay, your contention must be clearly expressed in the introduction. Before starting to write you should have a clear contention – in other words, an argument or ‘answer’ – that responds to the question or problem. Most history writing responds to a problem, question or statement. Read every sentence and paragraph when complete and think whether it says what you want it to. Pause before starting a new sentence and ask yourself what you intend to say and how you want it to sound. Every idea, sentence or complicated phrase should be fully conceived in your mind before you commit it to paper.Ī moment’s thought and mental planning before each new sentence or paragraph is often the difference between clear and effective writing and aimless waffling. You should think continually during the process of writing, from start to finish. This is an obvious piece of advice but one often forgotten or ignored. Think before writing, think while writing This plan should provide a framework for the ideas, arguments and information you will present. It need not be complex – a list, some dot-points or a simple concept map. Before drafting an essay, an extended response or even just a long paragraph, construct some kind of brief plan. The longer the task, the more effort you should put into structuring and planning. It is very difficult to structure and organise writing ‘on the fly’, even for skilled writers. Starting a lengthy piece of writing without any planning, in the hope that it will ‘fall together’ or ‘work out’, is rarely effective. When writing anything for history, do not leave structure or organisation to chance. You can also find useful information on our page about writing history essays. Here are some general tips about writing for history. The important thing is to work hard, be patient and remain positive. As with most things, different students progress at different speeds. With practice – along with advice, reflection and hopefully support – you will become an effective history writer. As you write your own pieces, think critically about your writing and seek feedback from others. As you read different historians, think about how they write, how they organise their ideas, how they frame their arguments and theories, how they weave together narrative, evidence and analysis. The best advice is to study how the professionals write history. If you are taking a senior history course for the first time, think of your historical writing as a work in progress. Like other skills, it is learned, developed and practised over time. Nobody is born a great historian or historical writer. Writing for history has considerable challenges. Success in history hinges not just on your interest in and knowledge of the past but your ability to write clearly and effectively. Regardless of the technologies available, history students should still expect to undertake a sizeable amount of reading and writing. New technologies have changed the ways that historical sources and written information are stored, shared and presented – but not the information itself. Historians today still use documents, books, essays and other forms of writing to record their findings. An ancient Egyptian scribe, the educated class who specialised in writingĭespite the technological advances of the modern era, not much has changed in this regard. Ever since the days of Herodotus and Plutarch, historians have relied on written texts to communicate historical narrative and meaning. Like other branches of the humanities, history is carried by the written word.
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