Blog / Writing history papers

The history paper differs from other academic papers because it involves 1) the transformation of facts into evidence, and 2) the transformation of evidence into an argument. The solid history paper will offer insightful interpretations of the evidence.

Generally, historical writing involves the analysis of primary or secondary sources. References to the primary sources should be considered chronologically, while references to secondary sources need not be structured in sequential order. Instead, essays on secondary sources should be ordered by ideas and logic.

When gathering your historical information, consider the biases and validity of your sources. If you happened to be writing about the history of high-school truancy, you might be tempted to reference the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off. But, alas, Ferris's account is biased towards the student view and fails to give the hapless principal's perspective.

When considering the viability of sources, look at the author's footnotes. Footnotes that have very few resources or resources from only one standpoint (i.e., only students' accounts) help reveal the author's bias. Another benefit of scouring the footnotes is finding information that will alert you to other good sources to consider.

Don't fall into the trap of narrating. You're not telling a story, you're explaining ideas such as "Why is this story relevant to other historical matters?" Make sure not to add superfluous facts or irrelevant data; they merely distract from the ideas you're trying to convey. While it might be interesting, the outfit that Ben Stein wore the day Ferris skipped school is not of absolute importance to the story. Interesting but irrelevant facts do not belong in your paper; tell them to your roommate.

A good history paper will examine the context of a quote or piece of evidence. Taking quotes out of context can misrepresent an author's meaning. Although fragments of sentences may be pulled from the texts you are analyzing, you must convey the entire idea and not just the select phrase. For example, let's say an author writes a sentence like, "While Shakespeare enjoyed video games like The Legend of Zelda, he much preferred board games like Monopoly." To write in an essay that "Shakespeare 'enjoyed video games like Zelda more than anything else'" misrepresents the author. Don't try to construct quotes that fit your explanation; include their entire ideas and make sure they are entirely accurate. Professors who can identify quotes that have misconstrued the source will severely penalize your paper.

When writing a history paper, avoid phrases like "since the beginning of time" or "history has shown." Such colloquial generalizations annoy professors. Be insightful and give your reader a condensed explanation of the context of the evidence.
Use the past tense. This is history, remember? Also, remember to avoid using the subjective I.