ADVICE ON WRITING HISTORY ESSAYS I hope you find these comments useful. Please do not hesitate to ask if there is any further help I can give you. GENERAL COMMENTS 1. THE PLAN: One of the things many students find a problem is how to decide what to make notes on from their reading. Faced with a mass of detail, how do you begin to work out what is worth noting down and later putting in the essay, and what isn't. I find it easiest if I have already got an essay plan or structure in mind . This splits your essay into a series of sections and questions you want to find the answers to. A good plan or structure is crucial to the success of your essay. Try to split the question up into a series of smaller questions, the answers to which will, when combined, answer the overall essay. Also try to identify a key word or phrase which is central to the whole essay. For example: The essay title is "The Russian Revolution of February 1917 was caused by the incompetence of Nicholas II- Discuss." The key phrase here is "caused". This is an essay on the CAUSES of the 1917 revolution. So everything that happened after 1917 can be ignored. That limits the scope of the essay for a start. Now split the essay title up into 4 or 5 key questions, like this: 1. Introduction: The importance of 1917 in the history of Russia 2. The role of Nicholas II (this will be a big section- perhaps half the essay- since the examiner has asked you to concentrate on Nicholas)- his mistakes from 1894 onwards, leading to his final mistakes in 1917 3. Other factors- Rasputin/ No tradition of democracy/ World War I/ Russian defeat and humiliation/ food shortages/ the role of the revolutionaries 4. Evidence that Nicholas was not the main cause- his popularity in 1914, the recovery from 1905 5. Conclusion: Nicholas mistakes combined with factors beyond his control, particularly World War I. Unlucky rather than incompetent? Obviously you can only produce such a structure when you do have a hazy idea of what you are looking for; you can of course change the structure as you start reading, as you find new causes you hadn't thought of before. But if you START with a plan, you have a focus and purpose to your reading and notes. 2. MAKING NOTES FROM YOUR BOOKS: Now when you start your reading you know what you are looking for, so you only make notes on material which is relevant to the particular questions you want answered. You can leave out- and be quite ruthless about leaving out- any material which does not help answer any of the PARTICULAR questions you want answered. This way you find you leave out a lot of "background" or irrelevant information (in the case of the essay above you could leave out everything that happened before 1894 or after 1917). I always do my reading in a particular order. I glance through all the books I am going to be reading and guess what order of usefulness they will be. (Sometimes I get the order a bit wrong- that doesn't matter, so long as in general they are in order). The order I put them in is: * Easy/basic/short/text books - they will give me the most important information in a painless way * More detailed books covering particular topics . These will give me more detail and different viewpoints, but hopefully I won't now have to wade through the whole book, because of the lot of the material I have already made notes on- so I can "skim" the book looking for either new details the basic books did not supply, or particular opinions and viewpoints worth noting. * Biographies- again skimming to pick out relevant material * Books that look really hard and detailed- hopefully by the time I reach these, I will have mastered much of the material, and it won't look nearly so bad- and it will impress the examiner if I demonstrate in the essay I have read and understood this book. 3. USING THE INDEX OK, so you've dug out the first book- but how do you work out which bits to read? Do you have to read the whole book? Usually not. With TEXTBOOKS you can usually work out which bits to read from the Chapter headings and sub-headings. With other books (and sometimes with textbooks) you use the Index. Look up the topic you want information on and jot down all the page numbers where it is mentioned. You will need to look up all of these, although you will obviously concentrate of sections where there are several pages together on the one topic. 4. WHAT MAKES AN ESSAY GOOD? The good essay has a clear plan and structure and flows along, gradually building up the argument in a logical order (and that does not always mean in chronological order). It has an Introduction, setting the scene, and a Conclusion which does not include any new material, but sums up the key points. The two main faults in an essay are either to make it too factual or too generalised. TOO FACTUAL: Here masses of details are written down, usually in date order. First this happened, and then that happened. It's all accurate stuff, but it doesn't lead anywhere, and it does not answer any questions. GENERALISED: This is lots of opinion with no supporting evidence- Here are two examples of extracts from bad essays on the subject "Did Hitler cause the Second World War?" FACTUAL: The War started on 1 September 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. Two days later Britain and France declared war on Germany. Hitler's first words on hearing this news were "What now?" Meanwhile the German Panzers were driving deep into Poland, and the Luftwaffe ruthlessly bombed Warsaw..." Yes, it's all accurate, but it tells us what happened, not whether Hitler was to blame for it. GENERALISED: "Yes, Hitler caused World War II. He was always bullying other countries and attacking them. In the end, Britain and France had had enough and warned him to stop. Of course he ignored them, because he thought they were weak. Only this time they meant it!" This writer has an opinion on the subject, but does not offer a single fact to support his claim that Hitler did cause the war. THE GOOD ESSAY offers an opinion, and then supports it with appropriate and relevant factual material, like this- "Hitler must bear the ultimate responsibility for starting the war. In April 1939 Britain had given clear warning that if Germany attacked Poland, Britain would come in on her side. Despite this Hitler was determined to have Danzig, and was actively planning for war from the spring of 1939 onwards. The fact that the military plans continued and were put into effect on 1 September 1939 are clear evidence that Hitler was willing to risk war. To be sure, he still clearly hoped Britain would stay out, as evidenced by his dismayed comment "what now?" when told Britain had declared war, but even after this he did not shrink from continuing his invasion of Poland. Many years earlier in "Mein Kampf" he had spoken of war as being desirable and necessary for the preservation of the race. He was not afraid to put his theories into practice"..and so on. It doesn't matter if you agree with what I've just written. The point is that here is an opinion put forward, then justified with appropriate facts (evidence). And you'll notice I jumped from 1939 to Mein Kampf (1925) in one sentence, going backwards and leaving out all the events in between. Facts and arguments are presented in a logical order- and this is rarely the same as date order. 5. YOUR ESSAY Inevitably these comments are general. If you have a problem with a particular essay, please contact me and I may be able to advise you on such things as good books to read, or an essay plan/structure for your particular essay. Wally Oppenheim, December 1996 106110,366