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If you write, All the colonists did not want to break with Britain in 1776, the chances are you really mean, Not all the colonists wanted to break with Britain in 1776. The first sentence is a clumsy way of saying that no colonists wanted to break with Britain (and is clearly false). The second sentence says that some colonists did not want to break with Britain (and is clearly true, though you should go on to be more precise).Be careful when you use grand abstractions like people, society, freedom, and government, especially when you further distance yourself from the concrete by using these words as the apparent antecedents for the pronouns they and it. Always pay attention to cause and effect. Abstractions do not cause or need anything; particular people or particular groups of people cause or need things. Avoid grandiose trans-historical generalizations that you cant support. When in doubt about the appropriate level of precision or detail, err on the side of adding too much precision and detail. Heres another one of those common problems that does not receive the attention it merits. Discipline your prepositional phrases; make sure you know where they end. Notice the mess in this sentence: Hitler accused Jewish people of engaging in incest and stating that Vienna was the personification of incest. The reader thinks that both engaging and stating are objects of the preposition of. Yet the writer intends only the first to be the object of the preposition.
Dont rely on your spell checker to catch all of your
misspellings. (If ewe ken reed this ewe kin sea that a computer
wood nut all ways help ewe spill or rite reel good. ) (Drawn
from a survey of the History Department)
10. You engage in cheap, anachronistic moralizing.
9. You are sloppy with the chronology.
8. You quote excessively or improperly.
7. You have written a careless one-draft wonder. (See revise and
proofread)
6. You are vague or have empty, unsupported generalizations.
5. You write too much in the passive voice.
4. You use inappropriate sources.
3. You use evidence uncritically.
2. You are wordy.
1. You have no clear thesis and little analysis. Recently, many
people have started to use this phrase to mean raises, invites,
or brings up the question. (Stalins purges beg the
question of whether he was paranoid. ) Actually, begging
the question is the common logical fallacy of assuming your
conclusion as part of your argument. (In the late nineteenth
century, many Americans moved to the cities because of
urbanization. ) Note that the use of abstractions (e. g. ,
urbanization) encourages begging the question.
Understanding this fallacy is central to your education.
You could also divide the clauses with a semicolon or make separate sentences. Remember that there are only seven coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet). These are usually either filler words (the written equivalent of uh or um) or weasel words that merely call attention to your vagueness, lack of conviction, or lazy unwillingness to qualify precisely. (Essentially, Churchill believed that Nazi Germany presented a grave danger to Britain. ) Delete essentially and basically unless you are writing about essences or bases. Whether you are writing an exam essay or a senior thesis, you need to have a thesis. Dont just repeat the assignment or start writing down everything that you know about the subject. Ask yourself, What exactly am I trying to prove? Your thesis is your take on the subject, your perspective, your explanationthat is, the case that youre going to argue.
Worse still, they are simply inadequate to capture the richness of historical sources. Historians take justifiable pride in the immense variety of their sources. Parenthetical citations such as (Jones 1994) may be fine for most of the social sciences and humanities, where the source base is usually limited to recent books and articles in English. Historians, however, need the flexibility of the full footnote. Try to imagine this typical footnote (pulled at random from a classic work of German history) squeezed into parentheses in the body of the text: DZA Potsdam, RdI, Frieden 5, Erzgebiet von Longwy-Briey, Bd. I, Nr. 19305, gedruckte Denkschrift für OHL und Reichsleitung, Dezember 1917, und in RWA, Frieden Frankreich Nr. 1883. The abbreviations are already in this footnote; its information cannot be further reduced. For footnotes and bibliography, historians usually use Chicago style. (The Chicago Manual of Style. 15th edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. ) On the Writing Centers website you can find a useful summary of Chicago citation style prepared by a former history major, Elizabeth Rabe 04 (Footnotes). RefWorks (on the librarys website) will convert your citations to Chicago style.
In the first sentence of the Gettysburg Address Lincoln refers [not alludes] to the fathers of the nation [he mentions them directly]; he alludes to the Declaration of Independence [the document of four score and seven years earlier that comes to the readers mind, but that Lincoln doesnt directly mention]. If you believe that a frequently used word or phrase distorts historical reality, dont put it in dismissive, sneering quotation marks to make your point (the communist threat to the free world during the Cold War). Many readers find this practice arrogant, obnoxious, and precious, and they may dismiss your arguments out of hand. If you believe that the communist threat was bogus or exaggerated, or that the free world was not really free, then simply explain what you mean. Your professor may ask you to analyze a primary document. Here are some questions you might ask of your document. You will note a common themeread critically with sensitivity to the context. This list is not a suggested outline for a paper; the wording of the assignment and the nature of the document itself should determine your organization and which of the questions are most relevant.
Its commonly misused, and you almost never need it in historical prose. Literally means actually, factually, exactly, directly, without metaphor. The careful writer would never say, Roosevelt literally swamped Landon in the election of 1936. One imagines Roosevelt (in his wheelchair no less!) dumping the hapless Landon off a pier in the Everglades on election night. The swamping was figurative, strictly a figure of speech. The adverb literally may also cause you trouble by falsely generalizing the coverage of your verb. London was literally destroyed by the blitz. This suggests that the whole city was destroyed, when, in fact, only parts were destroyed. Rewrite as The blitz destroyed parts of London. Now youve qualified properly (and gotten rid of the passive). The first fuses two independent clauses with neither a comma nor a coordinating conjunction; the second uses a comma but omits the coordinating conjunction; and the third also omits the coordinating conjunction (however is not a coordinating conjunction). To solve the problem, separate the two clauses with a comma and the coordinating conjunction but.
If you merely restate briefly what you have said in your paper, you give the impression that you are unsure of the significance of what you have written. A weak conclusion leaves the reader unsatisfied and bewildered, wondering why your paper was worth reading. A strong conclusion adds something to what you said in your introduction. A strong conclusion explains the importance and significance of what you have written. A strong conclusion leaves your reader caring about what you have said and pondering the larger implications of your thesis. Dont leave your reader asking, So what? Your professor may ask you to write a book review, probably of a scholarly historical monograph. Here are some questions you might ask of the book. Remember that a good review is critical, but critical does not necessarily mean negative. This list is not meant to be exhaustive, nor is it a suggested outline. Of course, you can ask these same questions of any secondary historical work, even if youre not writing a review. As an adjective, everyday (one word) means routine.
If youre writing about culture, primary sources may include works of art or literature, as well as philosophical tracts or scientific treatisesanything that comes under the broad rubric of culture. Not all primary sources are written. Buildings, monuments, clothes, home furnishings, photographs, religious relics, musical recordings, or oral reminiscences can all be primary sources if you use them as historical clues. The interests of historians are so broad that virtually anything can be a primary source. (See also: Analyzing a Historical Document) You cited a source for your paper; ancient Britons sited Stonehenge on a plain; Columbuss lookout sighted land. Your professor may allow parenthetical citations in a short paper with one or two sources, but you should use footnotes for any research paper in history. Parenthetical citations are unaesthetic; they scar the text and break the flow of reading.
Everything in the past or relating to the past is historical. Resist the media-driven hype that elevates the ordinary to the historic. (A three-alarm fire last night destroyed the historic site of the first Portuguese-owned dry cleaners in Cleveland. ) Reserve the word historic for the genuinely important events, persons, or objects of the past. The Norman invasion of England in 1066 was indeed historic. Historically, historians have gathered annually for a historical convention; so far, none of the conventions has been historic. Students will learn to use interdisciplinary methods from the humanities and social sciences to probe the sources of the past for answers to present questions. They will learn to draw comparisons and connections among diverse societies across a range of historical eras. They will further learn to convey their findings through writing that is clearly structured, precise, and persuasive. Write in the active voice. The passive voice encourages vagueness and dullness; it enfeebles verbs; and it conceals agency, which is the very stuff of history.
- Top Ten Reasons for Negative Comments on History Papers
- Making Sure your History Paper has Substance
- Common Marginal Remarks on Style, Clarity, Grammar, and
Syntax
Remarks on Style and Clarity
Remarks on Grammar and Syntax - Word and Phrase Usage Problems
- Analyzing a Historical Document
- Writing a Book Review
- Writing a Term Paper or Senior Thesis
To avoid confusion in historical prose, you should stick with the original meaning of incredible: not believable. If you write that William Jennings Bryan gave incredible speeches, youre saying that you dont believe his speeches, or that his audiences didnt believe them at the timein other words, that he appeared to be lying or mistaken. You probably mean that he gave great speeches. If you write that Its incredible that Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, youre calling into question the very existence of a historical event. You probably mean that the Japanese attack was unwise or reckless. English is rich with adjectives. Finding the best one forces you to think about what you really mean. The adjective interesting is vague, overused, and does not earn its keep. (Burckhardt had an interesting perspective on the Renaissance. ) This sentence is filler. Delete it and explain and analyze his perspective. Obviously, you should not just stop abruptly as though you have run out of time or ideas. Your conclusion should conclude something.
You know all of this almost instinctively. What would you think of a lover who sighed in your ear, My darling, you are loved by me!? At its worst, the passive voicelike its kin, bureaucratic language and jargonis a medium for the dishonesty and evasion of responsibility that pervade contemporary American culture. (Mistakes were made; I was given false information. Now notice the difference: I screwed up; Smith and Jones lied to me; I neglected to check the facts. ) On history papers the passive voice usually signals a less toxic version of the same unwillingness to take charge, to commit yourself, and to say forthrightly what is really going on, and who is doing what to whom. Suppose you write, In 1935 Ethiopia was invaded. This sentence is a disaster. Who invaded? Your professor will assume that you don't know. Adding by Italy to the end of the sentence helps a bit, but the sentence is still flat and misleading. Italy was an aggressive actor, and your passive construction conceals that salient fact by putting the actor in the syntactically weakest positionat the end of the sentence as the object of a preposition. Notice how you add vigor and clarity to the sentence when you recast it in the active voice: "In 1935 Italy invaded Ethiopia.
Of course, you can ask these same questions of any document you encounter in your research. Avoid the common solecism of using feel as a synonym for think, believe, say, state, assert, contend, argue, conclude, or write. (Marx felt that the bourgeoisie exploited the proletariat. Emmeline Pankhurst felt that British women should be able to vote. ) The use of feel in these sentences demeans the agents by suggesting undisciplined sentiment rather than carefully formulated conviction. Concentrate on what your historical actors said and did; leave their feelings to speculative chapters of their biographies. As for your own feelings, keep them out of your papers. (I feel that Lincoln should have freed the slaves earlier. ) Your professor will be delighted that the material engages both your head and your heart, but your feelings cannot be graded. If you believe that Lincoln should have acted earlier, then explain, giving cogent historical reasons. Beware of the word literally.
Dont hesitate to ask one of the reference librarians for help if you have trouble getting started on RefWorks. This phrase is awkward and redundant. Replace it with the reason is, or better still, simply delete it and get right to your reason. Your professor will gag on this one. Events take place or happen by definition, so the relative clause is redundant. Furthermore, most good writers do not accept transpire as a synonym for happen. Again, follow the old rule of thumb: Get right to the point, say what happened, and explain its significance. You dont need any filler about events and transpiring. Your professor can spot a one-draft wonder, so don't try to do your paper at the last moment. Leave plenty of time for revising and proofreading. Show your draft to a writing tutor or other good writer. Reading the draft aloud may also help. Of course, everyone makes mistakes, and a few may slip through no matter how meticulous you are. But beware of lots of mistakes. The failure to proofread carefully suggests that you devoted little time and effort to the assignment. Tip: Proofread your text both on the screen and on a printed copy. Your eyes see the two differently.
If you wish to say that something happened on every successive day, then you need two words, the adjective every and the noun day. Note the difference in these two sentences: Kant was famous for going on the same constitutional at the same time every day. For Kant, exercise and thinking were everyday activities. Use as many primary sources as possible in your paper. A primary source is one produced by a participant in or witness of the events you are writing about. A primary source allows the historian to see the past through the eyes of direct participants. Some common primary sources are letters, diaries, memoirs, speeches, church records, newspaper articles, and government documents of all kinds. The capacious genre government records is probably the single richest trove for the historian and includes everything from criminal court records, to tax lists, to census data, to parliamentary debates, to international treatiesindeed, any records generated by governments.
" In a few cases, you may violate the no-passive-voice rule. The passive voice may be preferable if the agent is either obvious (Kennedy was elected in 1960), irrelevant (Theodore Roosevelt became president when McKinley was assassinated), or unknown (King Harold was killed at the Battle of Hastings). Note that in all three of these sample sentences the passive voice focuses the reader on the receiver of the action rather than on the doer (on Kennedy, not on American voters; on McKinley, not on his assassin; on King Harold, not on the unknown Norman archer). Historians usually wish to focus on the doer, so you should stay with the active voiceunless you can make a compelling case for an exception. The opposite of win is lose, not loose. Supporters of the Equal Rights Amendment suspected that they would lose [not loose] the battle to amend the constitution. To allude means to refer to indirectly or to hint at. The word you probably want in historical prose is refer, which means to mention or call direct attention to.
Making Sure your History Paper has Substance
The formal Latin term, petitio principii, is too fancy to catch on, so you need to preserve the simple English phrase. If something raises a question, just say so. Vague statements and empty generalizations suggest that you haven't put in the time to learn the material. Consider these two sentences: During the French Revolution, the government was overthrown by the people. The Revolution is important because it shows that people need freedom. What people? Landless peasants? Urban journeymen? Wealthy lawyers? Which government? When? How? Who exactly needed freedom, and what did they mean by freedom? Here is a more precise statement about the French Revolution: Threatened by rising prices and food shortages in 1793, the Parisian sans-culottes pressured the Convention to institute price controls. This statement is more limited than the grandiose generalizations about the Revolution, but unlike them, it can open the door to a real analysis of the Revolution.
Famine struck Ireland in the 1840s is a true statement, but it is not a thesis. The English were responsible for famine in Ireland in the 1840s is a thesis (whether defensible or not is another matter). A good thesis answers an important research question about how or why something happened. (Who was responsible for the famine in Ireland in the 1840s?) Once you have laid out your thesis, dont forget about it. Develop your thesis logically from paragraph to paragraph. Your reader should always know where your argument has come from, where it is now, and where it is going. Novel is not a synonym for book. A novel is a long work of fiction in prose. A historical monograph is not a novelunless the historian is making everything up. Here you have a long compound introductory clause followed by no subject and no verb, and thus you have a fragment. You may have noticed exceptions to the no-fragments rule. Skilful writers do sometimes intentionally use a fragment to achieve a certain effect. Leave the rule-breaking to the experts. In casual conversation incredible often means extraordinary, astonishing, or impressive (Yesterdays storm was incredible. ).
There are two common problems here. The first might be called the floating comparative. You use the comparative, but you dont say what you are comparing. (Lincoln was more upset by the dissolution of the union.) More upset than by what? More upset than who? The other problem, which is more common and takes many forms, is the unintended (and sometimes comical) comparison of unlike elements.Consider these attempts to compare President Clinton to President George H. W. Bush. Often the trouble starts with a possessive: