


In the light of your initial research, you may need to narrow your focus down by asking a more specific question to answer in your paper.

You might also consult your lecture notes or research databases such as Historical Abstracts or Oxford Reference Online, available through the library website, for relevant books and articles (more on this in the next section). Not only will this provide you with the general facts surrounding possible topics, but the bibliography will also be a springboard for further research. When selecting a topic (if one is not assigned to you) you should start by consulting your textbook. The sources you use, how you organize your evidence, and the form of your argument will determine how compelling your explanation is and ultimately how successful your paper will be. The frist step in writing any research paper is to identify, locate and retrieve the relevant sources. It explores a historical problem by analyzing the sources that address it.

A history essay does more than list facts and dates or summarize a topic or event. Historians attempt to understand the actions of individuals and societies in the past in the context of the time they do not set out to moralize about the past.Īn undergraduate history research essay seeks to answer a specific question about the past. They make arguments explaining how and why things happened in the past on the basis of evidence that has survived into the present. Historians are interested in understanding and explaining cause, consequence, change, continuity, similarity and difference in human history. What is a history paper? What should you write about? After you have read the tutorial, go to the Blackboard site for your course to take the quiz, following your professor's instructions on deadlines and timing. Quiz Instructions: Some of you will have navigated to this page because you are taking a course that includes an essay-writing quiz. You can reach individual sections by clicking on the hyperlinks in the "Table of Contents." Each of these parts includes an overview and sections on research strategies, writing, strategies, and thoughts and feelings. Navigation Instructions: The tutorial is broken up into six parts. It was written by Nicole Freiheit under the supervision of Drs. Credits: This tutorial was the result of a collaborative effort by Annette Timm, Alexander Hill, and Jerremie Clyde.
