How to write a History PaPer

WRITING IN THE DISCIPLINES

HOW TO WRITE A HISTORY PAPER

Th e Ch a l l e n g e s o f Wr i T i n g ab o u T (a.k.a., Ma k i n g ) hi s T o r y

At ﬁrst glance, writing about history can seem like an overwhelming task. History’s subject

matter is immense, encompassing all of human affairs in the recorded past – up until the moment,

that is, that you started reading this guide. Because no one person can possibly consult all of these

records, no work of history can ever pretend to be comprehensive or universal. At the same time,

history’s subject matter is partially irretrievable. Barring the invention of time travel, no scholar

can experience the past ﬁrsthand or recreate its conditions in a laboratory setting. Historians must

rely on the fragmentary records that survive from the time period under study, which necessarily

reveal just part of the story. For these reasons, the guiding principles behind all historical writing

must be selection and interpretation: the thoughtful selection of topics and questions that seem

most interesting, and the responsible interpretation of sources in order to construct meaningful

arguments.

Subjective decisions about what to include, what to exclude, and how to understand it make

history writing manageable in the ﬁrst place. No less importantly, they also make it controversial,

because scholars are bound to disagree with the judgments of other scholars. You can think of

history writing, then, as an ongoing argument or debate over this unavoidable process of selection

and interpretation. Your ﬁrst challenge as a writer is to ﬁnd a way to enter this conversation.

Co m m o n Ty p e s o f Hi s T o r y pa p e r s

History papers come in all shapes and sizes. Some papers are narrative (organized like a story according to

chronology, or the sequence of events), and some are analytical (organized like an essay according to the topic’s

internal logic). Some papers are concerned with history (not just what happened, of course, but why and how it

happened), and some are interested in historiography (i.e., how other historians have written history, speciﬁcally

the peculiarities of different works, scholars, or schools of thought). Some papers emphasize social or cultural

history, others political or military history, and still others intellectual or economic (or any other genre of)

history. In undergraduate courses, you’ll most likely notice a distinction between review essays (often based on

your responses to assigned readings from the course syllabus) and research papers (typically requiring additional

research in a library or archive on a topic of your own choosing). Different types of history papers naturally

require different amounts of research, analysis, and interpretation.

Despite this variety, historical arguments often assume a common form. If you’re struggling to develop an

argument for your paper, you might want to rehearse one of the following rhetorical gambits (see below). Think

of them as ready-made suits that you can try on and tailor for the purposes of your assignment. Once you decide

on a workable argument, declare it to your reader in clear, succinct prose in your thesis statement. This initial

statement of your thesis will almost always appear in the opening paragraph(s) of a shorter essay or the opening

section of a longer paper.

Ta k i n g T H e fi r s T sT e p

If the prospect of making your own selections and defending your own interpretations sounds daunting,

how do you position yourself to enter the conversation? Here are some tried-and-true

strategies that

historians often employ:

Unscramb

• le your assignment. Has your instructor already selected the salient documents or

narrowed the ﬁeld of possibilities? Build off this initial foundation as you develop an original

argument. (For additional guidance, see the helpful handout by the Harvard Writing Center on

“How to Read an Assignment.”)

Ask the right questions. • Underclassmen, sometimes unfamiliar with the rigors of college history

courses, often conceive of history as a descriptive record of what happened in the past (e.g., the

U.S. Army Air Forces dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945). But

interpretative questions – such as why and how certain events happened in the past – typically offer

more fruitful subjects for exploration. For instance, in an essay on Japan’s surrender at the end of the

Second World War, students might want to ask why President Truman decided to use the atomic

bomb against imperial Japan or how a conﬂuence of speciﬁc factors led him to that epochal decision.

Start small.• Read a few documents closely with an eye for patterns or common themes. Do

you see a way to reconcile these initial perspectives? As you read additional documents, does your

original hypothesis (or simple hunch) hold up?

Start big. • Begin with a meaty question (see above), and locate sources that might help you answer

it. Test potential answers against the evidence you collect.

Think about change (or continuity) over time. • Assign provisional bookends to your topic, and

consider the passage of time from point A to point B. What changed? What stayed the same? Can

you explain this outcome?

Think differently.• Treat the conventional wisdom on your topic with a dose of skepticism.

Question your own basic assumptions. For instance, were the “Dark Ages” really a period of

intellectual stagnation in Europe?

Familiar Arguments in Review Essays

Scenario #1:• Scholars have disagreed about my topic, and my paper explains

why one party in the debate has been more convincing than the other(s).

Scenario #2• : Scholars have disagreed about my topic, and my paper

demonstrates why the entire debate needs to be recast in a more meaningful

direction.

Scenario #3:• Scholars have (more or less) agreed about my topic, and my paper

argues for a different, better, or more nuanced interpretation.

Familiar Arguments in Research Papers

Scenario #1: • No one has written about my topic. Despite this scholarly neglect,

my paper explains the signiﬁcance of my research topic and offers a provisional

interpretation of this new material.

Scenario #2: • A few scholars have written about my topic, but gaps and

deﬁciencies in the literature still exist. My paper examines new or different

evidence to correct these shortcomings.

Scenario #3:• Many scholars have written about my topic. Despite this attention,

my paper calls for a reassessment of the existing literature based on recent ﬁndings,

new methodologies, or original questions.

a Hi s T o r i a n ’s Us e o f ev i d e n C e

Students unfamiliar with historical analysis often confuse

sources with evidence. Sources, at best, provide raw materials

(metaphorical straw and clay) that scholars fashion into evidence

(bricks) to assemble a historical argument (structure). In order

to collect this evidence, historians interrogate sources by reading

closely and asking critical questions:

Who• produced this source? Is the author’s biography

(i.e., viewpoints and personal background) relevant to

understanding this source? Was the author biased or

dishonest? Did he or she have an agenda?

When• was this source created? Where? Is it

representative of other sources created at the same time?

In what ways is it a product of its particular time, place, or

context?

Why• did the author produce this source? For what

audience and purpose? Did the author make this purpose

(or argument) explicit or implicit? Was it intended for

public or private use? Is it a work of scholarship, ﬁction,

art, or propaganda?

How• does this source compare with other sources you

have analyzed for this assignment? Does it privilege a

particular point of view? Incorporate or neglect signiﬁcant

pieces of evidence? Structure its argument according

to similar (or different) time periods, geographies,

participants, themes, or events?

Although your teachers will expect a persuasive thesis statement,

they will ultimately judge your argument’s success on the

collection, organization, and presentation of its evidence. Once

again, selection is essential. Because of space and time constraints,

you will not be able to marshal an exhaustive body of evidence.

(Don’t worry! Even if you had a lifetime to devote to this

project, you could never be exhaustive.) Instead, think carefully

and critically about what evidence to include, what to exclude,

and how to frame your analysis. Because issues of selection and

interpretation are at the heart of most historical disagreements,

make sure to consider reasonable counter-arguments to your

thesis. Effective essays anticipate the reader’s likely responses and

address (if not reconcile) contradictory pieces of evidence, rather

than simply ignoring them.

so U r C e s f o r Hi s T o r i C a l an a l y s i s

Whatever the assignment, all historical

writing depends on sources. Once

scholars have located a topic and

formulated a set of historical questions,

they turn to sources to begin answering

them. Sources essentially come in two

varieties:

Primary sources are materials •

produced in the time period

under study; they reﬂect the

immediate concerns and

perspectives of participants in

the historical drama. Common

examples include diaries,

correspondence, dispatches,

newspaper editorials, speeches,

economic data, literature, art,

and ﬁlm.

Secondary sources are materials •

produced after the time period

under study; they consider the

historical subject with a degree

of hindsight and generally

select, analyze, and incorporate

evidence (derived from primary

sources) to make an argument.

Works of scholarship are the

most common secondary

sources.

Note that many sources can serve as

either primary or secondary sources,

depending on your topic and particular

frame of reference. Edward Gibbon’s

History of the Decline and Fall of

the Roman Empire, for instance, can

represent a secondary source (if your

topic is imperial Rome in the ﬁrst

millennium) or a primary source (if

your subject is imperial Britain in the

eighteenth century, when Gibbon

wrote his masterpiece). Regardless of

such categorization, you should treat

any source with a critical eye. Sources

do not answer historical questions on

their own; they yield evidence only

after a process of interrogation and

analysis.

Co n v e n T i o n s o f Hi s T o r y Wr i T i n g

Historians not only disagree about interpretations of the past; they also disagree about proper ways of writing

about the past. Each historian writes (and, for your more immediate purposes, evaluates) essays according to his

or her own preferred criteria. Before you embark on your project, consult the assignment prompt once again,

and make sure that you understand its directions. If you are unclear about the expectations for your essay, ask

your instructor for clariﬁcation. Above all else, listen to your instructor’s guidance, even if it means disregarding

the advice offered in this guide.

Nonetheless, professional historians have generally agreed on a number of conventions, or practices, that

distinguish history writing from writing in other academic disciplines. As you compose or revise your history

paper, consider these guidelines:

Write in the past tense• . Some students have been taught to enliven their prose by writing in the

“literary present” tense. Such prose, while acceptable in other disciplines, represents poor historical

thinking. Since all historical events (including the composition of primary and secondary sources) took

place at some point in the past, write about them in the past tense.

Avoid vague generalizations.• Historians value speciﬁcity, not equivocal phrases like “once upon a

time” or “people always say that….”

Avoid presentism or anachronisms.• Resist the temptation to relate all historical arguments or

concerns back to the present. Rather, investigate the past on its own terms. Take care not to jumble the

chronological order of events.

Treat your historical subject with respect. • Aspire to understand, rather than judge, the past.

Remember that historical actors were not privy to contemporary values or assumptions and that no

historical generation (including our own) is perfect.

Paraphrase if you can, quote if you must.• Many students rely on quotations as a crutch, missing an

opportunity to develop their skills of historical analysis. Instead, quote sparingly. When you do quote,

introduce the source and context of every remark for the beneﬁt of an unfamiliar reader.

Provide necessary context.• Good historical writing involves active commentary and rigorous

engagement with the material. As a historian, you are responsible for interrogating sources, interpreting

evidence, and reporting your ﬁndings about the interplay of text and context to the reader.

Employ a responsible and consistent citation style. • Historians generally use footnotes or endnotes

(in keeping with the Chicago humanities style) to provide references or supplemental information,

though some assignments might allow parenthetical citations. Remember that your credibility and

integrity as a scholar is at stake. See Gordon Harvey’s Writing with Sources and Kate L. Turabian’s Manual

for detailed instruction.

Write in a formal, academic voice. • Avoid using the ﬁrst or second person (e.g., “I” and “you”),

and shy away from passive sentence constructions. Phrases such as “I think” or “in my opinion” are

redundant in expository writing.

Proofread, proofread, proofread. • Your readers will thank you.

fo r fU r T H e r re a d i n g

Students interested in additional practical guidance on the challenges of writing history should consult the

following sources:

Harvey, Gordon. • Writing with Sources: A Guide for Students. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1998.

Marius, Richard, and Melvin E. Page.• A Short Guide to Writing About History. 6th ed. New York: Longman, 2006.

Rael, Patrick. “Reading, Writing, and Researching for History: A Guide for College Students.” Brunswick, ME: Bowdoin •

College, 2004. http://academic.bowdoin.edu/WritingGuides/.

Rampolla, Mary Lynn A Pocket Guide to Writing in History. 5th ed. Boston: Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2007.•

Storey, William Kelleher. Writing History: A Guide for Students. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.•

Turabian, Kate L. A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations: Chicago Style for Students and •

Researchers. 7th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.