Brief guidelines on writing . . .

For those of you in your first and second years, I've included some tips on writing your papers. Learning to write well is probably the most important skill you can take away from a history course. Even if you forget why the battle of Borodino was important years from now, developing your writing skills will serve you well in whichever career you choose.

What is historical argument?

A historical argument is one that combines an opinion about a historical event with relevant facts. It may help to think of your history paper in the same way a lawyer might approach a criminal case; how can I prove to the jury (the instructor) that I have made a valid claim? Be sure to avoid writing a paper that has only opinion without facts. Your opinion may be correct, but if you cannot demonstrate some historical event or circumstance that proves it, you will be left with a good idea, but no historical argument. At the other end of the spectrum, avoid repeating facts without giving any interpretation. I call these essays shopping list essays – a long list of ingredients that don't come together in a real meal.

Avoid generalization

"The 18th century was a time of constant shifting caused by a changing environment. There were times of peace and times of chaos." Besides being self-evident, these kinds of sentences do not lead to the development of an argument or offer any insight on an original, thoughtful thesis. A sentence or two like this to set up a good point are OK, but make sure your introduction offers up a more concrete thesis statement.

Keep an eye on your organization and grammar

A good essay should state what it intends to prove early in the paper and spend the remainder asserting that claim. Keep in mind the three levels of structure you are using: the essay as a whole, the paragraph and the sentence. Within the essay as a whole, paragraphs should be ordered to provide the facts for their claim and should reach a conclusion about that claim's validity at the end. Paragraphs should contain an important aspect of proving that claim and a sentence should contain only a single idea. For example, if you were writing about slavery in the French Revolution, you would be better off dividing the economic aspects of slavery from the human rights aspects into separate paragraphs.

I am more interested in seeing a well developed argument and good structure, but grammar plays a role as well. Poor grammar distracts the reader (i.e. me) and can make a paper with a good thesis and argument frustrating and difficult to read. In some cases, grammar can be so poor as to interfere with the meaning of the paper. If a paper is sloppy or otherwise negligent, the grade will likely be lowered somewhat.

Writing and revision strategies No two people write the same, but students are expected to end up with a paper that follows standard conventions of collegiate writing. When thinking about the paper on the large scale, there are various methods available. One good method is to make an outline of the paper if you have your ideas already in mind. Some students begin with a thesis, then go about looking through the sources to prove it. Others work from the inside out, finding interesting facts, organizing them into paragraphs and then linking them together. Keep in mind that not everything you write will make it into the paper – that sometimes you should leave things out that don't fit, which can be frustrating if you have spent time writing it, but which can make the essay weaker or confusing if left in.

One sure fire method of improving your writing is to get as many people as possible to read your essay. Use Simon Fraser University's writing resources, have peers read your paper and most of all, sit down and read your paper aloud to yourself. This will help you pick up inconsistencies and problems in your writing – if it sounds bad in person, it probably reads poorly on paper.

Above all else, proofread

The spell checker on your PC will only get so much, and if your misspelled word is the same as another real word, your paper can gain all kinds of unintended meanings. "And" will show up as "an" or vice versa, for example. Another favorite of mine is "their" instead of "there," and one anonymous student who wrote "The Peach of the Count" as opposed to the Peace of the Count. Most times, reading aloud will solve this kind of problem, and it is also helpful in finding out where commas are (and are not) supposed to go, as dependent and independent clauses are often marked in spoken language with a bit of a pause.

Specific grammar problems

Here is a list of some common errors that tend to come up while writing:

Subject-verb agreement

Make sure your subject and verb match up in a sentence. In places where there are dependent clauses, this can get confusing, for example: The deputies, who made the claim, were (refers back to deputies, not to the claim) . . .

Use of semi-colons

Semi-colons have come back into vogue lately. They are used to separate two complete and independent sentences or clauses that are closely related: "Robespierre wanted to protect France; he thought the guillotine was his best weapon." Note that you could have each clause as an independent sentence.

Use of Articles

For students who are still learning the English language, one of the most frustrating challenges can be the use of articles: "the," "a," and "an. Many Asian and Slavic languages do not use articles and their use can be confusing. "A" and "an" are indefinite articles and are used with nouns when the particular object is not important. For example, "I saw a red car." This means the car could have been any car, and not a specific red car. "The" is a definite article, and is used for a specific noun. For example, if you said, "I saw the red car," it would mean you saw a specific red car that was important.

For more detailed information, look at the Online Writing Lab at Purdue University's exercises on article use.

Purdue's OWL has other good resources for ESL writers.

Commas and dependent clauses

The use of commas seems to be particularly vexing, with people either using them too often or, more tragically, not at all. Keep in mind that the subject-verb binary pair is the core of any sentence, and anything that modifies this is a clause that needs to be separated out in some way. For example:

"The 1780s, which was a time of economic upheaval, created conditions conducive to revolution."

In this sentence, the clause "which was a time of economic upheaval," modifies the meaning of the sentence. If you took it out, you would still have a complete sentence.

Run-on or incomplete sentences

An incomplete sentence is missing the subject or verb, or uses a dependent preposition: "Because the French Revolution lasted so long." (incomplete) "Going from place to place during the campaigns of the Thirty Years War." (no subject) Run on sentences are usually those that have more than one independent clause in them or which is otherwise so long that there are multiple ideas going on at once. The Germans love them, but this isn't Germany.

Watch your tenses

The French Revolution and everything in France from this time, happens in the past. The writing of Abbe Sieyes, for example, remains in the present however, as his words exist in this time, even while describing a period nearly 200 years ago. So a good sentence would read: "Abbe Sieyes writes that the Third Estate was the most important body in French politics."

Use active voice

It is generally preferred that essays be written in the active voice, as opposed to the passive voice (note the clumsy passive construction I just used). Whenever possible, give a sentence an actor. Don't just have actions happening out there by themselves. For example:

Active: Victor decides to go to the Arctic to pursue the creature.

Passive: It was decided by Victor to go to the Arctic . . .

It will make for prose that is clear, easy to understand and it will make for less confusing sentence structure. This isn't to say that passive is forbidden; sometimes you need it and it can make for a nice stylistic variation if you have a whole string of active sentences.