When you commence planning your history essay, you ought to be able to present your thesis statement is a fairly straightforward and understandable way, taking into account your experience, initial reading, knowledge, and research for the chosen topic.
There are several essential elements of academic custom essay writing, such as a thesis statement and, of course, evidence, which is divided into three parts. These parts comprise the introduction, the main body with three or four paragraphs devoted to your arguments, and the conclusion. All scholarly and academic writing, from ordinary custom essays to dissertations, should follow such significant guidelines.
In the majority of cases, the body part consists of three or four paragraphs that provide historical facts or pieces of evidence that are to support a thesis statement. The number of paragraphs may depend on the complexity of the topic chosen or the number of facts or evidence that you are going to present or touch upon. You can provide such pieces of evidence as to dates, places, names, terms, events, or statistics to support your key thesis statement.
You read the articles and books recommended by your tutor and definitely came up with certain considerations regarding how you could approach the set question, and you got a good idea concerning how other researchers and scholars interpreted the problem or topic under study. You collected a great number of facts, pieces of evidence, or other data from various sources and you tried to map out your key arguments or ideas on paper. In order to plan your history essay, you should come up with your clear argument or viewpoint that is to guide the writing of your towards a logical and clear conclusion.
Presentation and Format of Your History Essay
- What reasons led to the Arab Spring?
- Was there an urgent need to start the Vietnam War?
- What circumstances contributed to the end of US neutrality and its participation in the First World War?
- Why has the USA been playing the role of the "World Policeman" for many decades?
- What are the historical reasons for the Opium Wars taking place in China?
- Why did ancient Egyptians visit Australia many thousands of years ago? Historical pieces of evidence found in Australia.
- What factors and reasons influenced the beginning of the Civil War?
- How did the Crusades manage to sell the people of Africa and Europe?
- Write a detailed profile on any of the historical people, such as Julius Caesar, Adolf Hitler, Bill Clinton, or Mao Zedong.
- Choose two colonies, for instance, Massachusetts Bay Colony and Plymouth Colony, and make a comparative analysis of their politics and economy.
- Should the Atomic Bomb have been dropped on Japan or could another way out of the situation have been found by the US Government and President?
- What lessons did humankind learn from the terrorist attacks committed in 2017?
- What is the impact of the 5th Amendment on the development of the Judicial System in the USA?
- Which Emperor of the Chinese Empire was buried with a huge terracotta army? What are the reasons?
- How did the Iron Lady manage to change world politics?
- The Blue Book Project: Who and why has been hiding the truth for decades?
- Why was Adolf Hitler recognized as the Man of the Year in 1938?
- Why did the civilization of Inkas disappear?
- The Mahābhārata: A mysterious or truthful book
- The Heritage of Ancient Greece and its influence on the world's development.
Some interesting and fascinating ideas to make you think and write your perfect history essay:
The topic sentence is aimed at informing the readers what the paragraph is devoted to. Avoid using such phrases as "I am going to dwell on", "You will see" or "I will write about" in the topic sentence. You should write understandable statements that clearly reflect the paragraph content.
No matter what historical topic you will choose, you should always take into consideration that there are or could be novel approaches that you will be able to apply to your discussion.
Your job, therefore, is to find evidence from your course for both sides of the argument i.e. both ‘for’ and ‘against’ the hypothesis. You absolutely must have evidence for both sides – not just one side. The evidence goes down on your plan, divided into ‘for’ and ‘against’ the hypothesis. Whichever side you end with more evidence for, or more convincing evidence for, that is the side you will conclude is most persuasive.
For AQA History, at both AS and A level, you need to know how to write two types of essay – a block essay and a point-by-point essay. To be able to structure AQA history essays you’ll need to know these essay styles and where to use them.
For the source questions you don’t need to get too clever with hopping back and forth between sources and points. Decide and plan what you need to say and then write it clearly, with a clear assessment of each source, in big chunks of work. Do not worry about an introduction– just get straight into the analysis. First address Source A in a block, then Source B in another block and (for A level) Source C in a final block.
‘Henry VII had successfully established monarchical authority by 1509.’ Assess the validity of this view.
Point-by-point essays
You must conclude in line with the most persuasive and convincing evidence you have included in your plan. This sounds really obvious, but I have lost count of how many A-level history essays I have marked that argue effectively for one point of view, but then conclude in favour of the other side. The most common reason for this happening is that the student has moved off their plan when writing up the essay. Follow your plan!
Back to our tennis match analogy
For AQA you use these for the extract questions
To do this really well it is usually better to put up the side of your argument that you will oppose first. You outline the ‘other’ side of the argument and show that you understand the opposing view. Then you switch over to the other side of the hypothesis, i.e. ‘your’ argument, and use powerful evidence to back it up. Remember this is all about argument and analysis.
- Narrow your topic down to a realistic size. Ask yourself frankly if you will be able to explore the topic for your history essay and prove your ideas on just several pages. The majority of history essay topics are too big for a few pages. Your first idea is almost always likely to be too big. Refine it to a manageable size.
- Find an interesting way to approach your college history essay topic. It will help you to control your writing, give it structure and define your thesis.
- Start doing research for your history essay. If you have some vague idea of what you want to write about, but do not know how to start, or need to clarify it, take some history books from the library and look them through for ideas. Look for the global history essay topics in the news or online.
- Brainstorm your ideas. Write a list of ideas you have or a list of things you are interested in. Make your list as long as possible and take a short break. Look through the list and find the idea you like most. Take another sheet of paper and brainstorm the idea you have chosen. This way you’ll narrow down your topics to the one that is best for you.
- The pyramids were not constructed using slave’s labor
Movies often show slaves who build pyramids for pharaohs. However, people were hired and paid for their work.
Choosing the right essay topic can sometimes be rather difficult. But it is crucial if you want to write a good essay or a research paper and get a high grade for it. Here are some useful tips which will help you to make the right choice and write a great history essay.
- In Ancient China doctors received payment only if they managed to cure a patient.
People always have paid for services they receive, but the costs and associated regulations differ significantly. - The 1896 Anglo-Zanzibar war lasted 38 minutes only.
Wars usually last for years and are associated with dramatic loses. However, this very war was the shortest in the world’s history. It ended because one party lost 570 people, while the other one remained in the same line-up.
👍 How to choose a topic for a good history essay
History is full of mystery, riddles, and conflicting points. Thus, writing a history paper will certainly be fun, if you just choose a truly interesting history essay topic. Meet our list of top 70 most provocative history questions.
- Select something you are interested in. It is impossible to write a good history paper if you write about something you find boring and do not care about at all. If you like the topic of your history essay, you will enjoy doing research for it. The writing process will be a pleasure, and your reader will enjoy reading your piece of academic writing.
- If you want to write a good history essay you’d better choose a topic which is familiar to you. It is always easier to write about something you know. It will make the history essay writing process faster and easier, and you will not need to spend a lot of time doing research.
- Norway women were forced to have children from Nazi officers during the occupation period
The Levensborn program supported the expansion of German race this way. - British people believe tea time to be so significant for their culture that they include tea-making facilities in tanks
It is essential to provide soldiers with an opportunity to comfort themselves in stressful conditions. - In the middle of the 20th century, the whole British royal court got sick because of improperly cooked potatoes
When potatoes were brought to Great Britain for the first time, people did not know what part of a plant should be cooked.
- How had Ancient Greece affected Romans?
A historical research paper can investigate this topic because Romans are known as a well-developed nation that affected the world with its innovations. However, many of them were obtained from Greece. - Whose influence on the world’s history is more critical?
Writing a term paper, you can say that both Greeks and Romans created concepts that are used in the modern world. - What is unique about the Chinese Empire?
The Chinese Empire is known for its dynasties, centralization, and development. - Was it possible to end the Cold War before 1991?
Writing a historiographical essay, you can presuppose that the collapse of the Soviet Union ended the war, but there is a possibility that this process could have been facilitated.
- Read an overview of the topic to gain or refresh your understanding
- Find concepts that you don’t know and make them clear to yourself
- Get relevant and useful academic sources like books, journals, and encyclopedias
- Follow your initial plan to address the main question
- Think about side questions in the process
- Take notes during the process
Compose a conclusion. There are two main things to do in this part: restate your thesis statement and provide a summary. Make your conclusion as detailed and developed as your previous paragraphs, but avoid adding any quotations or new information.
Your thesis statement must be clear and powerful. Express your main argument in one or two sentences. You will develop this idea in your further writing, so start thinking about your thesis when doing a primary research. Make it brief, convincing, and well-thought.
So your History tutor asked you to compose an essay. The reason for him/her to do so is a necessity to check your progress and understanding of the subject. History essays can be tricky. The problem is that these papers require your best research, analytical, and planning skills. When composing an assignment of that kind, you need to understand a certain historical event, its meaning, consequences, and background. Usually, historical events are not that simple to interpret, because they entail cultural, sociological, and political aspects. That’s why creating a good piece can be really challenging even for the best high-achievers. Read this guide to organize your writing and compose a successful History paper.
Do a research
The main thing to consider when writing body paragraphs of your History essay is that they should be pretty extensive. Make sure that each of them contains at least 150-200 words, starts with a clear problem statement, explores it and provides a small conclusion. That’s right, each paragraph should be structured to the same principle as your entire paper. Provide your own interpretations of the ideas found in sources and support your claims with quotations.
- Provide readers with a brief context, but don’t overdo with storytelling
- Address the main question of your paper
- Articulate a thesis statement
- Shape the direction of your paper
First and foremost, you need to grasp the task and understand what exactly you need to do. This will direct your research correctly. What are the main problems to concentrate on? What are the time periods you need to analyze? Think about these questions before you start.
A well considered argument - This is VERY important to get right. It means that you will need to make sure that you clearly state your line of argument and do it convincingly. At the same time, you will also need to give full coverage to other factors/opinions/arguments that are at play - even if it is to rubbish them!
Step 1: Tell them what you are going to tell them (the beginning)
When this question is analysed, bit by bit it helps us to explain to our reader what the essay intends to cover.
"In conclusion, the extent to whether this period can be deemed as a "Golden Age" ultimately rests on the context of the time. Although it is true to say that Spain was making advances in several areas, in terms of power, unity, wealth, economy, culture, empire and discovery. The extent of religious and racial persecution however, could be deemed as less golden in terms of morality, even if both policies were successful in terms of strengthening Spain's power base. In the wider context of the time, Spain's achievements seem less golden than they may at first appear. We have to remember that this period saw the Renaissance. The Renaissance affected practically every area of life at the time, and was a new dawn of discovery and thinking - Leonardo Da Vinci, William Harvey, Martin Luther, Copernicus and Galileo were but a few of the characters that shaped the time
Key Features: The Must Haves
The process of footnoting is slightly different on different computer programs and may differ again if you are using a MAC, but the process is the same, even if you are handwriting.
"Leo, the holy pope in Rome, passed away
At A level, the mark-schemes tend to be stepped into 5 different levels