How To Write An Academic Essay

How To Write An Academic Essay History and human society are never this clear cut or simple. Try to avoid generalisation and look out for generalised statements when proofreading. Read your essay aloud, either to yourself or another person. Seek feedback and advice from a good writer or someone you trust . An obvious tip for a history essay is to write in the past tense. Watch out for mixed tenses when proofreading your work. Good history essays should adopt the perspective of an informed and objective third party. They should sound rational and factual â€" not like an individual expressing their opinion. One exception to the rule about past tense is when writing about the work of modern historians (for example, “Kershaw writes…” sounds better than “Kershaw wrote…” or “Kershaw has written…”). Never refer to yourself personally, using phrases like “I think…” or “It is my contention…”. Generalisation occurs when you form general conclusions from one or more examples. In history, it most commonly occurs when students study a particular group then assume their experiences applied to a much larger group. For example, “all the peasants were outraged”, “women rallied to oppose conscription” or “Germans supported the Nazi Party”. Good writers vary their sentence length but as a rule of thumb, most of your sentences should be short and punchy. The longer a sentence becomes, the greater the risk of it becoming long-winded or confusing. Good paragraphs also contain thorough explanations, some analysis and evidence, and perhaps a quotation or two. Every essay must have an introduction, a body of several paragraphs and a conclusion. Long sentences can easily become disjointed, confused or rambling. Try not to overuse long sentences and pay close attention to sentence length when proofreading. This is a problem in all essays but particularly in history essays. Your paragraphs should be well organised and follow a logical sequence. This page contains some general advice on writing a successful history essay. A good paragraph will begin with an effective opening sentence, sometimes called a topic sentence or signposting sentence. This sentence introduces the paragraph topic and briefly explains its significance to the question and your contention.