How to Write a History Essay
A history essay is a formal piece description of one or more historical events. The writer uses evidence, arguments, and references to support the claim.
History essay writing is not the same as social sciences, analytical history essay, literature review, or natural sciences. Yes, we observe the general thesis and evidence model, but historical writing also highly depends on situational evidence and arguments. In this article, we discuss how to write a flawless history essay.
What Should I Write in a History Essay?
Writing a history essay is closely related to writing any other english essay. While writing a history essay, make sure to include;
- A catchy introduction – The introduction communicates to the reader the intent of your essay. It consists of a thesis statement and a hook for your research paper. The thesis tells the reader more about your topic, while the hook makes the reader want to read more of your paper.
- A logical and fair description – When reporting about an event in the past, give a clear description of the incidents, supported by evidence to convince the reader. Use gathered evidence to support what you stated. Evidence could be in the form of pictures, records, or items that were present then.
- Your views on the topic – While researching your topic, you may have come across some information that evoked a certain emotion. Describe such incidences, providing evidence of your claim to the reader.
- A conclusion. It is a summary of the parts of the essay reminding the reader of the intent of the essay. Do not introduce any information that was not discussed in the previous sections of the essay.
It would help if you avoided errors of anachronism, which is having a wrong chronological of events or misplacing historical characters. Also, you don’t want to make grand statements about humanity in general. Your every point must have contextual evidence, meaning there’s a need to specify time and place.
What is the History Essay outline?
An outline is a plan of how you will organize your essay. It guides you through the research process and also in the actual writing. A paper that is poorly written will be difficult for the reader to follow, therefore boring.
A history essay has the following parts.
- Introduction Paragraph – The purpose of an introduction paragraph is only to introduce your ideas, not describe in detail. Open with a description of your essay topic. Include the thesis statement and a hook to lure the audience into reading.
- Body Paragraphs – how to write the body section in a history essay: Explain the historical context of your essay. Provide a brief narrative of the event. From this, draw your arguments and list them as paragraphs providing enough evidence for each. Ensure that you discuss only on point in each paragraph. Their number of paragraphs is guided by how many points you wish to discuss. Begin with the strongest argument and end with the weakest.
- Conclusion – It is the last paragraph of your paper. It should be simple and gives out a sense of finality.
How to Start a History Essay
Your first reaction to any paper you read is dictated by how the writer started. Whatever you pick from the first few lines determines whether you will keep reading or give up on the paper altogether. Therefore, you need to have the right statements to start a history essay.
Below are a few tips to start a history essay.
- Use a fascinating or inspiring quote.
- Mention a part of the essay that is not too obvious. Perhaps you can describe a part of the history that you are discussing that people did not know. It adds to the importance of your essay.
- Ask a question to be answered in the later parts of the paper.
- Add a hook. It gives the reader an idea of what to look out for in the rest of your paper.
How to Write the Body Section of a History Essay
Body paragraphs contain the main content of your essay. The purpose of writing a body section is to provide evidence that supports your claims. To write the body, follow the following guidelines for each paragraph.
- Introduce the point or claim using the topic sentence for that paragraph.
- Explain the topic sentence.
- Provide evidence to support your claim.
- Make a conclusion statement for that paragraph.
How to Write the Conclusion of a History Essay
Conclusion paragraphs review all that was discussed in the preceding sections of the essay. Show that you have supported the claim in the thesis.
- Restate the topic sentence in different words.
- Give a brief review of the points discussed.
- Show how you have proved your claim.
- Discuss the relevance in the present day.
- Add a call of action for the reader.
Writing a history essay should be interesting. Have fun in acquiring knowledge on your topic, then share what you find with your readers. Alternatively, you can hand in your paper to our experienced writers to work for you as you sit back and rest.