Professor Weisiger’s Tips on How to Write an Essay

            Learning to write a persuasive essay is one of the most important skills you can acquire in college. No matter what career you choose, it will likely require good written communication skills for reports, proposals, correspondence, product brochures, and so forth. All of these generally draw on the same structure as an essay. Essays are also particularly well suited to explaining ideas about change over time, which is what history is all about.

            While there is no magic formula for writing a good essay, there are a few simple rules that should help you improve the quality of your essays. The first is to remember that an essay has a single function: to present a clear, interesting thesis statement (an argument) and support it with evidence and logic. You might think of your paper like a legal case based on circumstantial evidence. You must, then, make an opening statement, support it with evidence in a logical fashion, and persuade your reader that your argument best fits the available facts.

            Most thesis statements answer a “why” or a “how” question. Why did American workers protest against their labor conditions? Why did Americans begin to restrict European immigration in the early twentieth century? Why did Black Elk tell his story to John Neihardt? How did Euro-Americans transform Native American Society? How did Euro-American ideas about the natural world change between the 17th and the 19th centuries? In some instances, you might need to address a historian’s analysis: What is historian John Higham’s argument and does the evidence support it? In general, however, historians care about why something happened and why we should care.

STRUCTURE:

            Begin your essay with a thesis statement. Your thesis statement should provide a concise argument that answers the question you formulate or the problem you seek to address. A thesis is, by definition, a debatable point. It should be the most interesting, explanatory, even shocking idea that you can defend with appropriate evidence. After your thesis statement, build your argument in a series of well-structured paragraphs.

            Each paragraph should have a topic sentence that makes a subargument supporting your thesis, followed by 3-5 sentences that clearly support that topic sentence with relevant evidence. Each paragraph should explain ONE idea, not three or four, and your evidence should be accurate and concrete, rather than vague. Each paragraph should have a clear connection to the next and a logical flow.

            End with a strong conclusion that tells why the reader should care about your thesis. In other words, it should answer the question: “so what?” What’s the broader significance?

            It’s always best to begin with an outline, but a technique I call “reverse outlining” can also test whether or not your essay succeeds. After you’ve written a draft of your essay, make an outline (or write a paragraph) that copies, in order, your thesis statement and each of your topic sentences: Thesis statement, Topic sentence from each paragraph, Conclusion. If you’ve done your job well, these sentences should build a logical argument. If they don’t, you need to work a bit more on the structure of your essay.

ANALYSIS

            Once you have stated your thesis, your job is to convince your reader that you are right or resolve whatever conflict you have established. For the assignments in Thinking Through the Past or Main Problems in American History and other primary sources, such as autobiographies, you should also analyze at least one of the primary sources or—in the autobiographical writings—a historical episode or anecdote, and show how that evidence supports your argument. (Note: analyze means to divide something into its parts, describe the significance of each, and show how they connect to one another.) In developing your analysis, think about these questions: Why should the reader believe your argument? What arguments against your thesis make sense? How can you disprove those counter-arguments or account for evidence that seems to contradict your thesis? Your analysis should offer new ways to think about the material. It should draw evidence from the primary sources you’ve read for the assignment. And your ideas should flow logically from one to the next.

STYLE

            I reward clear writing with complete sentences. Every sentence should have a subject and a verb (and often an object), and your verbs should be “active.” To check for “passive” sentences, look for words like “was” and “by,” which often indicate passive voice. (I.e., “erosion destroyed farmland” is an active statement, while “farmland was destroyed by erosion” is passive.) Proof your work for grammar and spelling errors. It is not enough to rely on your computer’s spellchecker, since many words (like to, two, and too; or waist and waste; or their, they’re, and there; or its and it’s) sound alike and are spelled correctly, but may not carry the meaning you intend.

GRADING GUIDELINES

            I use the following general guidelines in grading essays. In practice, a paper may meet some of the criteria for a higher grade and some for a lower grade, which become “plus” or “minus” grades.

A (Superior paper) – Your thesis is clear, insightful, original, even sophisticated. Your argument is identifiable, reasonable, and sound, and all of the ideas in the paper flow logically. Each paragraph has a solid topic sentence, and your conclusion is persuasive. You support every point with at least one example from your primary sources. Your analysis is fresh and interesting. You anticipate and successfully defuse counter-arguments. You recognize different points of view in the past, as shown in your analysis of the primary sources. You make insightful connections between the past and the present, when appropriate. Your sentence structure, grammar, and spelling are excellent. You are not over-wordy. You have integrated quotes well into your own sentences and analyzed their meaning, and you have documented with footnotes all quotes and evidence from outside sources.

B (Good paper) – Your thesis is clear, but it may not be particularly insightful or original, or it may not be easily identified. Your argument is generally clear, and you give evidence to support most of your points, but perhaps it’s not the best evidence you could have chosen. Your argument usually flows logically and makes sense, although gaps in logic may exist. You may fail to address counter-arguments or different points of view available in the primary sources. When you include quotes, you generally explain their meaning and show how they support your argument. You do a solid job of synthesizing material, but you do not develop your own insights. You do a fairly good job at connecting the past and the present, when appropriate, although your connection may be a bit of a stretch. Your writing style is clear, but you sometimes use passive voice or are wordy or redundant. Your sentence structure, grammar, and spelling are generally clear, but there may be occasional lapses. You have documented with footnotes all quotes and evidence from outside sources.

C (Fair paper) – Your thesis is unclear, vague, difficult or impossible to identify, and provides little structure for the paper. Or it is a statement of an obvious point. You have few or no topic sentences, and you have not organized your paragraphs into a coherent framework. Your paper is a loose collection of statements, rather than a cohesive argument. Your paper wanders from one thing to the next without logic. Your examples are few, weak, vague, inappropriate, or inaccurate, so you fail to support your argument. You offer quotes but do not analyze their meaning or show how they support your argument. Your paper reads more like a “data dump” than an analysis. You do not address counter-arguments, and you show no recognition that people held different viewpoints in the historical period you’re studying. Your understanding of the topic seems simplistic. The connections you make between past and present are inappropriate or doubtful. Your writing is unclear, padded, and riddled with problems in sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, or spelling. You have lots of run-on sentences.

D (Bad paper) – Your paper shows a lack of effort or minimal comprehension of the subject. It’s not clear that you have read the material you’re writing about. Your paper is simply a rant on an issue. Your argument is extremely difficult to understand, owing to major problems in the structure and analysis. There is no identifiable thesis, and your paper is confusing. It’s difficult to tell that you’ve come to class.

F (Failure) – You clearly did not read the material you’re writing about or you plagiarized part or all of your paper.