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Apr
13

What makes a good undergraduate history essay?

Essay writing is the single most important skill of the aspiring historian. What is the point of knowing anything
unless we can synthesise that knowledge, draw out the most important points, and communicate them efficiently
and persuasively to an audience? Being an historian is about constructing arguments following a sincere and
honest engagement with the facts (and artefacts) of the past. The essay is the purest form that this activity can
take. If presenting a talk, or making a cartoon, or creating a poster, then we can charm our audience with a
smooth voice, a funny image, or some dramatic music. But with words alone there is no such quiver in the bow:
we must win our reader over with the force of our facts, the logic of our interpretations, and the strength of our
analysis. So armed, we can take all comers.

Undergraduate marking criteria are generally cryptic and, on the face of it, unhelpful. They accurately describe
the differences between essays of varying qualities, but they are not much help when thinking about what
actually needs to be done. In a sense this is because they are works of the lowest common denominator, the
product of ongoing conversations between academics with wildly different interests, assumptions, and
personalities, and so the only way to truly understand a mark-scheme is to become part of the conversation that
nursed it into being in the first place. There are several ways to do this. Reading things like this is a good start,
but I am only one voice. Talking to your lecturers is another good idea. There is a surprising amount of
agreement on what constitutes a good essay, and talk of ‘hard markers’ and ‘soft markers’ bears surprisingly little
relation to reality. When it boils down to it, we are all looking for the same thing. The most effective way to
become part of the conversation, though, is through practice: have a go, get verbal and written feedback, and
have another go.

The first step to writing good undergraduate history essays is to realise that the task is fundamentally different to
ostensibly-similar tasks you have been presented with before. The undergraduate degree is about the transition
from being a knowledge-consumer to becoming a knowledge-creator. It is about the art of persuasion. This is
what we mean when we say that ‘there is no right answer’ (sometimes suffixed with ‘there is only your answer’).
There is no particular fact that you must deploy, no particular historian that you must cite, and no particular
‘factor’ that you must identify: nor is there is a particular structure that your essay must adopt. You are not being
assessed according to a tick-box marking system and your reader will approach your essay in a state of mind
which is receptive to the possibility that they might change their own opinions about the topic at hand. Essays
which are persuasive will score well; essays which are not will not.

The question is not what you need to do to ‘do it right’, but about what you might consider to maximise the
chances that your reader will be persuaded. Here are twelve tips:

1. Choose your question early. Good ideas usually come to us when we least expect them, so the more
time we give ourselves, the greater the opportunity for inspiration to hit. Moreover, all the reading you do
anyway (for pleasure, for seminars) will be doubly useful. What would otherwise have been ignored can
now be noted down or committed to memory.
2. Have a clear argument. Identify it as soon as possible in your essay, in the introduction. The biggest
argument can be summarised in a single sentence. With no argument there can be no focus: the essay will
drift from issue to issue with no sense of progression or development. Your reader wants to know what the
overall point of your essay is, so what is it that you are trying to convince them of?
3. Use the historiography to frame and contextualise your argument. This is often why we say that it
makes sense to deal with historiography in an early paragraph. The relevance and significance of your own
argument can only be assessed in relation to what others have argued: what are you doing that is
different, or with whom do you agree (and why)?
4. Read beyond the prescribed material. By limiting yourself to the reading lists offered, you are limiting
yourself to the same thought-processes of the person who created them. An essay which confirms to the
reader what they already know will be received politely, but an essay which challenges them to think
differently will be celebrated with all the fanfare of a monarch on progress.
5. Use lots of primary sources. Primary sources allow for true independence of thought – the more the
merrier. If we work with secondary material alone, then we are captive to the assumptions, selections, and
interpretations of other people. Source books can be helpful starting points, but the extracts contained
within them may look rather different when put into their full context.
6. Engage directly with the question. No good question will have a single ‘right answer’ and no question is
merely an invitation to reproduce the known facts, for that is not the aim of the game. An engagement
with the question can take many forms and your engagement will be unique to you. It is infuriating to ask
a question and not get a direct or relevant response: just ask Andrew Marr or Laura Kuenssberg!
7. But remember that the question can be answered in a multitude of ways. Even if the question
establishes a binary – either/or, yes/no – there is always a third path. And if there is a third, then there is a
fourth, a fifth, and so on. Sometimes this is referred to as ‘thinking beyond the question’. What
assumptions lie at the root of the question as it has been posed and can these be challenged?
8. Identify your audience. Who will be reading your essay? This is an easy question to answer in the literal
sense, but I am not talking about the individual personality. Your unit tutor will put themselves into a
different state of mind when they approach the job of marking. You are writing not for the person you
know in seminars, but for the ‘learned non-specialist’. This person is open-minded about what they believe.
9. Do not presume knowledge on the reader’s part. Wearing the hat of the ‘learned non-specialist’, the
marker needs to have key theories, personalities, methods, and debates, explained to them as if for the
first time. On the mark-scheme this will be credited as ‘knowledge and understanding’ (or similar), but
really it’s just good practice. You need to do all the intellectual heavy-lifting, not make your reader do it.
10. Think actively about structure. Accepting a big proposition involves accepting a series of smaller, linked,
propositions. If I am to be convinced that I should buy a house, then I need to know that the housing
market is on the up, that I can afford the mortgage, that the house is in good repair, and so on. A well-
structured essay is one that moves through these stages in a compelling and logical order.
11. Efficiency and clarity come from editing. For most of us, elegant prose takes time and labour. For
historians, elegance and efficiency are much the same thing: shun the thesaurus in favour of readable and
accessible words, and don’t be afraid of short sentences. The historical ‘learned non-specialist’ does not
need to be wowed by the depth of your vocabulary, but they do need to understand what you are saying.
12. Be unafraid. Boldness with your argument provides clarity and focus. If you haven’t looked at the primary
sources yourself, then deferring to the authority of someone who has is fair enough – but if you have seen
the primary sources, then your interpretation is as valid as anybody else’s. What do you really think, based
on your reading of the evidence?

There is, alas, no ‘quick-fix’ guide to writing better history essays. How much easier life would be if there were
only one source of information, one authorised version of the past, and one acceptable perspective: but how
much poorer. The historical essay – just like the rest of a history degree – is about acquiring the skills to have
your perspective taken seriously. That is why there is no ‘correct’ approach, and no expected set of facts you
must deploy, or historians to whom you must refer. How laborious and how frustrating this is! But it is also an
essential part of living in a liberal democracy, where the evidence is readily available, where people are free to
draw their own conclusions, free to attempt to persuade others, and free to accept or reject such attempts when
they come in our direction. The author of a good historical essay is a worthy member of such a political
community.

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Posted in Undergraduate Studies

Tagged essays, historiography, history, undergraduate, writing

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