History writers

[skull_bearer]

I've found that my Holocaust sudies have been suffering because I'm really not familiar with writing proper History form essays. Any orkshops/ guide books you could point me to?

Comments

[fjm.livejournal.com]

The Craft of Research by Wayne C. Booth et al.

Copies of the journal History Workshop.


But there is no perfect history essay because history essays tend to change according to discipline.

1. Read a *lot* and ask question. Let your questions shape your search for more material ie why on earth did Quakers get obsessed with feeding milk to kids in Spain in 1930s, led to research on knowledge of nutrition.

2. Sit back and figure out what you want to argue,

3. Make the argument your claim (see Booth).

4. Explain what material you are going to examine and sort your material into piles linked by the argument you want to make of the material (*not* by chronology*) ie you might have one big argument which you are going to explore through five smaller ones.

5. Now do it.


Do feel free to call me for this one. I could fit n a tutorial on Sunday, Both of us are historians after all and you can figure out which of us has a style that suits best.

[skull-bearer.livejournal.com]

What time sunday? That would be fantastic but I'm working until 6.

[a-d-medievalist.livejournal.com]

Here via fjm.

As she says, there are lots of sorts of essays, and there is also variation by sub-discipline. Overall, I find that my students tend to stumble at the same couple of places:

• When using primary sources, they are good at writing about what they say, but not about what they do, i.e., what they tell us by interpreting what they say in the context of the time, authorship, audience, etc.
  
  
• When using secondary sources, they don't engage with those sources and present their argument as part of a larger argument or conversation -- and they don't integrate them very well -- the result is an essay that reads as 'let me tell you all I learned about X'

When I teach History Methods, I regularly use Graff and Birkenstein, They Say, I Say (http://www.amazon.co.uk/They-Say-Matter-Academic-Writing/dp/039393361X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1348086932&sr=8-1), and sometimes use the templates myself when I find I'm using the same phrases over and over. This new edition of Barzun and (a different) Graff, The Modern Researcher (http://www.cengage.com/search/productOverview.do?Ntt=Barzun||118395586598381691020622251871962340225&N=16&Ntk=APG%7C%7CP_EPI) is one I'm thinking of using, too, although this one by William Kelleher Storey (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Writing-History-William-Kelleher-Storey/dp/0199830045/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1348087216&sr=8-2") is tempting. I've also used Frakes, Writing for College History (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Writing-College-History-Short-Handbook/dp/061830603X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1348087303&sr=1-2), although it is aimed more at 1st- and 2nd-year students (and would have been good for my nephew when he was studying for A-levels). Many of my colleagues advise their students to use ML Rampolla, A Pocket Guide to Writing History (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pocket-Guide-Writing-History/dp/0312610416/ref=sr_1_12?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1348087463&sr=1-12).

I would say that most of them will help for many of the sorts of essays historians are expected to write. The one exception might be the sort of close reading and analysis of primary sources that Classicists and Medievalists often do, but even then, integrating your thoughts and argument into what has already been written is a key part. I can't recommend the Graff and Birkenstein enough for learning to summarize, paraphrase, and cite the works of others while successfully integrating your own arguments.

[ars-belli.livejournal.com]

Are you using the crustacean style? Changing your essay writing from the small scale up will show the quickest short-term changes, which in turn ought to please your markers. I haven't read history since 2007 (now I have the joy of writing physics essays,ugh) so I doubt I can help with more than writing style. I'll see what I can dig up on primary and secondary source usage if you like, but classics probably deals with them quite differently to modern history. Good luck with the essays!