12 Writing, Revising, and Editing the Essay
Your goal in writing a history essay is to express your thoughts and ideas in a clear and structured way. Remember to focus on your thesis and follow your outline. Obviously, as you proceed with your research, you will come up with more questions that you can work into your outline, and some of your original questions might change. You might discover that your original topic was too broad, and that you can write an entire paper on just one of your questions. Likewise, the organization of your outline may change as you learn more.
You must give readers reasons to believe your story: you cannot write a history essay without referring to your sources or without backing up your opinions with evidence.
Revising and editing an essay are the final steps in writing a history essay. Revising consists of reading through the text to check and improve on the content. Editing consists of looking for errors in grammar, syntax, word usage, spelling, and punctuation.
Writing (argument) checklist
- Am I following my thesis?
- Am I following my outline?
- Is each paragraph relevant? (i.e., does each one help to answer the question or support the argument?)
- Do my main arguments proceed logically? Have I provided sufficient (and convincing) supporting evidence for them?
- Am I correctly integrating my sources and references?
Feedback/Errata