A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing a Good History Day Paper

Martha Kohl

Don’t choose a topic that is: 
• obscure
• vague/unfocused
• too well known
• too big
• historically insignificant (There should be a
        reason to care about it.)
• unresearchable (There is a shortage of
        appropriate source material, or it is all in a 
        foreign language that you cannot read.) 

Do choose a topic that is:
• clear
• focused
• interesting to your reading audience
• not over-researched
• narrow enough to cover in a ten-page paper
• interesting to you
• researchable (Your paper should include primary
        sources as well as secondary sources. 
        Primary sources are sources that have not 
        been interpreted by other historians, such as
        newspapers, diaries, letters and census 
        information.  Secondary sources are 
        materials that were written with primary 
        sources and contain some interpretation. 
        They include books, magazine and journal 
        articles, films, etc.)

If you do choose a local history topic, make sure you look at how your discoveries fit into the larger context.  Were the whys, hows, and wherefores in your community similar or different than the national trends?  Why?

STEP TWO
Develop a strong thesis.

A thesis is an argument or a hypothesis; it is the point of your essay.  You will marshall evidence in support of your thesis.  You should state your argument in your opening paragraph in a thesis statement. 

Example of a weak thesis statement: “This paper is about the status of blacks after the Civil War.”  This thesis statement is weak because it does not make an argument or answer a question. 

Example of a strong thesis statement: “After the Civil War, many of the freed black slaves believed that their children would have substantially better lives and greater opportunities than they had had as slaves.  However, their hopes for their children were not fulfilled; in the 1880s, the lives of most blacks were not much better than those of their parents.”  The thesis statement “in the 1880s the lives of most blacks were not much better than those of their parents” makes an argument (readers can agree or disagree with it).  A good thesis statement can be rephrased as a question.  In this case, the question is “Were the children of ex-slaves much better off than their parents?” Or “How much difference did the Thirteenth Amendment make in the lives of most African Americans?”

Example: I am curious about why there were fewer opportunities for women in the 1950s than during the 1940s.  So, my preliminary research question is “Why were there fewer opportunities for women after World War II than before?” 

Step Two: Engage in preliminary research by reading secondary sources. 

Example: As I conduct my research, I realize that other people have looked at this issue.  The consensus of historians is that when male soldiers returned from fighting in World War II, they took back the jobs that women had been doing in their absence.  In the shrinking, post-war economy, tradition gave men first priority over a limited number of jobs.  During the war, women working outside of traditional roles were seen as patriotic (doing their part for the war effort).  After the war these same women were seen as stealing men’s jobs. 

Step three: Refine or reformulate your question on the basis of your findings.

Example: I realize through my reading that the question I chose has already been researched thoroughly by other historians.  I agree with their answers (besides, I realize that the question is too big to answer in a ten-page paper).  However, my reading has made me curious about related questions: “How did women respond to the shrinking number of work opportunities?  How did they feel about returning to traditional jobs and roles?” 

Step four:  Use your new question to narrow and focus your topic.

Example: I decided to look at a sampling of women from St. Louis who worked in untraditional jobs (as riveters, cartridge plant workers, etc.) during the war and who quit work to become housewives or who took on other traditionally “female” wage-earning jobs after the war.  I decide to look at their experiences to answer the following question: “How did these women feel about leaving the untraditional jobs they worked at during the war?” 

Step five: Continue your research, in an effort to find answers to your questions. 

Example: I found letters and diaries of some women who fit my category at my local historical society.  I know some women who worked in the 1940s and became homemakers in the 1950s.  I decide to interview them.  (This is called oral history.  James Hoopes has written a good book on how to do oral history: Oral History: An Introduction for Students [Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979.]) I also find published speeches relating to women’s work and some books by historians who have looked at similar topics elsewhere. 

Step six.  Develop hypotheses to test with your research.  (A hypothesis is a guess about what the answer to your question will be.) Don’t be afraid to prove your hypothesis wrong or to modify it to accommodate new evidence.

Example: Before I started interviewing my informants and reading the letters, diaries, and published information about women in my case study, I hypothesized that they were pushed out of traditionally male jobs and that they resented it.  After learningto my surprisethat some of them wanted to be housewives, I modified my hypothesis.  I decided that a woman’s response to leaving a traditionally male job may have varied depending on the type of job she had held during the war and the options she saw for herself in the fifties.  A woman who worked full-time outside the home at a fairly uninteresting job and full-time inside the home (doing housework and child care) might have looked forward to having only one full-time job to do (homemaking).  A woman who could not depend on a husband to support her and who had to work outside the home in the fifties might have resented losing the high-paying, traditionally male job that she had held. 

This hypothesis that women responded in a variety of ways to the change in their work status, and that their response depended on the options they saw for them-selvesbecame the thesis of my paper.  It was a good thesis because 1) it was arguable, 2) it evolved from my research and therefore I had evidence to support it, and 3) it was clear, focused, and specific.

If you cannot phrase your thesis statement in the form of a “why” question, refine your thesis statement.

One way to come up with a thesis statement is to look at what other people have written about a subject and argue against them and/or show how your research supports what they are 
saying.

Keep your thesis in mind as you conduct your research.  Develop a tentative thesis early on and use it to keep your work focused. 

Don’t force your evidence to support your thesis; modify your thesis so that it explains your evidence.

STEP THREE
Write a well constructed paper.

A good paper has:
• a clear structure
• no mistakes in grammar, spelling or punctuation
It is:
• jargon-free (does not use slang or overspecialized language)
• lucid (clear, intelligible)
• not filled with superfluous (unnecessary) detail
• compelling to the reader
Step One.  Organization is the key to a good paper.  A well-organized and structured paper has an introduction, a body and a conclusion. 

Introduction: Your introduction is where you lay out your argument or thesis.  The opening paragraph or paragraphs should present the question you are asking, the structure of your argument and your answer.  It should be a map for the reader.  The introduction is also where you should explain the connection between your topic and the History Day theme.

Body: The rest of the paper should follow that map.  Each paragraph should have a point that is well developed and that addresses the main issue or problem.  Ask yourself whether the information that you are providing is really necessary to prove your point.  Avoid including extraneous information.  Just because something is interesting does not mean it belongs in your paper.  Just because you have worked hard to gather information does not mean that it fits into your “map.” 

In the body of the paper, don’t just tell a story.  Analyze and interpret the evidence you have gathered.  This is the advantage of asking a “why” question.  Answering “why” questions forces you to analyze and interpret your evidence to prove your point. 

Conclusion: A conclusion sums up what the readers have learned.  It makes them feel the paper has an end. 

Many writers don’t really know what they are arguing until they finish a draft of their paper.  A common trick is to modify the paragraph you wrote for the conclusion and to use it for the introduction.  Then, of course, you will need to write a different conclusion and to reshape the body of your paper to work with your new introduction. 

Step Two: Technical elements/style

Margins, neatness, spelling, correct grammar, punctuation and syntax.  This is the easy stuff.  Leave yourself enough time to do it right.

Punctuation, grammar and style.  Try looking in your English composition book for specifics on capitalization, noun-verb agreement, and the other essential elements of clear writing. 

Clarity.  Don’t assume that people know what you know.  When you mention someone in the paper for the first time, include both the first and last name.  Also, make sure you identify who that person is in the context of your paper.  For example, instead of writing “Schoemehl recommended a tax increase” write “Vincent Schoemehl, mayor of St. Louis...”

Transitions.  A judicious use of transitional words and phraseslike “therefore,” “however,” “thus,” “despite,” “because,” “instead,” “although,” “rather” and “never-theless”carries the reader smoothly from one sentence or paragraph to the next.  Refer to your English composition book for a discussion of transitions.

Footnotes.  It is crucial to document the sources for quotations and ideas that are not your own.  Using other people’s ideas without giving proper credit is called plagiarism.  Plagiarism is stealing someone else’s ideas (intellectual property), which is at least as serious an offense as stealing someone else’s material property (cars, stereos, etc.). 

Footnotes can also provide an opportunity to talk about information that is not directly related to your narrative and to discuss debates among historians. 

Footnote form.  Follow the rules about what information should be included in footnotes and how footnotes should be formatted.  See the History Day handouts and recommended style guides for an explanation of these rules.

Use a style guide.  If you don’t know, look it up.  No one likes to look up the appropriate format for footnotes (or how to spell a word, etc.) It is boring.  Besides, these matters seem like trivial details.  After all, the ideas are what count, right? Well, yes and no.  Here are four good reasons to proofread and to take the time to look up technical elements (spelling, footnote formats, tricky grammar and punctuation issues, etc.)

Step Four: Rewrite and Proofread

A good paper results from several drafts.  Leaving yourself time to rework your material is extremely important.  Why lessen the impact of your solid research by writing a hastily constructed paper? Too much procrastinating may lead to the ultimate nightmare scenario: several anxious, depressing, guilt-filled weeks culminate in an agonizing all-nighter during which you binge on donuts as you lean bleary-eyed over your typewriter.  Your final product will reflect the effort that you put into it.

You should write at least three drafts. 

Draft One: Get your ideas on paper.  Don’t worry too much at this point about finding the right word or about spelling and punctuation.  Just write.

Proof draft one for structure and organization.  Do the ideas follow a clear outline? Does the introduction set up the argument? Does the body of the paper do what you said it would in your introduction? (Usually I have to rewrite my introduction after I finish the first draft of a paper).  Is all of the detail included in the paper directly relevant to your argument? Can a reader understand the point and follow the argument easily from paragraph to paragraph? 

Draft Two: Focus on organization.  Fix all of the organizational problems uncovered by the critique of draft one.  At this point, you will probably run into stylistic and grammatical problems that you will want to fix as well.

Proof draft two for style.  Is the paper well written?  Is the language clear? Have you used active verbs?  Are there any grammatical problems or spelling errors? Did you vary sentence structure? Are there smooth transitions from one paragraph to the next?

Draft three: Fine-tune your writing.  Correct all of the stylistic problems and most of the technical problems uncovered in the critique of draft two.

Proof draft three to catch technical errors.  Are all the technical elements correct?  Are all words spelled correctly?  Are all the footnotes complete and formatted correctly?  Are the margins, etc., according to regulation? 

2.  Courtesy to your readers
Misspelled words, ungrammatical sentences, and footnotes that don’t have all the information necessary to find a book aggravate a reader to no end.  It is difficult and unpleasant to read something that is sloppily produced.  Good spelling and neatness are common courtesies. 

3.  Looking things up is easy
Do this work when you want to procrastinate about doing the hard stuff (like rewriting your conclusion).  You won’t feel guilty about slacking off, and your mind will get a needed break from thinking great thoughts.  Also, why get “points off” for problems that are easily fixable?

4.  Future reference
If you look something up enough, you will eventually remember how to do it right. 

2.  Have someone else read and comment on your second draft.

3.  Proofread draft two or three aloud.  Proofreading aloud really works.  You hear awkward phrases that look okay to your eye.  Further, reading aloud forces you to pay attention to every word, so you can catch spelling and grammar mistakes that you would skim over if you were reading silently. 

4.  Go through and circle all of the forms of the verb to be (am, is, are, was, were, have been, being, etc.) Try to change them to more active verbs.  (More than two linking verbs per page are too many.)

5.  Remember, someone is going to read your paper.  Do not write to win a contest, to impress someone, or simply to fulfill a teacher’s assignment.  Write to be read: to inform, entertain, delight or challenge your reader.  Ask about every sentence: Will this help me communicate my point  to the reader? (If the answer is no, leave the sentence out.)

Martha Kohl is associate editor of Gateway Heritage: Quarterly Magazine of the Missouri Historical Society.  She has taught literacy and  G.E.D. preparation to homeless adults and tutored high school and college students in English composition.