Good writing is an important part of being a historian. Although most of you will not major in history nor become historians, the ability to write well will serve you in almost any profession that you choose to follow. The kind of writing that is used in cell phones, twitter, instant messaging and other recent developments may facilitate rapid communication, but they do not always reflect traditional writing practices. There is no evidence to support the idea that casual writing is acceptable in a formal business environment. Good writing ensures clarity of intent and transmits content accurately. Finally, in order to achieve your bachelors degree, you will very likely be required to write an extensive paper, and the quality of the writing in that paper will be a significant factor in the outcome of your endeavor. Toward that end, I will do everything possible to help you improve your writing during this course.

Every semester I send out a letter on your writing projects. You should read it and look it over each time you prepare a paper. If you lose it, you can find a copy in Course Documents in Blackboard.

First, keep in mind that your grade will ultimately be based on the quality of your content.  Nothing you write or include will change that.  But there are things you can do and things you should not do to enhance the general presentation of your paper which, although it may not help your grade directly, will certainly put the person reading your paper in a more favorable frame of mind.

Things to do:

• Read and follow all instructions carefully. Nothing puts a teacher off faster than encountering a paper written by a student who has obviously failed to pay attention to directions. Even if the paper is good in its own right, if it does not meet the requirements for the assignment, the grade will probably reflect that.
• Use a descriptive title that reflects what your paper is really about.
• Attach a cover page and resources page as separate pages and include them in the file with your essay.
• Make sure your name is on every page and that the pages are numbered.  This is best done by using a header in your word-processing program.
• Consult an appropriate reference for details on footnotes and lists of sources.  It's a skill you will eventually need and you might as well use it now to get in the habit of doing it properly.
• Focus on original sources rather than secondary works.

Things Not to Do:

• Do not try to make your paper look more extensive than is.  If you use extra wide margins, extra-large fonts and leave unnecessary space, all you do is call attention to the fact that you are trying to make your paper look longer.  Although it is the quality of the content that really matters, if you call attention to the fact that your paper is on the short side, it means you are not satisfied with your work.  Why, then, should your instructor be impressed with it?
• Very large fonts on title pages just waste ink.  A 14- to 16 point-font should be plenty large.
• Including pictures or graphics in a paper has become common practice in this technological age and they can enhance an already good paper.  But remember that pictures and graphics should not be counted against the total length of the paper.  A three-page paper with five pages of graphics is still a three-page paper.
• An introductory paragraph is fine, but don't spend too much time telling your reader what you are going to write about; get to your subject without undue delay.
• Beware of the “stacked” bibliography.  Listing five or 10 books in your sources and then using only a few pages of one or two of them will put your teacher off.
• Do not simply regurgitate the works of others; bring your own thoughts and ideas to bear on the topic.  Your teacher has probably read most of the secondary material and wants to hear what you think.
• Do not recycle old papers from another class. Submitting the same paper for credit in different courses is actually a form of plagiarism. (Yes, you can plagiarize yourself.) Besides being improper, the paper will probably not meet the requirements of the assignment.

A Word about Wikipedia | See also Writing History page.

Updated July 16, 2010