History 367/Global Studies 367

An essay written for a university course serves three main purposes. The first and most obvious is pedagogical: researching a topic and writing about it is an excellent way of learning about the subject under review. The second is also pedagogical: a university education is in large part a matter of developing the art or science of scholarship. Scholarship is rooted in the concept of intellectual honesty, so the practice of documenting thoroughly the sources of one’s ideas, interpretations and factual information is crucial to good essay writing. The third function served is evaluation: an essay enables the instructor to assess the student’s ability to explain the subject in a lucid and cogent fashion, to integrate the different types of material covered, to analyze events or themes, and to place them in a comprehensible order—in short, to evaluate the writer’s mastery of the subject matter.

During his or her university studies a normal student will write dozens, even hundreds, of essays. It therefore makes sense to learn at the outset how to organize, write, and document an academic paper. Although developing good essay writing skills is important, it need not be an arduous task. A few basic principles and rules that students should keep in mind are listed below.

1. An essay should have an evident structure. Open your essay with an introduction that states the problem you wish to explore, or the question problem or question and states your judgment or answer.
2. An essay should convey the key elements of an argument, and the evidence for this intellectual position. In this sense, an essay is like a legal case: it contains a point of view, perhaps more than one, expressed logically; it presents appropriate evidence to support the views expressed; and it leads to a conclusion which should appear natural and persuasive in the light of the evidence presented. An essay must therefore contain a thesis, supported by evidence that has been appropriately documented by means of footnotes or endnotes. But it must also contain a non-partisan discussion and analysis of the material. Hence in this crucial respect an essay is not like a legal case: it must be balanced and judicious, taking opposing arguments into account, and recognizing where the available information is insufficient or inconclusive.
3. An essay must be based on adequate and appropriate reading and reflection, and must always acknowledge intellectual indebtedness through proper citations. A superior essay should also show evidence of individual thought: originality will be valued highly by the marker, provided, of course, that the case is properly argued and not merely eccentric.

Your grade will reflect how well you have met these standards. In attempting to achieve these goals, you will develop and practise several intellectual skills that will prove invaluable to you throughout your university career. They are

1. the ability to synthesize information from a variety of sources;
2. the ability to analyze the significance of primary source material, both in its historical context and for twentieth-century readers;
3. the ability to make appropriate use of secondary source material (for example, summarizing the research that has been done on a topic, placing it in context, and noting similarities to and differences from other writers’ presentations);
4. the habit of documenting, carefully and honestly, the sources of your information and ideas;
5. the ability to develop a cogent, balanced, and well-supported argument.

These skills are necessary for essay writing, and they are developed by essay writing. One of the benefits of refining these skills is that they will serve you, not only in the classroom, but also in every other area of your life.

There is no single model that you must follow to write a good essay. Thoughtful, creative, and well-argued essays may be organized in various different ways. However, we have endeavoured to provide some detailed guidelines that, if followed carefully and sensibly, should go a long way toward ensuring that an essay is satisfactory in its form and structure. If you need help with the mechanics of constructing essays, the following suggestions will help you to organize and write your assignments. The guidelines are presented in five sections, titled “Introduction,” “Organization,” “Editing,” “Documentation,” and “Bibliography.”