HOW TO PREPARE AND WRITE DRAFT ESSAYS
In addition to the on-going journal record of library reading and your midterm and final exams, you will write brief draft essays in your journal. The nature and the timing of these essays are described on the electronic syllabus page.
The electronic page on "Reading in the Academic Setting" is very relevant to the task of writing essays (even very brief essays) in the academic setting.
I say "draft essays" because I do not want you to devote energy or resources at this point to the production of a traditional, typed, formal "term paper". You will develop research skills as you work, but this is not a research paper so much as a "thought piece" focusing on certain sources identified on the course syllabus, in SAC and in other course materials.
SOURCES ARE AT THE CENTER OF ATTENTION
In a draft essay, the accent is on the interpretation of primary documents and/or important secondary works identified in the course syllabus. Essays written in HIST 245 concentrate on secondary sources. Essays written in all other courses concentrate on primary sources. In all cases, whether primary or secondary, sources will be at the center of your attention. For a discussion of primary and secondary historical sources, go to the appropriate section of the essay "Ways of Seeing History".
The course Academic Calendar and our main website, "The Student's Annotated Chronology and Systematic Bibliography" [SAC], are rich in reference to key "primary" and "secondary" sources. Assignment Four will already have sent you to the Reference Room of the Knight Library, where you became familiar with the main encyclopedias and reference works that now help bring primary documents to life as you prepare your draft essays.
Even when the main accent is on primary sources, general accounts ("secondary works", including so-called text-books and reference works) help illuminate the meaning of the primary documents. Secondary sources help define the most important persons, groups, institutions, and events mentioned in your primary sources. Inform yourself about the identities of important persons and the nature of the most important events. Develop the habit of studying tables of contents and indexes.
DEFINING YOUR TOPIC
As you select a topic for your draft essays, study SAC [ID] along with the first lectures. As we establish the "big picture" (the broad sweep of the whole course), be alert to points of personal interest. Survey SAC with your computer's FIND [F/] function [ID], using key words or phrases that describe your interest.
You are given latitude in the choice of topics for your draft essays, but you are required to make clear reference in your essays to materials directly associated with our course. If you should wish to base your essay on materials not represented in the syllabus or found in SAC (especially internet sources not directly linked to our website), first please clear that with me.
I encourage you to write essays on different topics, but I would also recommend that your topics relate to issues and time periods such as will be covered on the exams. Essay one, in this way, would most wisely concentrate on the time period and general range of topics covered up to the midterm exam; essay two on the period and topics after the midterm.
TIMING YOUR WORK
Devote at least three but no more than six hours to a careful reading of your sources. Measuring your selection in terms of time rather than length allows you to work with one or several related sources, but it also suggests that you should be efficient and focused in your reading.
After you have completed your reading and thinking, sit down and draft a two-hour essay in your journal (clearly entering it in your table of contents).
CITING SOURCES AND KEEPING A BIBLIOGRAPHY
In your journal keep a list of the publications you are employing (your own "bibliography"). Don't worry about alphabetical order, just list your sources in the order of your first use of them. The bibliography should contain items consulted in your general course reading as well as the titles used specifically for writing your essay.
You may cite titles in your bibliography by using the abbreviations in the course GLOSSARY, or any clear and consistent abbreviation that suits you and communicates to your reader.
In your journal notes and in the text of your draft essays, you may employ these efficient abbreviations in brackets, indicating page numbers. For example, the third volume, page 46, of Zenkovsky’s edition of the Nikonian Chronicle might be cited like this: [ZNC,3:46].
In your draft essays, you might save time by referring the reader back to earlier pages of your journal where long quotes or other complicated materials have already been copied out. E.g., you might enter [See Journal page xx]. Do not do this so often that the flow of your essay is broken, and clearly mark such references so that the reader can locate them with ease.
All this is a bit technical, but the course has as one of its purposes to make us all very conscious of SOURCES, very aware of the need to indicate "how we know what we know".
SOME FINAL SUGGESTIONS
A good draft essay will open with strong and clear introductions, explaining to your reader what your topic and intentions are. Close with good summaries or conclusions. Everything depends on your making yourself clear. Don’t presume the reader can guess. "You know what I mean" won’t work.
Strive always for an interesting mix of fact and interpretation.
Do give some effort to penmanship. Always remember and pity your reader. You want your reader to be happy. As a rule, if you are happy, your reader will be happy.
Here you may hop back to the page that brought you here.
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