history term paper

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Everything You Need to Know to Write an A+ Term Paper

Last Updated: March 4, 2024 Fact Checked

Sample Term Papers

Researching & outlining.

• Drafting Your Paper
• Revising Your Paper

Expert Q&A

This article was co-authored by Matthew Snipp, PhD and by wikiHow staff writer, Raven Minyard, BA . C. Matthew Snipp is the Burnet C. and Mildred Finley Wohlford Professor of Humanities and Sciences in the Department of Sociology at Stanford University. He is also the Director for the Institute for Research in the Social Science’s Secure Data Center. He has been a Research Fellow at the U.S. Bureau of the Census and a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. He has published 3 books and over 70 articles and book chapters on demography, economic development, poverty and unemployment. He is also currently serving on the National Institute of Child Health and Development’s Population Science Subcommittee. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin—Madison. There are 13 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 2,230,332 times.

A term paper is a written assignment given to students at the end of a course to gauge their understanding of the material. Term papers typically count for a good percentage of your overall grade, so of course, you’ll want to write the best paper possible. Luckily, we’ve got you covered. In this article, we’ll teach you everything you need to know to write an A+ term paper, from researching and outlining to drafting and revising.

Quick Steps to Write a Term Paper

• Hook your readers with an interesting and informative intro paragraph. State your thesis and your main points.
• Support your thesis by providing quotes and evidence that back your claim in your body paragraphs.
• Summarize your main points and leave your readers with a thought-provoking question in your conclusion.

• Think of your term paper as the bridge between what you’ve learned in class and how you apply that knowledge to real-world topics.
• For example, a history term paper may require you to explore the consequences of a significant historical event, like the Civil War. An environmental science class, on the other hand, may have you examine the effects of climate change on a certain region.
• Your guidelines should tell you the paper’s word count and formatting style, like whether to use in-text citations or footnotes and whether to use single- or double-spacing. If these things aren’t specified, be sure to reach out to your instructor.

• Make sure your topic isn’t too broad. For example, if you want to write about Shakespeare’s work, first narrow it down to a specific play, like Macbeth , then choose something even more specific like Lady Macbeth’s role in the plot.
• If the topic is already chosen for you, explore unique angles that can set your content and information apart from the more obvious approaches many others will probably take. [3] X Research source
• Try not to have a specific outcome in mind, as this will close you off to new ideas and avenues of thinking. Rather than trying to mold your research to fit your desired outcome, allow the outcome to reflect a genuine analysis of the discoveries you made. Ask yourself questions throughout the process and be open to having your beliefs challenged.
• Reading other people's comments, opinions, and entries on a topic can often help you to refine your own, especially where they comment that "further research" is required or where they posit challenging questions but leave them unanswered.

• For example, if you’re writing a term paper about Macbeth , your primary source would be the play itself. Then, look for other research papers and analyses written by academics and scholars to understand how they interpret the text.

• For example, if you’re writing a paper about Lady Macbeth, your thesis could be something like “Shakespeare’s characterization of Lady Macbeth reveals how desire for power can control someone’s life.”
• Remember, your research and thesis development doesn’t stop here. As you continue working through both the research and writing, you may want to make changes that align with the ideas forming in your mind and the discoveries you continue to unearth.
• On the other hand, don’t keep looking for new ideas and angles for fear of feeling confined. At some point, you’re going to have to say enough is enough and make your point. You may have other opportunities to explore these questions in future studies, but for now, remember your term paper has a finite word length and an approaching due date!

• Abstract: An abstract is a concise summary of your paper that informs readers of your topic, its significance, and the key points you’ll explore. It must stand on its own and make sense without referencing outside sources or your actual paper.
• Introduction: The introduction establishes the main idea of your paper and directly states the thesis. Begin your introduction with an attention-grabbing sentence to intrigue your readers, and provide any necessary background information to establish your paper’s purpose and direction.
• Body paragraphs: Each body paragraph focuses on a different argument supporting your thesis. List specific evidence from your sources to back up your arguments. Provide detailed information about your topic to enhance your readers’ understanding. In your outline, write down the main ideas for each body paragraph and any outstanding questions or points you’re not yet sure about.
• Results: Depending on the type of term paper you’re writing, your results may be incorporated into your body paragraphs or conclusion. These are the insights that your research led you to. Here you can discuss how your perspective and understanding of your topic shifted throughout your writing process.
• Conclusion: Your conclusion summarizes your argument and findings. You may restate your thesis and major points as you wrap up your paper.

Drafting Your Term Paper

• Writing an introduction can be challenging, but don’t get too caught up on it. As you write the rest of your paper, your arguments might change and develop, so you’ll likely need to rewrite your intro at the end, anyway. Writing your intro is simply a means of getting started and you can always revise it later. [10] X Trustworthy Source PubMed Central Journal archive from the U.S. National Institutes of Health Go to source
• Be sure to define any words your readers might not understand. For example, words like “globalization” have many different meanings depending on context, and it’s important to state which ones you’ll be using as part of your introductory paragraph.

• Try to relate the subject of the essay (say, Plato’s Symposium ) to a tangentially related issue you happen to know something about (say, the growing trend of free-wheeling hookups in frat parties). Slowly bring the paragraph around to your actual subject and make a few generalizations about why this aspect of the book/subject is so fascinating and worthy of study (such as how different the expectations for physical intimacy were then compared to now).

• You can also reflect on your own experience of researching and writing your term paper. Discuss how your understanding of your topic evolved and any unexpected findings you came across.

• While peppering quotes throughout your text is a good way to help make your point, don’t overdo it. If you use too many quotes, you’re basically allowing other authors to make the point and write the paper for you. When you do use a quote, be sure to explain why it is relevant in your own words.
• Try to sort out your bibliography at the beginning of your writing process to avoid having a last-minute scramble. When you have all the information beforehand (like the source’s title, author, publication date, etc.), it’s easier to plug them into the correct format.

Revising & Finalizing Your Term Paper

• Trade in weak “to-be” verbs for stronger “action” verbs. For example: “I was writing my term paper” becomes “I wrote my term paper.”

• It’s extremely important to proofread your term paper. If your writing is full of mistakes, your instructor will assume you didn’t put much effort into your paper. If you have too many errors, your message will be lost in the confusion of trying to understand what you’ve written.

• If you add or change information to make things clearer for your readers, it’s a good idea to look over your paper one more time to catch any new typos that may have come up in the process.

• The best essays are like grass court tennis—the argument should flow in a "rally" style, building persuasively to the conclusion. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• If you get stuck, consider giving your professor a visit. Whether you're still struggling for a thesis or you want to go over your conclusion, most instructors are delighted to help and they'll remember your initiative when grading time rolls around. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• At least 2 hours for 3-5 pages.
• At least 4 hours for 8-10 pages.
• At least 6 hours for 12-15 pages.
• Double those hours if you haven't done any homework and you haven't attended class.
• For papers that are primarily research-based, add about two hours to those times (although you'll need to know how to research quickly and effectively, beyond the purview of this brief guide).

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://www.binghamton.edu/counseling/self-help/term-paper.html
• ↑ Matthew Snipp, PhD. Research Fellow, U.S. Bureau of the Census. Expert Interview. 26 March 2020.
• ↑ https://emory.libanswers.com/faq/44525
• ↑ https://writing.wisc.edu/handbook/assignments/planresearchpaper/
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/the_writing_process/thesis_statement_tips.html
• ↑ https://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide/outline
• ↑ https://gallaudet.edu/student-success/tutorial-center/english-center/writing/guide-to-writing-introductions-and-conclusions/
• ↑ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26731827
• ↑ https://writing.wisc.edu/handbook/assignments/writing-an-abstract-for-your-research-paper/
• ↑ https://www.ivcc.edu/stylesite/Essay_Title.pdf
• ↑ https://www.uni-flensburg.de/fileadmin/content/institute/anglistik/dokumente/downloads/how-to-write-a-term-paper-daewes.pdf
• ↑ https://library.sacredheart.edu/c.php?g=29803&p=185937
• ↑ https://www.cornerstone.edu/blog-post/six-steps-to-really-edit-your-paper/

About This Article

If you need to write a term paper, choose your topic, then start researching that topic. Use your research to craft a thesis statement which states the main idea of your paper, then organize all of your facts into an outline that supports your thesis. Once you start writing, state your thesis in the first paragraph, then use the body of the paper to present the points that support your argument. End the paper with a strong conclusion that restates your thesis. For tips on improving your term paper through active voice, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Writing a Good History Paper

• Top Ten Reasons for Negative Comments
• Making Sure your Paper has Substance

Common Marginal Remarks on Style, Clarity, Grammar, and Syntax

Word and phrase usage problems, analyzing a historical document, writing a book review, writing a term paper or senior thesis, top ten reasons for negative comments on history papers.

(Drawn from a survey of the History Department ) 10. You engage in cheap, anachronistic moralizing .  9. You are sloppy with the chronology .  8. You quote excessively or improperly .  7. You have written a careless “one-draft wonder.” (See revise and proofread)  6. You are vague or have empty, unsupported generalizations .  5. You write too much in the passive voice.  4. You use inappropriate sources .  3. You use evidence uncritically.  2. You are wordy .  1. You have no clear thesis and little analysis.

Making Sure your History Paper has Substance

Get off to a good start..

Avoid pretentious, vapid beginnings. If you are writing a paper on, say, British responses to the rebellion in India in 1857, don't open with a statement like this: “Throughout human history people in all cultures everywhere in the world have engaged in many and long-running conflicts about numerous aspects of government policy and diplomatic issues, which have much interested historians and generated historical theories in many areas.” This is pure garbage, bores the reader, and is a sure sign that you have nothing substantive to say. Get to the point. Here’s a better start: “The rebellion in 1857 compelled the British to rethink their colonial administration in India.” This sentence tells the reader what your paper is actually about and clears the way for you to state your thesis in the rest of the opening paragraph. For example, you might go on to argue that greater British sensitivity to Indian customs was hypocritical.

State a clear thesis.

Whether you are writing an exam essay or a senior thesis, you need to have a thesis. Don’t just repeat the assignment or start writing down everything that you know about the subject. Ask yourself, “What exactly am I trying to prove?” Your thesis is your take on the subject, your perspective, your explanation—that is, the case that you’re going to argue. “Famine struck Ireland in the 1840s” is a true statement, but it is not a thesis. “The English were responsible for famine in Ireland in the 1840s” is a thesis (whether defensible or not is another matter). A good thesis answers an important research question about how or why something happened. (“Who was responsible for the famine in Ireland in the 1840s?”) Once you have laid out your thesis, don’t forget about it. Develop your thesis logically from paragraph to paragraph. Your reader should always know where your argument has come from, where it is now, and where it is going.

Be sure to analyze.

Students are often puzzled when their professors mark them down for summarizing or merely narrating rather than analyzing. What does it mean to analyze? In the narrow sense, to analyze means to break down into parts and to study the interrelationships of those parts. If you analyze water, you break it down into hydrogen and oxygen. In a broader sense, historical analysis explains the origins and significance of events. Historical analysis digs beneath the surface to see relationships or distinctions that are not immediately obvious. Historical analysis is critical; it evaluates sources, assigns significance to causes, and weighs competing explanations. Don’t push the distinction too far, but you might think of summary and analysis this way: Who, what, when, and where are the stuff of summary; how, why, and to what effect are the stuff of analysis. Many students think that they have to give a long summary (to show the professor that they know the facts) before they get to their analysis. Try instead to begin your analysis as soon as possible, sometimes without any summary at all. The facts will “shine through” a good analysis. You can't do an analysis unless you know the facts, but you can summarize the facts without being able to do an analysis. Summary is easier and less sophisticated than analysis—that’s why summary alone never earns an “A.”

Use evidence critically.

Like good detectives, historians are critical of their sources and cross-check them for reliability. You wouldn't think much of a detective who relied solely on a suspect’s archenemy to check an alibi. Likewise, you wouldn't think much of a historian who relied solely on the French to explain the origins of World War I. Consider the following two statements on the origin of World War I: 1) “For the catastrophe of 1914 the Germans are responsible. Only a professional liar would deny this...” 2) “It is not true that Germany is guilty of having caused this war. Neither the people, the government, nor the Kaiser wanted war....”  They can’t both be right, so you have to do some detective work. As always, the best approach is to ask: Who wrote the source? Why? When? Under what circumstances? For whom? The first statement comes from a book by the French politician Georges Clemenceau, which he wrote in 1929 at the very end of his life. In 1871, Clemenceau had vowed revenge against Germany for its defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War. As premier of France from 1917 to 1920, he represented France at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. He was obviously not a disinterested observer. The second statement comes from a manifesto published by ninety-three prominent German intellectuals in the fall of 1914. They were defending Germany against charges of aggression and brutality. They too were obviously not disinterested observers. Now, rarely do you encounter such extreme bias and passionate disagreement, but the principle of criticizing and cross-checking sources always applies. In general, the more sources you can use, and the more varied they are, the more likely you are to make a sound historical judgment, especially when passions and self-interests are engaged. You don’t need to be cynical as a historian (self-interest does not explain everything), but you do need to be critical and skeptical. Competent historians may offer different interpretations of the same evidence or choose to stress different evidence. You will not find a single historical Truth with a capital “T” on any matter of significance. You can, however, learn to discriminate among conflicting interpretations, not all of which are created equal. (See also: Analyzing a Historical Document )

Be precise.

Vague statements and empty generalizations suggest that you haven't put in the time to learn the material. Consider these two sentences: “During the French Revolution, the government was overthrown by the people. The Revolution is important because it shows that people need freedom.” What people? Landless peasants? Urban journeymen? Wealthy lawyers? Which government? When? How? Who exactly needed freedom, and what did they mean by freedom? Here is a more precise statement about the French Revolution: “Threatened by rising prices and food shortages in 1793, the Parisian sans-culottes pressured the Convention to institute price controls.” This statement is more limited than the grandiose generalizations about the Revolution, but unlike them, it can open the door to a real analysis of the Revolution. Be careful when you use grand abstractions like people, society, freedom, and government, especially when you further distance yourself from the concrete by using these words as the apparent antecedents for the pronouns they and it. Always pay attention to cause and effect. Abstractions do not cause or need anything; particular people or particular groups of people cause or need things. Avoid grandiose trans-historical generalizations that you can’t support. When in doubt about the appropriate level of precision or detail, err on the side of adding “too much” precision and detail.

Watch the chronology.

Anchor your thesis in a clear chronological framework and don't jump around confusingly. Take care to avoid both anachronisms and vagueness about dates. If you write, “Napoleon abandoned his Grand Army in Russia and caught the redeye back to Paris,” the problem is obvious. If you write, “Despite the Watergate scandal, Nixon easily won reelection in 1972,” the problem is more subtle, but still serious. (The scandal did not become public until after the election.) If you write, “The revolution in China finally succeeded in the twentieth century,” your professor may suspect that you haven’t studied. Which revolution? When in the twentieth century? Remember that chronology is the backbone of history. What would you think of a biographer who wrote that you graduated from Hamilton in the 1950s?

Cite sources carefully.

Your professor may allow parenthetical citations in a short paper with one or two sources, but you should use footnotes for any research paper in history. Parenthetical citations are unaesthetic; they scar the text and break the flow of reading. Worse still, they are simply inadequate to capture the richness of historical sources. Historians take justifiable pride in the immense variety of their sources. Parenthetical citations such as (Jones 1994) may be fine for most of the social sciences and humanities, where the source base is usually limited to recent books and articles in English. Historians, however, need the flexibility of the full footnote. Try to imagine this typical footnote (pulled at random from a classic work of German history) squeezed into parentheses in the body of the text: DZA Potsdam, RdI, Frieden 5, Erzgebiet von Longwy-Briey, Bd. I, Nr. 19305, gedruckte Denkschrift für OHL und Reichsleitung, Dezember 1917, und in RWA, Frieden Frankreich Nr. 1883. The abbreviations are already in this footnote; its information cannot be further reduced. For footnotes and bibliography, historians usually use Chicago style. (The Chicago Manual of Style. 15th edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.) On the Writing Center’s website you can find a useful summary of Chicago citation style prepared by a former history major, Elizabeth Rabe ’04 ( Footnotes ). RefWorks (on the library’s website) will convert your citations to Chicago style. Don’t hesitate to ask one of the reference librarians for help if you have trouble getting started on RefWorks.

Use primary sources.

Use as many primary sources as possible in your paper. A primary source is one produced by a participant in or witness of the events you are writing about. A primary source allows the historian to see the past through the eyes of direct participants. Some common primary sources are letters, diaries, memoirs, speeches, church records, newspaper articles, and government documents of all kinds. The capacious genre “government records” is probably the single richest trove for the historian and includes everything from criminal court records, to tax lists, to census data, to parliamentary debates, to international treaties—indeed, any records generated by governments. If you’re writing about culture, primary sources may include works of art or literature, as well as philosophical tracts or scientific treatises—anything that comes under the broad rubric of culture. Not all primary sources are written. Buildings, monuments, clothes, home furnishings, photographs, religious relics, musical recordings, or oral reminiscences can all be primary sources if you use them as historical clues. The interests of historians are so broad that virtually anything can be a primary source. (See also: Analyzing a Historical Document )

Use scholarly secondary sources.

A secondary source is one written by a later historian who had no part in what he or she is writing about. (In the rare cases when the historian was a participant in the events, then the work—or at least part of it—is a primary source.) Historians read secondary sources to learn about how scholars have interpreted the past. Just as you must be critical of primary sources, so too you must be critical of secondary sources. You must be especially careful to distinguish between scholarly and non-scholarly secondary sources. Unlike, say, nuclear physics, history attracts many amateurs. Books and articles about war, great individuals, and everyday material life dominate popular history. Some professional historians disparage popular history and may even discourage their colleagues from trying their hand at it. You need not share their snobbishness; some popular history is excellent. But—and this is a big but—as a rule, you should avoid popular works in your research, because they are usually not scholarly. Popular history seeks to inform and entertain a large general audience. In popular history, dramatic storytelling often prevails over analysis, style over substance, simplicity over complexity, and grand generalization over careful qualification. Popular history is usually based largely or exclusively on secondary sources. Strictly speaking, most popular histories might better be called tertiary, not secondary, sources. Scholarly history, in contrast, seeks to discover new knowledge or to reinterpret existing knowledge. Good scholars wish to write clearly and simply, and they may spin a compelling yarn, but they do not shun depth, analysis, complexity, or qualification. Scholarly history draws on as many primary sources as practical. Now, your goal as a student is to come as close as possible to the scholarly ideal, so you need to develop a nose for distinguishing the scholarly from the non-scholarly. Here are a few questions you might ask of your secondary sources (bear in mind that the popular/scholarly distinction is not absolute, and that some scholarly work may be poor scholarship). Who is the author? Most scholarly works are written by professional historians (usually professors) who have advanced training in the area they are writing about. If the author is a journalist or someone with no special historical training, be careful. Who publishes the work? Scholarly books come from university presses and from a handful of commercial presses (for example, Norton, Routledge, Palgrave, Penguin, Rowman & Littlefield, Knopf, and HarperCollins). If it’s an article, where does it appear? Is it in a journal subscribed to by our library, listed on JSTOR , or published by a university press? Is the editorial board staffed by professors? Oddly enough, the word journal in the title is usually a sign that the periodical is scholarly. What do the notes and bibliography look like? If they are thin or nonexistent, be careful. If they are all secondary sources, be careful. If the work is about a non-English-speaking area, and all the sources are in English, then it's almost by definition not scholarly. Can you find reviews of the book in the data base Academic Search Premier? If the book was published within the last few decades, and it’s not in there, that’s a bad sign. With a little practice, you can develop confidence in your judgment—and you’re on your way to being a historian. If you are unsure whether a work qualifies as scholarly, ask your professor. (See also: Writing a Book Review )

Avoid abusing your sources.

Many potentially valuable sources are easy to abuse. Be especially alert for these five abuses: Web abuse. The Web is a wonderful and improving resource for indexes and catalogs. But as a source for primary and secondary material for the historian, the Web is of limited value. Anyone with the right software can post something on the Web without having to get past trained editors, peer reviewers, or librarians. As a result, there is a great deal of garbage on the Web. If you use a primary source from the Web, make sure that a respected intellectual institution stands behind the site. Be especially wary of secondary articles on the Web, unless they appear in electronic versions of established print journals (e.g., The Journal of Asian Studies in JSTOR). Many articles on the Web are little more than third-rate encyclopedia entries. When in doubt, check with your professor. With a few rare exceptions, you will not find scholarly monographs in history (even recent ones) on the Web. You may have heard of Google’s plans to digitize the entire collections of some of the world’s major libraries and to make those collections available on the Web. Don’t hold your breath. Your days at Hamilton will be long over by the time the project is finished. Besides, your training as a historian should give you a healthy skepticism of the giddy claims of technophiles. Most of the time and effort of doing history goes into reading, note-taking, pondering, and writing. Finding a chapter of a book on the Web (as opposed to getting the physical book through interlibrary loan) might be a convenience, but it doesn’t change the basics for the historian. Moreover, there is a subtle, but serious, drawback with digitized old books: They break the historian’s sensual link to the past. And of course, virtually none of the literally trillions of pages of archival material is available on the Web. For the foreseeable future, the library and the archive will remain the natural habitats of the historian. Thesaurus abuse. How tempting it is to ask your computer’s thesaurus to suggest a more erudite-sounding word for the common one that popped into your mind! Resist the temptation. Consider this example (admittedly, a bit heavy-handed, but it drives the point home): You’re writing about the EPA’s programs to clean up impure water supplies. Impure seems too simple and boring a word, so you bring up your thesaurus, which offers you everything from incontinent to meretricious. “How about meretricious water?” you think to yourself. “That will impress the professor.” The problem is that you don’t know exactly what meretricious means, so you don’t realize that meretricious is absurdly inappropriate in this context and makes you look foolish and immature. Use only those words that come to you naturally. Don’t try to write beyond your vocabulary. Don’t try to impress with big words. Use a thesaurus only for those annoying tip-of-the-tongue problems (you know the word and will recognize it instantly when you see it, but at the moment you just can’t think of it).  Quotation book abuse. This is similar to thesaurus abuse. Let’s say you are writing a paper on Alexander Hamilton’s banking policies, and you want to get off to a snappy start that will make you seem effortlessly learned. How about a quotation on money? You click on the index of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations , and before you know it, you’ve begun your paper with, “As Samuel Butler wrote in Hudibras ,  ‘For what is worth in anything/ But so much money as ’t will bring?’” Face it, you’re faking it. You don’t know who Samuel Butler is, and you’ve certainly never heard of Hudibras , let alone read it. Your professor is not fooled. You sound like an insecure after-dinner speaker. Forget Bartlett’s, unless you're confirming the wording of a quotation that came to you spontaneously and relates to your paper.  Encyclopedia abuse. General encyclopedias like Britannica are useful for checking facts (“Wait a sec, am I right about which countries sent troops to crush the Boxer Rebellion in China? Better check.”). But if you are footnoting encyclopedias in your papers, you are not doing college-level research.

Dictionary Abuse. The dictionary is your friend. Keep it by your side as you write, but do not abuse it by starting papers with a definition. You may be most tempted to start this way when you are writing on a complex, controversial, or elusive subject. (“According to Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary , liberalism is defined as...”). Actually, the dictionary does you little good in such cases and makes you sound like a conscientious but dull high-school student. Save in the rare case that competing dictionary definitions are the subject at hand, keep dictionary quotations out of your paper.

Quote sparingly

Avoid quoting a secondary source and then simply rewording or summarizing the quotation, either above or below the quotation. It is rarely necessary to quote secondary sources at length, unless your essay focuses on a critical analysis of the author’s argument. (See also: Writing a Book Review ) Your professor wants to see your ability to analyze and to understand the secondary sources. Do not quote unless the quotation clarifies or enriches your analysis. When in doubt, do not quote; instead, integrate the author’s argument into your own (though be sure to acknowledge ideas from your sources, even when you are paraphrasing). If you use a lot of quotations from secondary sources, you are probably writing a poor paper. An analysis of a primary source, such as a political tract or philosophical essay, might require lengthy quotations, often in block format. In such cases, you might need to briefly repeat key points or passages as a means to introduce the author’s ideas, but your analysis and interpretation of the text’s meaning should remain the most important aim. (See also: Using primary sources and Use scholarly secondary sources .)

Know your audience

Unless instructed otherwise, you should assume that your audience consists of educated, intelligent, nonspecialists. In fact, your professor will usually be your only reader, but if you write directly to your professor, you may become cryptic or sloppy (oh well, she’ll know what I’m talking about). Explaining your ideas to someone who doesn't know what you mean forces you to be clear and complete. Now, finding the right amount of detail can, admittedly, be tricky (how much do I put in about the Edict of Nantes, the Embargo Act, or President Wilson’s background?). When in doubt, err on the side of putting in extra details. You’ll get some leeway here if you avoid the extremes (my reader’s an ignoramus/my reader knows everything).

Avoid cheap, anachronistic moralizing

Many of the people and institutions of the past appear unenlightened, ignorant, misguided, or bigoted by today’s values. Resist the temptation to condemn or to get self-righteous. (“Martin Luther was blind to the sexism and class prejudice of sixteenth-century German society.”) Like you, people in the past were creatures of their time; like you, they deserve to be judged by the standards of their time. If you judge the past by today’s standards (an error historians call “presentism”), you will never understand why people thought or acted as they did. Yes, Hitler was a bad guy, but he was bad not only by today’s standards, but also by the commonly accepted standards of his own time. Someday you’re going to look pretty foolish and ignorant yourself. (“Early twenty-first century Hamilton students failed to see the shocking inderdosherism [that’s right, you don’t recognize the concept because it doesn’t yet exist] implicit in their career plans.”)

Have a strong conclusion

Obviously, you should not just stop abruptly as though you have run out of time or ideas. Your conclusion should conclude something. If you merely restate briefly what you have said in your paper, you give the impression that you are unsure of the significance of what you have written. A weak conclusion leaves the reader unsatisfied and bewildered, wondering why your paper was worth reading. A strong conclusion adds something to what you said in your introduction. A strong conclusion explains the importance and significance of what you have written. A strong conclusion leaves your reader caring about what you have said and pondering the larger implications of your thesis. Don’t leave your reader asking, “So what?”

Revise and proofread

Your professor can spot a “one-draft wonder,” so don't try to do your paper at the last moment. Leave plenty of time for revising and proofreading. Show your draft to a writing tutor or other good writer. Reading the draft aloud may also help. Of course, everyone makes mistakes, and a few may slip through no matter how meticulous you are. But beware of lots of mistakes. The failure to proofread carefully suggests that you devoted little time and effort to the assignment. Tip: Proofread your text both on the screen and on a printed copy. Your eyes see the two differently. Don’t rely on your spell checker to catch all of your misspellings. (If ewe ken reed this ewe kin sea that a computer wood nut all ways help ewe spill or rite reel good.)

Note: The Writing Center suggests standard abbreviations for noting some of these problems. You should familiarize yourself with those abbreviations, but your professor may not use them.  

Remarks on Style and Clarity

Wordy/verbose/repetitive..

Try your hand at fixing this sentence: “Due to the fact that these aspects of the issue of personal survival have been raised by recently transpired problematic conflicts, it is at the present time paramount that the ultimate psychological end of suicide be contemplated by this individual.” If you get it down to “To be or not to be, that is the question,” you’ve done well. You may not match Shakespeare, but you can learn to cut the fat out of your prose. The chances are that the five pages you’ve written for your history paper do not really contain five pages’ worth of ideas.

Misuse of the passive voice.

Write in the active voice. The passive voice encourages vagueness and dullness; it enfeebles verbs; and it conceals agency, which is the very stuff of history. You know all of this almost instinctively. What would you think of a lover who sighed in your ear, “My darling, you are loved by me!”? At its worst, the passive voice—like its kin, bureaucratic language and jargon—is a medium for the dishonesty and evasion of responsibility that pervade contemporary American culture. (“Mistakes were made; I was given false information.” Now notice the difference: “I screwed up; Smith and Jones lied to me; I neglected to check the facts.”) On history papers the passive voice usually signals a less toxic version of the same unwillingness to take charge, to commit yourself, and to say forthrightly what is really going on, and who is doing what to whom. Suppose you write, “In 1935 Ethiopia was invaded.” This sentence is a disaster. Who invaded? Your professor will assume that you don't know. Adding “by Italy” to the end of the sentence helps a bit, but the sentence is still flat and misleading. Italy was an aggressive actor, and your passive construction conceals that salient fact by putting the actor in the syntactically weakest position—at the end of the sentence as the object of a preposition. Notice how you add vigor and clarity to the sentence when you recast it in the active voice: "In 1935 Italy invaded Ethiopia." I n a few cases , you may violate the no-passive-voice rule. The passive voice may be preferable if the agent is either obvious (“Kennedy was elected in 1960”), irrelevant (“Theodore Roosevelt became president when McKinley was assassinated”), or unknown (“King Harold was killed at the Battle of Hastings”). Note that in all three of these sample sentences the passive voice focuses the reader on the receiver of the action rather than on the doer (on Kennedy, not on American voters; on McKinley, not on his assassin; on King Harold, not on the unknown Norman archer). Historians usually wish to focus on the doer, so you should stay with the active voice—unless you can make a compelling case for an exception.

Abuse of the verb to be.

The verb to be is the most common and most important verb in English, but too many verbs to be suck the life out of your prose and lead to wordiness. Enliven your prose with as many action verbs as possible. ( “In Brown v. Board of Education it was the opinion of the Supreme Court that the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ was in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.”) Rewrite as “ In Brown v. Board of Education the Supreme Court ruled that the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ violated the Fourteenth ”

Explain/what’s your point?/unclear/huh?

You may (or may not) know what you’re talking about, but if you see these marginal comments, you have confused your reader. You may have introduced a non sequitur ; gotten off the subject; drifted into abstraction; assumed something that you have not told the reader; failed to explain how the material relates to your argument; garbled your syntax; or simply failed to proofread carefully.  If possible, have a good writer read your paper and point out the muddled parts. Reading your paper aloud may help too.

Paragraph goes nowhere/has no point or unity.

Paragraphs are the building blocks of your paper. If your paragraphs are weak, your paper cannot be strong. Try underlining the topic sentence of every paragraph. If your topic sentences are vague, strength and precision—the hallmarks of good writing—are unlikely to follow. Consider this topic sentence (from a paper on Ivan the Terrible): “From 1538 to 1547, there are many different arguments about the nature of what happened.”  Disaster looms. The reader has no way of knowing when the arguing takes place, who’s arguing, or even what the arguing is about. And how does the “nature of what happened” differ from plain “what happened”? Perhaps the writer means the following: “The childhood of Ivan the Terrible has provoked controversy among scholars of Russian history.” That's hardly deathless prose, but it does orient the reader and make the writer accountable for what follows in the paragraph. Once you have a good topic sentence, make sure that everything in the paragraph supports that sentence, and that cumulatively the support is persuasive. Make sure that each sentence follows logically from the previous one, adding detail in a coherent order. Move, delete, or add material as appropriate. To avoid confusing the reader, limit each paragraph to one central idea. (If you have a series of supporting points starting with first, you must follow with a second, third , etc.) A paragraph that runs more than a printed page is probably too long. Err on the side of shorter paragraphs.

Inappropriate use of first person.

Most historians write in the third person, which focuses the reader on the subject. If you write in the first person singular, you shift the focus to yourself. You give the impression that you want to break in and say, “Enough about the Haitian revolution [or whatever], now let’s talk about me!” Also avoid the first person plural (“We believe...”). It suggests committees, editorial boards, or royalty. None of those should have had a hand in writing your paper. And don’t refer to yourself lamely as “this writer.” Who else could possibly be writing the paper?

Tense inconsistency.

Stay consistently in the past tense when you are writing about what took place in the past. (“Truman’s defeat of Dewey in 1948 caught the pollsters by surprise.”) Note that the context may require a shift into the past perfect. (“The pollsters had not realized [past perfect] that voter opinion had been [past perfect] changing rapidly in the days before the election.”) Unfortunately, the tense problem can get a bit more complicated. Most historians shift into the present tense when describing or commenting on a book, document, or evidence that still exists and is in front of them (or in their mind) as they write.  (“de Beauvoir published [past tense] The Second Sex in 1949. In the book she contends [present tense] that woman....”) If you’re confused, think of it this way: History is about the past, so historians write in the past tense, unless they are discussing effects of the past that still exist and thus are in the present. When in doubt, use the past tense and stay consistent.

Ill-fitted quotation.

This is a common problem, though not noted in stylebooks. When you quote someone, make sure that the quotation fits grammatically into your sentence.  Note carefully the mismatch between the start of the following sentence and the quotation that follows:  “In order to understand the Vikings, writes Marc Bloch, it is necessary, ‘To conceive of the Viking expeditions as religious warfare inspired by the ardour of an implacable pagan fanaticism—an explanation that has sometimes been at least suggested—conflicts too much with what we know of minds disposed to respect magic of every kind.’” At first, the transition into the quotation from Bloch seems fine. The infinitive (to conceive) fits. But then the reader comes to the verb (conflicts) in Bloch’s sentence, and things no longer make sense. The writer is saying, in effect, “it is necessary conflicts.” The wordy lead-in and the complex syntax of the quotation have tripped the writer and confused the reader. If you wish to use the whole sentence, rewrite as “Marc Bloch writes in Feudal Society , ‘To conceive of...’” Better yet, use your own words or only part of the quotation in your sentence. Remember that good writers quote infrequently, but when they do need to quote, they use carefully phrased lead-ins that fit the grammatical construction of the quotation.

Free-floating quotation.

Do not suddenly drop quotations into your prose. (“The spirit of the Progressive era is best understood if one remembers that the United States is ‘the only country in the world that began with perfection and aspired to progress.’”) You have probably chosen the quotation because it is finely wrought and says exactly what you want to say. Fine, but first you inconvenience the reader, who must go to the footnote to learn that the quotation comes from The Age of Reform by historian Richard Hofstadter. And then you puzzle the reader. Did Hofstadter write the line about perfection and progress, or is he quoting someone from the Progressive era? If, as you claim, you are going to help the reader to judge the “spirit of the Progressive era,” you need to clarify. Rewrite as “As historian Richard Hofstadter writes in the Age of Reform , the United States is ‘the only country in the world...’” Now the reader knows immediately that the line is Hofstadter’s.

Who’s speaking here?/your view?

Always be clear about whether you’re giving your opinion or that of the author or historical actor you are discussing. Let’s say that your essay is about Martin Luther’s social views. You write, “The German peasants who revolted in 1525 were brutes and deserved to be crushed mercilessly.” That’s what Luther thought, but do you agree?  You may know, but your reader is not a mind reader. When in doubt, err on the side of being overly clear.

Jargon/pretentious theory.

Historians value plain English. Academic jargon and pretentious theory will make your prose turgid, ridiculous, and downright irritating. Your professor will suspect that you are trying to conceal that you have little to say. Of course, historians can’t get along without some theory; even those who profess to have no theory actually do—it’s called naïve realism. And sometimes you need a technical term, be it ontological argument or ecological fallacy. When you use theory or technical terms, make sure that they are intelligible and do real intellectual lifting.  Please, no sentences like this: “By means of a neo-Althusserian, post-feminist hermeneutics, this essay will de/construct the logo/phallo/centrism imbricated in the marginalizing post-colonial gendered gaze, thereby proliferating the subjectivities that will re/present the de/stabilization of the essentializing habitus of post-Fordist capitalism.”

Informal language/slang.

You don’t need to be stuffy, but stay with formal English prose of the kind that will still be comprehensible to future generations. Columbus did not “push the envelope in the Atlantic.” Henry VIII was not “looking for his inner child when he broke with the Church.” Prime Minister Cavour of Piedmont was not “trying to play in the major leagues diplomatic wise.” Wilson did not “almost veg out” at the end of his second term. President Hindenburg did not appoint Hitler in a “senior moment.” Prime Minister Chamberlain did not tell the Czechs to “chill out” after the Munich Conference, and Gandhi was not an “awesome dude.”

Try to keep your prose fresh. Avoid cliches. When you proofread, watch out for sentences like these: “Voltaire always gave 110 percent and thought outside the box. His bottom line was that as people went forward into the future, they would, at the end of the day, step up to the plate and realize that the Jesuits were conniving perverts.” Ugh. Rewrite as “Voltaire tried to persuade people that the Jesuits were cony, step up to the plate and realize that the Jesuits were conniving perverts.” Ugh. Rewrite as “Voltaire tried to persuade people that the Jesuits were conniving perverts.”

Intensifier abuse/exaggeration.

Avoid inflating your prose with unsustainable claims of size, importance, uniqueness, certainty, or intensity. Such claims mark you as an inexperienced writer trying to impress the reader. Your statement is probably not certain ; your subject probably not unique , the biggest, the best, or the most important. Also, the adverb very will rarely strengthen your sentence. Strike it. (“President Truman was very determined to stop the spread of communism in Greece.”) Rewrite as “President Truman resolved to stop the spread of communism in Greece.”

Mixed image.

Once you have chosen an image, you must stay with language compatible with that image. In the following example, note that the chain, the boiling, and the igniting are all incompatible with the image of the cold, rolling, enlarging snowball: “A snowballing chain of events boiled over, igniting the powder keg of war in 1914.” Well chosen images can enliven your prose, but if you catch yourself mixing images a lot, you're probably trying to write beyond your ability. Pull back. Be more literal.

Clumsy transition.

If your reader feels a jolt or gets disoriented at the beginning of a new paragraph, your paper probably lacks unity. In a good paper, each paragraph is woven seamlessly into the next. If you find yourself beginning your paragraphs with phrases such as “Another aspect of this problem...,” then you are probably “stacking note cards” rather than developing a thesis.

Unnecessary relative clause.

If you don’t need to restrict the meaning of your sentence’s subject, then don’t. (“Napoleon was a man who tried to conquer Europe.”) Here the relative clause adds nothing. Rewrite as “Napoleon tried to conquer Europe.” Unnecessary relative clauses are a classic form of wordiness.

Distancing or demeaning quotation marks.

If you believe that a frequently used word or phrase distorts historical reality, don’t put it in dismissive, sneering quotation marks to make your point (“the communist ‘threat’ to the ‘free’ world during the Cold War”). Many readers find this practice arrogant, obnoxious, and precious, and they may dismiss your arguments out of hand. If you believe that the communist threat was bogus or exaggerated, or that the free world was not really free, then simply explain what you mean.

Remarks on Grammar and Syntax

Ideally, your professor will help you to improve your writing by specifying exactly what is wrong with a particular passage, but  sometimes you may find a simple awk in the margin. This all-purpose negative comment usually suggests that the sentence is clumsy because you have misused words or compounded several errors. Consider this sentence from a book review:

“However, many falsehoods lie in Goldhagen’s claims and these will be explored.”

What is your long-suffering professor to do with this sentence? The however contributes nothing; the phrase falsehoods lie is an unintended pun that distracts the reader; the comma is missing between the independent clauses; the these has no clear antecedent ( falsehoods? claims? ); the second clause is in the passive voice and contributes nothing anyway; the whole sentence is wordy and screams hasty, last-minute composition. In weary frustration, your professor scrawls awk in the margin and moves on. Buried under the twelve-word sentence lies a three-word idea: “Goldhagen often errs.” When you see awk, check for the common errors in this list. If you don’t understand what’s wrong, ask.

Unclear antecedent.

All pronouns must refer clearly to antecedents and must agree with them in number. The reader usually assumes that the antecedent is the immediately preceding noun. Do not confuse the reader by having several possible antecedents. Consider these two sentences:

“Pope Gregory VII forced Emperor Henry IV to wait three days in the snow at Canossa before granting him an audience. It was a symbolic act.”

To what does the it refer? Forcing the Emperor to wait? The waiting itself? The granting of the audience? The audience itself? The whole previous sentence? You are most likely to get into antecedent trouble when you begin a paragraph with this or it , referring vaguely back to the general import of the previous paragraph. When in doubt, take this test: Circle the pronoun and the antecedent and connect the two with a line. Then ask yourself if your reader could instantly make the same diagram without your help. If the line is long, or if the circle around the antecedent is large, encompassing huge gobs of text, then your reader probably will be confused.  Rewrite. Repetition is better than ambiguity and confusion.

Faulty parallelism.

You confuse your reader if you change the grammatical construction from one element to the next in a series. Consider this sentence:

“King Frederick the Great sought to expand Prussia, to rationalize agriculture, and that the state support education.”

The reader expects another infinitive, but instead trips over the that . Rewrite the last clause as “and to promote state-supported education.” Sentences using neither/nor frequently present parallelism problems. Note the two parts of this sentence:

“After 1870 the cavalry charge was neither an effective tactic, nor did armies use it frequently.”

The sentence jars because the neither is followed by a noun, the nor by a verb. Keep the parts parallel.

Rewrite as “After 1870 the cavalry charge was neither effective nor frequently used.”

Sentences with not only/but also are another pitfall for many students. (“Mussolini attacked not only liberalism, but he also advocated militarism.”) Here the reader is set up to expect a noun in the second clause, but stumbles over a verb. Make the parts parallel by putting the verb attacked after the not only .

Misplaced modifier/dangling element.

Do not confuse the reader with a phrase or clause that refers illogically or absurdly to other words in the sentence. (“Summarized on the back cover of the American paperback edition, the publishers claim that...”) The publishers are not summarized on the back cover. (“Upon finishing the book, many questions remain.”) Who finished the book? Questions can’t read. Avoid following an introductory participial clause with the expletives it or there . Expletives are by definition filler words; they can’t be agents. (“Having examined the origins of the Meiji Restoration in Japan, it is apparent that...”) Apparent to whom?  The expletive it didn’t do the examining. (“After going on the Long March, there was greater support for the Communists in China.”) Who went on the Long March? There didn’t go on the Long March. Always pay attention to who’s doing what in your sentences.

Run-on sentence.

Run-on sentences string together improperly joined independent clauses. Consider these three sentences:

“Galileo recanted his teaching that the earth moved privately he maintained his convictions.” “Galileo recanted his teaching that the earth moved, privately he maintained his convictions.” “Galileo recanted his teaching that the earth moved, however, privately he maintained his convictions.”

The first fuses two independent clauses with neither a comma nor a coordinating conjunction; the second uses a comma but omits the coordinating conjunction; and the third also omits the coordinating conjunction (however is not a coordinating conjunction). To solve the problem, separate the two clauses with a comma and the coordinating conjunction but. You could also divide the clauses with a semicolon or make separate sentences. Remember that there are only seven coordinating conjunctions ( and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet ).

Sentence fragment.

Write in sentences. A sentence has to have a subject and a predicate. If you string together a lot of words, you may lose control of the syntax and end up with a sentence fragment. Note that the following is not a sentence:

“While in Western Europe railroad building proceeded rapidly in the nineteenth century, and in Russia there was less progress.”

Here you have a long compound introductory clause followed by no subject and no verb, and thus you have a fragment. You may have noticed exceptions to the no-fragments rule. Skilful writers do sometimes intentionally use a fragment to achieve a certain effect. Leave the rule-breaking to the experts.

Confusion of restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses.

Consider these two versions of the same sentence:

1. “World War I, which raged from 1914-1918, killed millions of Europeans.” 2. “World War I that raged from 1914-1918 killed millions of Europeans.”

The first sentence has a nonrestrictive relative clause; the dates are included almost as parenthetical information. But something seems amiss with the second sentence. It has a restrictive relative clause that limits the subject (World War I) to the World War I fought between 1914 and 1918, thus implying that there were other wars called World War I, and that we need to distinguish among them. Both sentences are grammatically correct, but the writer of the second sentence appears foolish.  Note carefully the distinction between that (for use in restrictive clauses, with no comma) and which (for use in nonrestrictive clauses, with a comma).

Confusion about who’s doing what.

Remember—history is about what people do, so you need to be vigilant about agency. Proofread your sentences carefully, asking yourself, “Have I said exactly who is doing or thinking what, or have I inadvertently attributed an action or belief to the wrong person or group?” Unfortunately, there are many ways to go wrong here, but faulty punctuation is among the most common. Here’s a sentence about Frantz Fanon, the great critic of European imperialism. Focus on the punctuation and its effect on agency: “Instead of a hierarchy based on class, Fanon suggests the imperialists establish a hierarchy based on race.” As punctuated, the sentence says something absurd: that Fanon is advising the imperialists about the proper kind of hierarchy to establish in the colonies. Surely, the writer meant to say that, in his analysis of imperialism, Fanon distinguishes between two kinds of hierarchy. A comma after suggests fixes the immediate problem. Now look at the revised sentence. It still needs work. Better diction and syntax would sharpen it.  Fanon does not suggest (with connotations of both hinting and advocating); he states outright. What’s more, the comparison of the two kinds of hierarchy gets blurred by too many intervening words. The key point of the sentence is, in effect, “instead of A, we have B.” Clarity demands that B follow A as closely as possible, and that the two elements be grammatically parallel. But between the elements A and B, the writer inserts Fanon (a proper noun), suggests (a verb), imperialists (a noun), and establish (a verb). Try the sentence this way: “Fanon says that the imperialists establish a hierarchy based on race rather than class.” Now the agency is clear: We know what Fanon does, and we know what the imperialists do. Notice that errors and infelicities have a way of clustering. If you find one problem in a sentence, look for others.

Confusion about the objects of prepositions.

Here’s another one of those common problems that does not receive the attention it merits. Discipline your prepositional phrases; make sure you know where they end. Notice the mess in this sentence: “Hitler accused Jewish people of engaging in incest and stating that Vienna was the ‘personification of incest.’” The reader thinks that both engaging and stating are objects of the preposition of. Yet the writer intends only the first to be the object of the preposition. Hitler is accusing the Jews of engaging , but not of stating ; he is the one doing the stating . Rewrite as “Hitler accused the Jews of incest; he stated that Vienna was the ‘personification of incest.’” Note that the wordiness of the original encouraged the syntactical mess. Simplify. It can’t be said too many times: Always pay attention to who’s doing what in your sentences.

Misuse of the comparative.

There are two common problems here. The first might be called the “floating comparative.” You use the comparative, but you don’t say what you are comparing. (“Lincoln was more upset by the dissolution of the union.”) More upset than by what? More upset than who? The other problem, which is more common and takes many forms, is the unintended (and sometimes comical) comparison of unlike elements. Consider these attempts to compare President Clinton to President George H. W. Bush. Often the trouble starts with a possessive:

“President Clinton’s sexual appetite was more voracious than President Bush.”

You mean to compare appetites, but you've forgotten about your possessive, so you absurdly compare an appetite to a man. Rewrite as “more voracious than President Bush’s.” A variation of this problem is the unintended comparison resulting from the omission of a verb:

“President Clinton liked women more than President Bush.”

Re-write as “more than did President Bush.”

A misplaced modifier may also cause comparison trouble: “Unlike the Bush administration, sexual scandal nearly destroyed the Clinton administration.” Rewrite as  “Unlike the Bush administration, the Clinton administration was nearly destroyed by sexual scandal.” Here the passive voice is better than the misplaced modifier, but you could rewrite as “The Bush administration had been free of sexual scandal, which nearly destroyed the Clinton administration.”

Misuse of apostrophe.

Get control of your apostrophes. Use the apostrophe to form singular or plural possessives (Washington’s soldiers; the colonies’ soldiers) or to form contractions (don’t; it’s). Do not use the apostrophe to form plurals. (“The communists [not communists’] defeated the nationalists [not nationalists’] in China.”)

Comma after although.

This is a new error, probably a carryover from the common conversational habit of pausing dramatically after although . ( “Although , coffee consumption rose in eighteenth-century Europe, tea remained far more popular.”) Delete the comma after although . Remember that although is not a synonym for the word however , so you cannot solve the problem in the sentence by putting a period after Europe . A clause beginning with although cannot stand alone as a sentence.

Comma between subject and verb.

This is a strange new error. (“Hitler and Stalin, agreed to a pact in August 1939.”) Delete the comma after Stalin. Finally, two hints: If your word-processing program underlines something and suggests changes, be careful. When it comes to grammar and syntax, your computer is a moron. Not only does it fail to recognize some gross errors, it also falsely identifies some correct passages as errors. Do not cede control of your writing decisions to your computer. Make the suggested changes only if you are positive that they are correct. If you are having trouble with your writing, try simplifying. Write short sentences and read them aloud to test for clarity. Start with the subject and follow it quickly with an active verb. Limit the number of relative clauses, participial phrases, adjectives, adverbs, and prepositional phrases. You will win no prizes for eloquence, but at least you will be clear. Add complexity only when you have learned to handle it.

An historical/an historian.

The consonant “H” is not silent in historical and historian , so the proper form of the indefinite article is “A.”

Avoid the common solecism of using feel as a synonym for think, believe, say, state, assert, contend, argue, conclude, or write. (“Marx felt that the bourgeoisie exploited the proletariat.” “Emmeline Pankhurst felt that British women should be able to vote.”) The use of feel in these sentences demeans the agents by suggesting undisciplined sentiment rather than carefully formulated conviction. Concentrate on what your historical actors said and did; leave their feelings to speculative chapters of their biographies. As for your own feelings, keep them out of your papers. (“I feel that Lincoln should have freed the slaves earlier.”) Your professor will be delighted that the material engages both your head and your heart, but your feelings cannot be graded. If you believe that Lincoln should have acted earlier, then explain, giving cogent historical reasons.

The fact that.

This is a clumsy, unnecessary construction. ( “The fact that Nixon resigned in disgrace damaged the Republican Party.”) Re-word as “Nixon resigned in disgrace, damaging the Republican Party.” Never use the hideous phrase due to the fact that.

In terms of.

This phrase is filler. Get rid of it. (“Bismarck was a success in terms of uniting Germany.) Rewrite as “Bismarck successfully united Germany.”

Attend carefully to the placement of this limiting word. Note, for example, these three sentences:

“The government only interred Japanese Americans during World War II.” “The government interred only Japanese Americans during World War II.” “The government interred Japanese Americans only during World War II.”

The first limits the action to interring (as opposed to, say, killing); the second limits the group interred (i.e., not Italian Americans); the third limits the time of interring (i.e., not during other wars).

Thus and therefore.

More than likely, you have not earned these words and are implying that you have said more than you actually have. Use them sparingly, only when you are concluding a substantial argument with a significant conclusion.

Misuse of instead.

Instead is an adverb, not a conjunction. Consider this sentence: “Charles Beard argued that the framers of the constitution were not idealists, instead they promoted their economic interests.” Revise as “The framers of the constitution, Charles Beard argued, did not uphold ideals; instead , they promoted their economic interests.” Now the instead appears properly as an adverb. (Note also that the two clauses are now parallel—both contain transitive verbs.)

Essentially and basically.

These are usually either filler words (the written equivalent of “uh” or “um”) or weasel words that merely call attention to your vagueness, lack of conviction, or lazy unwillingness to qualify precisely. (“ Essentially , Churchill believed that Nazi Germany presented a grave danger to Britain.”) Delete essentially and basically unless you are writing about essences or bases.

Both share or both agree.

These are redundant. If two people share or agree , they are both involved by definition. (“Stalin and Mao both agreed that capitalism belonged in the dustbin of history.”) Delete both .

This word means one of a kind. It is an absolute. Something cannot be very unique, more unique, or somewhat unique.

Incredible.

In casual conversation incredible often means extraordinary, astonishing, or impressive (“Yesterday’s storm was incredible.”). To avoid confusion in historical prose, you should stick with the original meaning of incredible : not believable. If you write that “William Jennings Bryan gave incredible speeches,” you’re saying that you don’t believe his speeches, or that his audiences didn’t believe them at the time—in other words, that he appeared to be lying or mistaken. You probably mean that he gave great speeches. If you write that “It’s incredible that Japan attacked Pearl Harbor,” you’re calling into question the very existence of a historical event. You probably mean that the Japanese attack was unwise or reckless. English is rich with adjectives. Finding the best one forces you to think about what you really mean.

As a synonym for subject matter, bone of contention, reservation, or almost anything else vaguely associated with what you are discussing, the word issue has lost its meaning through overuse. (“There were many issues involved with Truman’s decision to use the atomic bomb, and some historians have issues with his decision.”) Stop talking about issues and get to the point.

Beware of the word literally . It’s commonly misused, and you almost never need it in historical prose. Literally means actually, factually, exactly, directly, without metaphor. The careful writer would never say, “Roosevelt literally swamped Landon in the election of 1936.” One imagines Roosevelt (in his wheelchair no less!) dumping the hapless Landon off a pier in the Everglades on election night. The swamping was figurative, strictly a figure of speech. The adverb literally may also cause you trouble by falsely generalizing the coverage of your verb. “London was literally destroyed by the blitz.” This suggests that the whole city was destroyed, when, in fact, only parts were destroyed. Rewrite as “The blitz destroyed parts of London.” Now you’ve qualified properly (and gotten rid of the passive).

When you’re tempted to use this word, resist. Like issue , involve tells the reader too little. (“Erasmus was involved in the Renaissance.”) This statement could mean virtually anything. Delete it and discuss specifically what Erasmus said or did.

This is a fine old word with many precise meanings, but as an overused synonym for feature, side, or part, it is usually a sign of insipid prose (“Another aspect of the issues in this area is the fact that...”). Just get directly to the point.

Most good writers frown on the use of this word as a verb.(“Eisenhower’s military background impacted his foreign policy.”) Affected, influenced, or shaped would be better here. Impacted suggests painfully blocked wisdom teeth or feces. Had an impact is better than impacted , but is still awkward because impact implies a collision.

Here is another beloved but vapid word. (“Many factors led to the Reformation.”) Such a sentence usually opens a vague, boring, weaseling paragraph. If you believe (quite reasonably) that the Reformation had many causes, then start evaluating them.

Meaningful.

Overuse has drained the meaning from meaningful . (“Peter the Great took meaningful steps to westernize Russia.”) Just get to the point.

Interesting.

The adjective interesting is vague, overused, and does not earn its keep. (“Burckhardt had an interesting perspective on the Renaissance.”) This sentence is filler. Delete it and explain and analyze his perspective.

The events that transpired.

Your professor will gag on this one. Events take place or happen by definition, so the relative clause is redundant. Furthermore, most good writers do not accept transpire as a synonym for happen. Again, follow the old rule of thumb: Get right to the point, say what happened, and explain its significance. You don’t need any filler about events and transpiring .

The reason is because.

This phrase is awkward and redundant. Replace it with the reason is, or better still, simply delete it and get right to your reason.

For all intensive purposes.

The phrase is for all intents and purposes , and few good writers use it in formal prose anyway.

Take for granite.

This is an illiteracy. The phrase is “ take for granted .”

Should of/could of.

You mean should have or could have .

Center around.

Good writers frown on this phrase because it’s illogical and jarring. Use center on or center in. Attention to a small detail like this indicates that you’re thinking carefully about what you’re saying, so when the big problems confront you, you’ll be disciplined and ready.

Begs the question.

Recently, many people have started to use this phrase to mean raises, invites, or brings up the question. (“Stalin’s purges beg the question of whether he was paranoid.”) Actually, begging the question is the common logical fallacy of assuming your conclusion as part of your argument. (“In the late nineteenth century, many Americans moved to the cities because of urbanization.”) Note that the use of abstractions (e.g., urbanization) encourages begging the question . Understanding this fallacy is central to your education. The formal Latin term, petitio principii, is too fancy to catch on, so you need to preserve the simple English phrase. If something raises a question, just say so.

Historic/historical confusion.

Everything in the past or relating to the past is historical. Resist the media-driven hype that elevates the ordinary to the historic . (“A three-alarm fire last night destroyed the historic site of the first Portuguese-owned dry cleaners in Cleveland.”) Reserve the word historic for the genuinely important events, persons, or objects of the past. The Norman invasion of England in 1066 was indeed historic . Historically , historians have gathered annually for a historical convention; so far, none of the conventions has been historic .

Affect/effect confusion.

The chances are that the verb you want is affect , which means to have an influence on (“The Iranian hostage crisis affected [not effected] the presidential election of 1980”). Effect as a verb means to bring about or cause to exist ( effect change). Effect as a noun means result or consequence (“The effect of the Iranian hostage crisis on the election...”).

While/whereas confusion.

If you’re stressing contrast, the word you want is whereas . While stresses simultaneity. “Hobbes had a dismal view of human nature, whereas [not while] Rousseau believed that man had a natural sense of pity.”

It’s/its confusion.

This is the classic bonehead error. Note that the spell checker won’t help you. And remember— its’ is not a word at all.

Reign/rein confusion.

A queen reigns during her reign. You rein in a horse with reins.

Their/there/they’re confusion.

You do know the difference. Pay attention.

Everyday/every day confusion.

As an adjective, everyday (one word) means routine. If you wish to say that something happened on every successive day, then you need two words, the adjective every and the noun day . Note the difference in these two sentences: “Kant was famous for going on the same constitutional at the same time every day . For Kant, exercise and thinking were everyday activities.”

Refer/allude confusion.

To allude means to refer to indirectly or to hint at. The word you probably want in historical prose is refer , which means to mention or call direct attention to. “In the first sentence of the ‘Gettysburg Address’ Lincoln refers [not alludes ] to the fathers of the nation [he mentions them directly]; he alludes to the ‘Declaration of Independence’ [the document of four score and seven years earlier that comes to the reader’s mind, but that Lincoln doesn’t directly mention].”

Novel/book confusion.

Novel is not a synonym for book. A novel is a long work of fiction in prose. A historical monograph is not a novel —unless the historian is making everything up.

Than/then confusion.

This is an appalling new error. If you are making a comparison, you use the conjunction than . (“President Kennedy’s health was worse than [not then ] the public realized.”)

Lead/led confusion.

The past tense of the verb to lead is led (not lead ). “Sherman led [not lead ] a march to the sea.”

Lose/loose confusion.

The opposite of win is lose , not loose . “Supporters of the Equal Rights Amendment suspected that they would lose [not loose ] the battle to amend the constitution.”

However/but confusion.

However may not substitute for the coordinating conjunction but. (“Mussolini began his career as a socialist, but [not however ] he later abandoned socialism for fascism.”) The word however has many proper uses; however , [note the semicolon and comma] graceful writers use it sparingly.

Cite/site/sight confusion.

You cited a source for your paper; ancient Britons sited Stonehenge on a plain; Columbus’s lookout sighted land.

Conscience/conscious confusion.

When you wake up in the morning you are conscious , though your conscience may bother you if you’ve neglected to write your history paper.

Tenet/tenant confusion.

Your religion, ideology, or worldview all have tenets —propositions you hold or believe in. Tenants rent from landlords.

All are not/not all are confusion.

If you write, “ All the colonists did not want to break with Britain in 1776,” the chances are you really mean, “ Not all the colonists wanted to break with Britain in 1776.” The first sentence is a clumsy way of saying that no colonists wanted to break with Britain (and is clearly false). The second sentence says that some colonists did not want to break with Britain (and is clearly true, though you should go on to be more precise).

Nineteenth-century/nineteenth century confusion.

Historians talk a lot about centuries, so you need to know when to hyphenate them. Follow the standard rule: If you combine two words to form a compound adjective, use a hyphen, unless the first word ends in ly. (“ Nineteenth-century [hyphenated] steamships cut the travel time across the Atlantic.”) Leave out the hyphen if you’re just using the ordinal number to modify the noun century. (“In the nineteenth century [no hyphen] steamships cut the travel time across the Atlantic.”) By the way, while you have centuries in mind, don’t forget that the nineteenth century is the 1800s, not the 1900s. The same rule for hyphenating applies to middle-class and middle class —a group that historians like to talk about.

Bourgeois/bourgeoisie confusion.

Bourgeois is usually an adjective, meaning characteristic of the middle class and its values or habits. Occasionally, bourgeois is a noun, meaning a single member of the middle class. Bourgeoisie is a noun, meaning the middle class collectively. (“Marx believed that the bourgeoisie oppressed the proletariat; he argued that bourgeois values like freedom and individualism were hypocritical.”)

Your professor may ask you to analyze a primary document. Here are some questions you might ask of your document. You will note a common theme—read critically with sensitivity to the context. This list is not a suggested outline for a paper; the wording of the assignment and the nature of the document itself should determine your organization and which of the questions are most relevant. Of course, you can ask these same questions of any document you encounter in your research.

• What exactly is the document (e.g., diary, king’s decree, opera score, bureaucratic memorandum, parliamentary minutes, newspaper article, peace treaty)?
• Are you dealing with the original or with a copy? If it is a copy, how remote is it from the original (e.g., photocopy of the original, reformatted version in a book, translation)? How might deviations from the original affect your interpretation?
• What is the date of the document?
• Is there any reason to believe that the document is not genuine or not exactly what it appears to be?
• Who is the author, and what stake does the author have in the matters discussed? If the document is unsigned, what can you infer about the author or authors?
• What sort of biases or blind spots might the author have? For example, is an educated bureaucrat writing with third-hand knowledge of rural hunger riots?
• Where, why, and under what circumstances did the author write the document?
• How might the circumstances (e.g., fear of censorship, the desire to curry favor or evade blame) have influenced the content, style, or tone of the document?
• Has the document been published? If so, did the author intend it to be published?
• If the document was not published, how has it been preserved? In a public archive? In a private collection? Can you learn anything from the way it has been preserved? For example, has it been treated as important or as a minor scrap of paper?
• Does the document have a boilerplate format or style, suggesting that it is a routine sample of a standardized genre, or does it appear out of the ordinary, even unique?
• Who is the intended audience for the document?
• What exactly does the document say? Does it imply something different?
• If the document represents more than one viewpoint, have you carefully distinguished between the author’s viewpoint and those viewpoints the author presents only to criticize or refute?
• In what ways are you, the historian, reading the document differently than its intended audience would have read it (assuming that future historians were not the intended audience)?
• What does the document leave out that you might have expected it to discuss?
• What does the document assume that the reader already knows about the subject (e.g., personal conflicts among the Bolsheviks in 1910, the details of tax farming in eighteenth-century Normandy, secret negotiations to end the Vietnam war)?
• What additional information might help you better interpret the document?
• Do you know (or are you able to infer) the effects or influences, if any, of the document?
• What does the document tell you about the period you are studying?
• If your document is part of an edited collection, why do you suppose the editor chose it? How might the editing have changed the way you perceive the document? For example, have parts been omitted? Has it been translated? (If so, when, by whom, and in what style?) Has the editor placed the document in a suggestive context among other documents, or in some other way led you to a particular interpretation?

Your professor may ask you to write a book review, probably of a scholarly historical monograph. Here are some questions you might ask of the book. Remember that a good review is critical, but critical does not necessarily mean negative. This list is not meant to be exhaustive, nor is it a suggested outline. Of course, you can ask these same questions of any secondary historical work, even if you’re not writing a review.

• Who is the author, and what are his or her qualifications? Has the author written other books on the subject?
• When was the book written, and how does it fit into the scholarly debate on the subject? For example, is Smith writing to refute that idiot Jones; to qualify the work of the competent but unimaginative Johnson; or to add humbly to the evidence presented by the redoubtable Brown’s classic study? Be sure not to confuse the author’s argument with those arguments he or she presents only to criticize later.
• What is the book’s basic argument? (Getting this right is the foundation of your review.)
• What is the author’s method? For example, does the author rely strictly on narrative and anecdotes, or is the book analytical in some way?
• What kinds of evidence does the author use? For example, what is the balance of primary and secondary sources? Has the author done archival work? Is the source base substantial, or does it look thin? Is the author up-to-date in the scholarly literature?
• How skillfully and imaginatively has the author used the evidence?
• Does the author actually use all of the material in the bibliography, or is some of it there for display?
• What sorts of explicit or implicit ideological or methodological assumptions does the author bring to the study? For example, does he or she profess bland objectivity? A Whig view of history? Marxism?
• How persuasive is the author’s argument?
• Is the argument new, or is it old wine in new bottles?
• Is the argument important, with wide-ranging implications, or is it narrow and trivial?
• Is the book well organized and skillfully written?
• What is your overall critical assessment of the book?
• What is the general significance, if any, of the book? (Make sure that you are judging the book that the author actually wrote, not complaining that the author should have written a different book.)

Here are some tips for those long, intimidating term papers or senior theses:

• Start early. If you don’t, none of these tips will matter. Big trouble is looming if you don’t have a specific topic by the end of the first week. You should be delving into the sources during the second week.
• Keep in mind all of the dos and don’ts in this booklet.
• Work closely with your professor to assure that your topic is neither too broad nor too narrow.
• Set up a schedule with your professor and check his or her policy about reading rough drafts or parts of rough drafts. Then keep your professor informed about what you’re doing. You don’t want any unpleasant surprises. You certainly don’t want to hear, “I haven’t seen you for weeks, and it sounds like you’re way off base. How can you possibly get this done with only two weeks left in the semester?”
• Make an appointment with Kristin Strohmeyer, the history reference librarian in Burke Library. She will help you to find and use the appropriate catalogs and indexes.
• Use your imagination in compiling a bibliography. Think of all of the possible key words and subjects that may lead you to material. If you find something really good, check the subjects under which it is cataloged. Comb the notes and bibliographies of books and articles you’ve already found.
• Much of what you need will not be in our library, so get to know the friendly folks in the Interlibrary Loan department.
• Start early. This can’t be said too often.
• Use as many primary sources as you can.
• Jot down your ideas as they come to you. You may not remember them later.
• Take careful notes on your reading. Label your notes completely and precisely. Distinguish meticulously and systematically between what you are directly quoting and what you are summarizing in your own words. Unintended plagiarism is still plagiarism. Stay clean as a hound’s tooth. Write down not just the page of the quotation or idea, but also the whole run of pages where the matter is discussed. Reread all of your notes periodically to make sure that you still understand them and are compiling what you will need to write your paper. Err on the side of writing down more than you think you will need. Copious, precise notes won’t come back to haunt you; skimpy, vague notes will. Just accept that there is something anal about good note-taking.
• If you take notes directly into your computer, they will be easy to index and pull up, but there are a couple of downsides. You will not be able to see all of them simultaneously, as you can note cards laid out on a big table. What you gain in ease of access may come at the price of losing the big picture. Also, if your notes are in your computer, you may be tempted to save time and thought by pasting many of them directly into your paper. Note cards encourage you to rethink and to rework your ideas into a unified whole.
• Don’t start to write until you have a good outline.
• Make sure that your paper has a thesis. (See the entry State a clear thesis. )
• Check and recheck your facts.
• Footnote properly. (See the entry Cite sources carefully .)
• Save plenty of time to proofread.
• Start early.

Top Ten Signs that you may be Writing a Weak History Paper

10. You’re overjoyed to find that you can fill the required pages by widening all margins.

9. You haven’t mentioned any facts or cited any sources for several paragraphs.

8. You find yourself using the phrase “throughout history mankind has...”

7. You just pasted in another 100 words of quotations.

6. You haven’t a clue about the content of your next paragraph.

5. You’re constantly clicking on The Britannica, Webster’s, and Bartlett’s.

4. Your writing tutor sneaks another look at her watch as she reminds you for the third time to clarify your thesis.

3. Your main historical actors are this, it, they, the people, and society, and they are all involved with factors, aspects, impacts, and issues.

2. You just realize that you don’t understand the assignment, but it’s 3:00 A.M, the paper is due at 9:00, and you don’t dare call your professor.

1. You’re relieved that the paper counts for only 20 percent of the course grade.

Final Advice

You guessed it — start early.

Studying History at Hamilton

Students will learn to use interdisciplinary methods from the humanities and social sciences to probe the sources of the past for answers to present questions. They will learn to draw comparisons and connections among diverse societies across a range of historical eras. They will further learn to convey their findings through writing that is clearly structured, precise, and persuasive.

Tutor Appointments

Peer tutor and consultant appointments are managed through TracCloud (login required). Find resources and more information about the ALEX centers using the following links.

Office / Department Name

Nesbitt-Johnston Writing Center

Contact Name

Jennifer Ambrose

Writing Center Director

Help us provide an accessible education, offer innovative resources and programs, and foster intellectual exploration.

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How to Write a History Research Paper

• How do I pick a topic?
• But I can’t find any material…

Research Guide

Writing guide.

See also: How to Write a Good History Essay

1. How do I pick a topic?

Picking a topic is perhaps the most important step in writing a research paper. To do it well requires several steps of refinement. First you have to determine a general area in which you have an interest (if you aren’t interested, your readers won’t be either). You do not write a paper “about the Civil War,” however, for that is such a large and vague concept that the paper will be too shallow or you will be swamped with information. The next step is to narrow your topic. Are you interested in comparison? battles? social change? politics? causes? biography? Once you reach this stage try to formulate your research topic as a question. For example, suppose that you decide to write a paper on the use of the films of the 1930’s and what they can tell historians about the Great Depression. You might turn that into the following question: “What are the primary values expressed in films of the 1930’s?” Or you might ask a quite different question, “What is the standard of living portrayed in films of the 1930’s?” There are other questions, of course, which you could have asked, but these two clearly illustrate how different two papers on the same general subject might be. By asking yourself a question as a means of starting research on a topic you will help yourself find the answers. You also open the door to loading the evidence one way or another. It will help you decide what kinds of evidence might be pertinent to your question, and it can also twist perceptions of a topic. For example, if you ask a question about economics as motivation, you are not likely to learn much about ideals, and vice versa.

2. But I can’t find any material…

No one should pick a topic without trying to figure out how one could discover pertinent information, nor should anyone settle on a topic before getting some background information about the general area. These two checks should make sure your paper is in the realm of the possible. The trick of good research is detective work and imaginative thinking on how one can find information. First try to figure out what kinds of things you should know about a topic to answer your research question. Are there statistics? Do you need personal letters? What background information should be included? Then if you do not know how to find that particular kind of information, ASK . A reference librarian or professor is much more likely to be able to steer you to the right sources if you can ask a specific question such as “Where can I find statistics on the number of interracial marriages?” than if you say “What can you find on racial attitudes?”

Use the footnotes and bibliographies of general background books as well as reference aids to lead you to special studies. If Carleton does not have the books or sources you need, try ordering through the library minitex. Many sources are also available on-line.

As your research paper takes shape you will find that you need background on people, places, events, etc. Do not just rely on some general survey for all of your background. Check the several good dictionaries of biography for background on people, or see if there is a standard book-length biography. If you are dealing with a legal matter check into the background of the judges who make the court decision and the circumstances surrounding the original incident or law. Try looking for public opinions in newspapers of the time. In other words, each bit of information you find should open the possibility of other research paths.

Learn to use several research techniques. You cannot count on a good research paper coming from browsing on one shelf at the library. A really pertinent book may be hidden in another section of the library due to classification quirks. The Readers’ Guide (Ref. A13 .R4) is not the only source for magazine articles, nor the card catalog for books. There are whole books which are listings of other books on particular topics. There are specialized indexes of magazine articles. Modern History Journals are indexed in the Social Studies and Humanities Index (Ref. A13 .R282) before 1976 After 1976 use the Social Sciences Index (REF A13 .S62) and the Humanities Index (Ref. A13 .H85). See also Historical Abstracts (Ref. D1 .H5). Reference Librarians would love to help you learn to use these research tools. It pays to browse in the reference room at the library and poke into the guides which are on the shelves. It also pays to browse the Internet.

3. Help! How do I put this together?

A. preliminary research:.

If you do not already have a general background on your topic, get the most recent good general source on the topic and read it for general orientation. On the basis of that reading formulate as clearly focused question as you can. You should generally discuss with your professor at that point whether your question is a feasible one.

B. Building a Basic Bibliography:

Use the bibliography/notes in your first general source, MUSE, and especially Historical Abstracts on cd-rom in the Library Reading Room (the computer farthest to the left in the front row as you walk past the Reference Desk — or ask there). If there is a specialized bibliography on your topic, you will certainly want to consult that as well, but these are often a bit dated.

C. Building a Full Bibliography:

Read the recent articles or chapters that seem to focus on your topic best. This will allow you to focus your research question quite a bit. Use the sources cited and/or discussed in this reading to build a full bibliography. Use such tools as Historical Abstracts (or, depending on your topic, the abstracts from a different field) and a large, convenient computer-based national library catalog (e.g. the University of California system from the “Libs” command in your VAX account or the smaller University of Minnesota library through MUSE) to check out your sources fully. For specific article searches “Uncover” (press returns for the “open access”) or possibly (less likely for history) “First Search” through “Connect to Other Resources” in MUSE can also be useful.

D. Major Research:

Now do the bulk of your research. But do not overdo it. Do not fall into the trap of reading and reading to avoid getting started on the writing. After you have the bulk of information you might need, start writing. You can fill in the smaller gaps of your research more effectively later.

A. Outline:

Write a preliminary thesis statement, expressing what you believe your major argument(s) will be. Sketch out a broad outline that indicates the structure — main points and subpoints or your argument as it seems at this time. Do not get too detailed at this point.

B. The First Draft:

On the basis of this thesis statement and outline, start writing, even pieces, as soon as you have enough information to start. Do not wait until you have filled all the research gaps. Keep on writing. If you run into smaller research questions just mark the text with a searchable symbol. It is important that you try to get to the end point of this writing as soon as possible, even if you leave pieces still in outline form at first and then fill the gaps after you get to the end.

Critical advice for larger papers: It is often more effective not to start at the point where the beginning of your paper will be. Especially the introductory paragraph is often best left until later, when you feel ready and inspired.

C. The Second Draft:

The “second draft” is a fully re-thought and rewritten version of your paper. It is at the heart of the writing process.

First, lay your first draft aside for a day or so to gain distance from it. After that break, read it over with a critical eye as you would somebody else’s paper (well, almost!). You will probably find that your first draft is still quite descriptive, rather than argumentative. It is likely to wander; your perspective and usually even the thesis seemed to change/develop as you wrote. Don’t despair. That is perfectly normal even for experienced writers (even after 40 years and a good deal of published work!). You will be frustrated. But keep questioning your paper along the following lines: What precisely are my key questions? What parts of my evidence here are really pertinent to those questions (that is, does it help me answer them)? How or in what order can I structure my paper most effectively to answer those questions most clearly and efficiently for my reader?

At this point you must outline your paper freshly. Mark up your first draft, ask tough questions whether your argument is clear and whether the order in which you present your points is effective! You must write conceptually a new paper at this point, even if you can use paragraphs and especially quotes, factual data in the new draft.

It is critical that in your new draft your paragraphs start with topic sentences that identify the argument you will be making in the particular paragraph (sometimes this can be strings of two or three paragraphs). The individual steps in your argument must be clearly reflected in the topic sentences of your paragraphs (or a couple of them linked).

D. The Third or Final Draft:

You are now ready to check for basic rules of good writing. This is when you need to check the diction, that is, the accuracy and suitability of words. Eliminate unnecessary passive or awkward noun constructions (active-voice, verbal constructions are usually more effective); improve the flow of your transitions; avoid repetitions or split infinitives; correct apostrophes in possessives and such. Make the style clear and smooth. Check that the start of your paper is interesting for the reader. Last but not least, cut out unnecessary verbiage and wordiness. Spell-check and proof-read.

– Diethelm Prowe, 1998

Reading, Writing, and Researching for History:

A Guide for College Students by Patrick Rael, Bowdoin College

Preparing History Papers: the Short Version

You need to know a lot of things when preparing your paper for a history course. I have prepared extensive online guides for you, and there are a great many published books and websites that offer help. But it is easy to feel overwhelmed by so much information. This short guide is the best introduction to paper writing I can furnish you. It is not comprehensive, but will help you avoid the costliest paper-writing mistakes, and point the way toward further resources.

Formatting basics:

• Your paper should have a title page, on which appears the title of the paper, your name, the course number, the professor’s name, and the date.
• Double-space the text, and use a simple font, such as Times Roman 12pt.
• Number of the pages.
• Staple the pages together (do not use clips or fancy binders).

Footnote citations: Each time you quote a work by another author, or use the ideas of another author, you should indicate the source with a footnote. A footnote is indicated in the text of your paper by a small arabic numeral written in superscript, directly following the borrowed material. Each new footnote gets a new number (increment by one); do not repeat a footnote number you’ve already used, even if the earlier reference is to the same work. The number refers to a note number at the bottom of the page (or following the text of the paper, if you are using endnotes). This note contains the citation information for the materials you are referencing. Do not use parenthetical or other citation formats. The citation format you should use for history papers is called Chicago style. The writing guides listed later in this guide will show you how to cite sources using Chicago style.

Citation formats: While there are standard principles for citing different kinds of sources, each requires its own unique citation format. Thus, a book will be cited differently than will a journal article. Your style manuals (Rampolla and Turabian) explain the differences in these formats. Also, Chicago style requires one way of citing sources in footnotes, and another way for citing sources in your bibliography. (A bibliography is a list of sources you consulted in your research, which appears at the end of your paper.) Consult your style manuals (Rampolla and Turabian) for the differences in citation formats, and pay close attention to the way you format footnotes and bibliographies in your paper.

Quoting sources in your paper: Most often, you should paraphrase materials from other authors, making sure to cite your sources with a footnote. Sometimes, when the original words of another seem particularly poignant or important, you will want to present those words directly to your reader. There are many rules of quoting material, which can be found in the resources listed at the end of this sheet. Here are some basic rules to get you started:

• When quoting others, any words of another author are placed between double quotation marks, exactly as they appear in the original. Do not put between quote marks any words that do not appear in the original.
• Never simply drop a quotation into your paper. Quotations must be integrated into your own prose. Introduce your speaker to your readers, so they will know who you are quoting.
• Pay close attention to the grammar and syntax of sentences with quotations in them. Just because you are quoting someone does not mean that the standard rules of writing cease to apply. In order to check this, imagine the sentence without the quotation marks; if it is not grammatically correct without quotation marks, it will not be grammatically correct with them.
• Pay close attention to what your style manuals have to say regarding punctuation in your quotations. Commas and periods generally go inside the quote marks.
• Footnotes go after the quotation, and are usually followed by no other punctuation.
• Avoid at all costs the use of brackets to insert clarifying material into your quotations. Instead, simply construct the sentence so that brackets are unnecessary, or consider paraphrasing the material rather than quoting it.

Avoiding plagiarism: The best way to avoid unintentional plagiarism is to take complete and accurate notes, and to cite your sources properly. When taking notes, clearly indicate whether you are paraphrasing a source or quoting it directly. Be sure to include a complete bibliographic citation of the source, so you can create an accurate footnote later. When writing, include a footnote citation for every idea or quotation you use from another author.

Common writing errors to study and avoid (consult Diana Hacker, Rules for Writers ):

• comma splices and run-on sentences
• tenses: use the simple past tense when speaking of the past
• passive voice: thing something is done to a thing rather than by a thing
• faulty pronoun reference: when pronouns such as “they” lack clear referents
• faulty predication: when nouns do things they cannot do
• parallel structure: when sentences are not balanced

Research basics:

• Library online catalog ( word search )
• Online journals: Jstor and Project Muse
• America: History and Life
• Library guide to American History
• Rael’s guide to historical research at Bowdoin

Three books you should own:

• Mary Lynn Rampolla, A Pocket Guide to Writing in History , 3rd ed. (Boston: Bedford Books/St. Martin’s Press, 2001). Contains much concise, useful advice, including a guide to Chicago-style citations.
• Kate Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations , 6th ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). The standard source for college history writers. Comprehensive presentation of Chicago-style citation formats (as well as other styles).
• Diana Hacker, Rules for Writers, 3 rd ed. (Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin’s Press, 1996). A standard grammar, useful for identifying and correcting mistakes.

Online guides for citing sources:

• Research and Documentation Online (online guide from Bedford/St. Martin’s Press) < http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/hacker/resdoc/history/footnotes.htm >
• A Brief Citation Guide for Internet Sources in History and the Humanities < http://www.h-net.msu.edu/about/citation />
• Online! from Bedford’s/St. Martin’s Press (for electronic sources only) < http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/online/index.html >
• Citing Electronic Sources (from the Library of Congress)
• < http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/resources/cite/index.html >

Introductions & Conclusions

The introduction and conclusion serve important roles in a history paper.  They are not simply perfunctory additions in academic writing, but are critical to your task of making a persuasive argument.

A successful introduction will:

• draw your readers in
• culminate in a thesis statement that clearly states your argument
• orient your readers to the key facts they need to know in order to understand your thesis
• lay out a roadmap for the rest of your paper

A successful conclusion will:

• draw your paper together
• reiterate your argument clearly and forcefully
• leave your readers with a lasting impression of why your argument matters or what it brings to light

How to write an effective introduction:

Often students get slowed down in paper-writing because they are not sure how to write the introduction.  Do not feel like you have to write your introduction first simply because it is the first section of your paper.  You can always come back to it after you write the body of your essay.  Whenever you approach your introduction, think of it as having three key parts:

• The opening line
• The middle “stage-setting” section
• The thesis statement

“In a 4-5 page paper, describe the process of nation-building in one Middle Eastern state.  What were the particular goals of nation-building?  What kinds of strategies did the state employ?  What were the results?  Be specific in your analysis, and draw on at least one of the scholars of nationalism that we discussed in class.”

Here is an example of a WEAK introduction for this prompt:

“One of the most important tasks the leader of any country faces is how to build a united and strong nation.  This has been especially true in the Middle East, where the country of Jordan offers one example of how states in the region approached nation-building.  Founded after World War I by the British, Jordan has since been ruled by members of the Hashemite family.  To help them face the difficult challenges of founding a new state, they employed various strategies of nation-building.”

Now, here is a REVISED version of that same introduction:

“Since 1921, when the British first created the mandate of Transjordan and installed Abdullah I as its emir, the Hashemite rulers have faced a dual task in nation-building.  First, as foreigners to the region, the Hashemites had to establish their legitimacy as Jordan’s rightful leaders.  Second, given the arbitrary boundaries of the new nation, the Hashemites had to establish the legitimacy of Jordan itself, binding together the people now called ‘Jordanians.’  To help them address both challenges, the Hashemite leaders crafted a particular narrative of history, what Anthony Smith calls a ‘nationalist mythology.’  By presenting themselves as descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, as leaders of the Arab Revolt, and as the fathers of Jordan’s different tribal groups, they established the authority of their own regime and the authority of the new nation, creating one of the most stable states in the modern Middle East.”

The first draft of the introduction, while a good initial step, is not strong enough to set up a solid, argument-based paper.  Here are the key issues:

• This first sentence is too general.  From the beginning of your paper, you want to invite your reader into your specific topic, rather than make generalizations that could apply to any nation in any time or place.  Students often run into the problem of writing general or vague opening lines, such as, “War has always been one of the greatest tragedies to befall society.”  Or, “The Great Depression was one of the most important events in American history.”  Avoid statements that are too sweeping or imprecise.  Ask yourself if the sentence you have written can apply in any time or place or could apply to any event or person.  If the answer is yes, then you need to make your opening line more specific.
• Here is the revised opening line: “Since 1921, when the British first created the mandate of Transjordan and installed Abdullah I as its emir, the Hashemite rulers have faced a dual task in nation-building.”
• This is a stronger opening line because it speaks precisely to the topic at hand.  The paper prompt is not asking you to talk about nation-building in general, but nation-building in one specific place.
• This stage-setting section is also too general.  Certainly, such background information is critical for the reader to know, but notice that it simply restates much of the information already in the prompt.  The question already asks you to pick one example, so your job is not simply to reiterate that information, but to explain what kind of example Jordan presents.  You also need to tell your reader why the context you are providing matters.
• Revised stage-setting: “First, as foreigners to the region, the Hashemites had to establish their legitimacy as Jordan’s rightful leaders.  Second, given the arbitrary boundaries of the new nation, the Hashemites had to establish the legitimacy of Jordan itself, binding together the people now called ‘Jordanians.’  To help them address both challenges, the Hashemite rulers crafted a particular narrative of history, what Anthony Smith calls a ‘nationalist mythology.’”
• This stage-setting is stronger because it introduces the reader to the problem at hand.  Instead of simply saying when and why Jordan was created, the author explains why the manner of Jordan’s creation posed particular challenges to nation-building.  It also sets the writer up to address the questions in the prompt, getting at both the purposes of nation-building in Jordan and referencing the scholar of nationalism s/he will be drawing on from class: Anthony Smith.
• This thesis statement restates the prompt rather than answers the question.  You need to be specific about what strategies of nation-building Jordan’s leaders used.  You also need to assess those strategies, so that you can answer the part of the prompt that asks about the results of nation-building.
• Revised thesis statement: “By presenting themselves as descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, as leaders of the Arab Revolt, and as the fathers of Jordan’s different tribal groups, they established the authority of their regime and the authority of the new nation, creating one of the most stable states in the modern Middle East.”
• It directly answers the question in the prompt.  Even though you will be persuading readers of your argument through the evidence you present in the body of your paper, you want to tell them at the outset exactly what you are arguing.
• It discusses the significance of the argument, saying that Jordan created an especially stable state.  This helps you answer the question about the results of Jordan’s nation-building project.
• It offers a roadmap for the rest of the paper.  The writer knows how to proceed and the reader knows what to expect.  The body of the paper will discuss the Hashemite claims “as descendants from the Prophet Muhammad, as leaders of the Arab Revolt, and as the fathers of Jordan’s different tribal groups.”

If you write your introduction first, be sure to revisit it after you have written your entire essay.  Because your paper will evolve as you write, you need to go back and make sure that the introduction still sets up your argument and still fits your organizational structure.

How to write an effective conclusion:

Your conclusion serves two main purposes.  First, it reiterates your argument in different language than you used in the thesis and body of your paper.  Second, it tells your reader why your argument matters.  In your conclusion, you want to take a step back and consider briefly the historical implications or significance of your topic.  You will not be introducing new information that requires lengthy analysis, but you will be telling your readers what your paper helps bring to light.  Perhaps you can connect your paper to a larger theme you have discussed in class, or perhaps you want to pose a new sort of question that your paper elicits.  There is no right or wrong “answer” to this part of the conclusion: you are now the “expert” on your topic, and this is your chance to leave your reader with a lasting impression based on what you have learned.

Here is an example of an effective conclusion for the same essay prompt:

“To speak of the nationalist mythology the Hashemites created, however, is not to say that it has gone uncontested.  In the 1950s, the Jordanian National Movement unleashed fierce internal opposition to Hashemite rule, crafting an alternative narrative of history in which the Hashemites were mere puppets to Western powers.  Various tribes have also reasserted their role in the region’s past, refusing to play the part of “sons” to Hashemite “fathers.”  For the Hashemites, maintaining their mythology depends on the same dialectical process that John R. Gillis identified in his investigation of commemorations: a process of both remembering and forgetting.  Their myth remembers their descent from the Prophet, their leadership of the Arab Revolt, and the tribes’ shared Arab and Islamic heritage.  It forgets, however, the many different histories that Jordanians champion, histories that the Hashemite mythology has never been able to fully reconcile.”

This is an effective conclusion because it moves from the specific argument addressed in the body of the paper to the question of why that argument matters.  The writer rephrases the argument by saying, “Their myth remembers their descent from the Prophet, their leadership of the Arab Revolt, and the tribes’ shared Arab and Islamic heritage.”  Then, the writer reflects briefly on the larger implications of the argument, showing how Jordan’s nationalist mythology depended on the suppression of other narratives.

Introduction and Conclusion checklist

When revising your introduction and conclusion, check them against the following guidelines:

Does my introduction:

• draw my readers in?
• culminate in a thesis statement that clearly states my argument?
• orient my readers to the key facts they need to know in order to understand my thesis?
• lay out a roadmap for the rest of my paper?

Does my conclusion:

• draw my paper together?
• reiterate my argument clearly and forcefully?
• leave my readers with a lasting impression of why my argument matters or what it brings to light?

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How to write an introduction for a history essay

Every essay needs to begin with an introductory paragraph. It needs to be the first paragraph the marker reads.

While your introduction paragraph might be the first of the paragraphs you write, this is not the only way to do it.

You can choose to write your introduction after you have written the rest of your essay.

This way, you will know what you have argued, and this might make writing the introduction easier.

Either approach is fine. If you do write your introduction first, ensure that you go back and refine it once you have completed your essay. 

What is an ‘introduction paragraph’?

An introductory paragraph is a single paragraph at the start of your essay that prepares your reader for the argument you are going to make in your body paragraphs .

It should provide all of the necessary historical information about your topic and clearly state your argument so that by the end of the paragraph, the marker knows how you are going to structure the rest of your essay.

In general, you should never use quotes from sources in your introduction.

Introduction paragraph structure

While your introduction paragraph does not have to be as long as your body paragraphs , it does have a specific purpose, which you must fulfil.

A well-written introduction paragraph has the following four-part structure (summarised by the acronym BHES).

B – Background sentences

H – Hypothesis

E – Elaboration sentences

S - Signpost sentence

Each of these elements are explained in further detail, with examples, below:

1. Background sentences

The first two or three sentences of your introduction should provide a general introduction to the historical topic which your essay is about. This is done so that when you state your hypothesis , your reader understands the specific point you are arguing about.

Background sentences explain the important historical period, dates, people, places, events and concepts that will be mentioned later in your essay. This information should be drawn from your background research . 

Example background sentences:

Middle Ages (Year 8 Level)

Castles were an important component of Medieval Britain from the time of the Norman conquest in 1066 until they were phased out in the 15 th and 16 th centuries. Initially introduced as wooden motte and bailey structures on geographical strongpoints, they were rapidly replaced by stone fortresses which incorporated sophisticated defensive designs to improve the defenders’ chances of surviving prolonged sieges.

WWI (Year 9 Level)

The First World War began in 1914 following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The subsequent declarations of war from most of Europe drew other countries into the conflict, including Australia. The Australian Imperial Force joined the war as part of Britain’s armed forces and were dispatched to locations in the Middle East and Western Europe.

Civil Rights (Year 10 Level)

The 1967 Referendum sought to amend the Australian Constitution in order to change the legal standing of the indigenous people in Australia. The fact that 90% of Australians voted in favour of the proposed amendments has been attributed to a series of significant events and people who were dedicated to the referendum’s success.

Ancient Rome (Year 11/12 Level)  

In the late second century BC, the Roman novus homo Gaius Marius became one of the most influential men in the Roman Republic. Marius gained this authority through his victory in the Jugurthine War, with his defeat of Jugurtha in 106 BC, and his triumph over the invading Germanic tribes in 101 BC, when he crushed the Teutones at the Battle of Aquae Sextiae (102 BC) and the Cimbri at the Battle of Vercellae (101 BC). Marius also gained great fame through his election to the consulship seven times.

2. Hypothesis

Once you have provided historical context for your essay in your background sentences, you need to state your hypothesis .

A hypothesis is a single sentence that clearly states the argument that your essay will be proving in your body paragraphs .

A good hypothesis contains both the argument and the reasons in support of your argument. 

Example hypotheses:

Medieval castles were designed with features that nullified the superior numbers of besieging armies but were ultimately made obsolete by the development of gunpowder artillery.

Australian soldiers’ opinion of the First World War changed from naïve enthusiasm to pessimistic realism as a result of the harsh realities of modern industrial warfare.

The success of the 1967 Referendum was a direct result of the efforts of First Nations leaders such as Charles Perkins, Faith Bandler and the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders.

Gaius Marius was the most one of the most significant personalities in the 1 st century BC due to his effect on the political, military and social structures of the Roman state.

3. Elaboration sentences

Once you have stated your argument in your hypothesis , you need to provide particular information about how you’re going to prove your argument.

Your elaboration sentences should be one or two sentences that provide specific details about how you’re going to cover the argument in your three body paragraphs.

You might also briefly summarise two or three of your main points.

Finally, explain any important key words, phrases or concepts that you’ve used in your hypothesis, you’ll need to do this in your elaboration sentences.

Example elaboration sentences:

By the height of the Middle Ages, feudal lords were investing significant sums of money by incorporating concentric walls and guard towers to maximise their defensive potential. These developments were so successful that many medieval armies avoided sieges in the late period.

Following Britain's official declaration of war on Germany, young Australian men voluntarily enlisted into the army, which was further encouraged by government propaganda about the moral justifications for the conflict. However, following the initial engagements on the Gallipoli peninsula, enthusiasm declined.

The political activity of key indigenous figures and the formation of activism organisations focused on indigenous resulted in a wider spread of messages to the general Australian public. The generation of powerful images and speeches has been frequently cited by modern historians as crucial to the referendum results.

While Marius is best known for his military reforms, it is the subsequent impacts of this reform on the way other Romans approached the attainment of magistracies and how public expectations of military leaders changed that had the longest impacts on the late republican period.

4. Signpost sentence

The final sentence of your introduction should prepare the reader for the topic of your first body paragraph. The main purpose of this sentence is to provide cohesion between your introductory paragraph and you first body paragraph .

Therefore, a signpost sentence indicates where you will begin proving the argument that you set out in your hypothesis and usually states the importance of the first point that you’re about to make. 

Example signpost sentences:

The early development of castles is best understood when examining their military purpose.

The naïve attitudes of those who volunteered in 1914 can be clearly seen in the personal letters and diaries that they themselves wrote.

The significance of these people is evident when examining the lack of political representation the indigenous people experience in the early half of the 20 th century.

The origin of Marius’ later achievements was his military reform in 107 BC, which occurred when he was first elected as consul.

Putting it all together

Once you have written all four parts of the BHES structure, you should have a completed introduction paragraph. In the examples above, we have shown each part separately. Below you will see the completed paragraphs so that you can appreciate what an introduction should look like.

Example introduction paragraphs: 

Castles were an important component of Medieval Britain from the time of the Norman conquest in 1066 until they were phased out in the 15th and 16th centuries. Initially introduced as wooden motte and bailey structures on geographical strongpoints, they were rapidly replaced by stone fortresses which incorporated sophisticated defensive designs to improve the defenders’ chances of surviving prolonged sieges. Medieval castles were designed with features that nullified the superior numbers of besieging armies, but were ultimately made obsolete by the development of gunpowder artillery. By the height of the Middle Ages, feudal lords were investing significant sums of money by incorporating concentric walls and guard towers to maximise their defensive potential. These developments were so successful that many medieval armies avoided sieges in the late period. The early development of castles is best understood when examining their military purpose.

The First World War began in 1914 following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The subsequent declarations of war from most of Europe drew other countries into the conflict, including Australia. The Australian Imperial Force joined the war as part of Britain’s armed forces and were dispatched to locations in the Middle East and Western Europe. Australian soldiers’ opinion of the First World War changed from naïve enthusiasm to pessimistic realism as a result of the harsh realities of modern industrial warfare. Following Britain's official declaration of war on Germany, young Australian men voluntarily enlisted into the army, which was further encouraged by government propaganda about the moral justifications for the conflict. However, following the initial engagements on the Gallipoli peninsula, enthusiasm declined. The naïve attitudes of those who volunteered in 1914 can be clearly seen in the personal letters and diaries that they themselves wrote.

The 1967 Referendum sought to amend the Australian Constitution in order to change the legal standing of the indigenous people in Australia. The fact that 90% of Australians voted in favour of the proposed amendments has been attributed to a series of significant events and people who were dedicated to the referendum’s success. The success of the 1967 Referendum was a direct result of the efforts of First Nations leaders such as Charles Perkins, Faith Bandler and the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. The political activity of key indigenous figures and the formation of activism organisations focused on indigenous resulted in a wider spread of messages to the general Australian public. The generation of powerful images and speeches has been frequently cited by modern historians as crucial to the referendum results. The significance of these people is evident when examining the lack of political representation the indigenous people experience in the early half of the 20th century.

In the late second century BC, the Roman novus homo Gaius Marius became one of the most influential men in the Roman Republic. Marius gained this authority through his victory in the Jugurthine War, with his defeat of Jugurtha in 106 BC, and his triumph over the invading Germanic tribes in 101 BC, when he crushed the Teutones at the Battle of Aquae Sextiae (102 BC) and the Cimbri at the Battle of Vercellae (101 BC). Marius also gained great fame through his election to the consulship seven times. Gaius Marius was the most one of the most significant personalities in the 1st century BC due to his effect on the political, military and social structures of the Roman state. While Marius is best known for his military reforms, it is the subsequent impacts of this reform on the way other Romans approached the attainment of magistracies and how public expectations of military leaders changed that had the longest impacts on the late republican period. The origin of Marius’ later achievements was his military reform in 107 BC, which occurred when he was first elected as consul.

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The Most Popular History Term Paper Topics 2023

The success of any writing assignment almost always depends on the topic you choose or get assigned. If the topic is not right, all your efforts to write something outstanding and praiseworthy will go to waste. The same goes for history term papers that some students dread deeply because of the often dull and uninspiring topics.

Luckily, there are history term paper topics that will get you going on writing and awaken both your interest in the topic and your creative skills. Below, we’ve set up the ultimate guide for writing a history term paper that your professors will love. You’ll find a detailed list of the most popular history term paper topics in 2023.

Writing a History Term Paper: The Essentials

Before we dig deeper into the most interesting and popular topics for writing a history term paper, let’s cover the basics. 

What is a history paper?

A history paper is a paper that is based or guided by a history-related question and is expected to have historical evidence, plus the students’ reasoning, to answer that question.

Simply put, a student writing a history paper does the following:

• researches a certain topic
• finds credible sources of information
• organizes arguments and findings
• takes a stand
• explains their viewpoints

The more interesting topic you choose, the easier it will be for you to fulfill all of the above elements of a quality history term paper. And if it seems too challenging, don’t rush to spend your money on buying an essay before learning how to save money on term papers . Be smart about your choices.

What is the process of writing one?

Naturally, the first step of the process is to choose a suitable topic, which we’ll help you within the section below. The topic needs to not only awaken interest in you as the researcher and writer but also provide some sort of contribution to academic historical knowledge.

After you’ve selected the topic, you’ll need to go through several important stages of preparation and then write the history term paper. Here’s how it’s supposed to go:

Inadequate learning resources are a problem for 53% of students who struggle with essay writing. Go through books, academic papers, scholarly magazines, and other credible sources of information to avoid becoming a part of this statistic.  Select and gather the best ones that will help you support your facts once you take a stand.

Write an outline of the paper by dividing it into basic sections (introduction, body, conclusion). Add several bullet points to the each section to mark what you plan to say.

write the first draft

Expand the bullet points from the outline to write your first draft. Add information from the sources you’ve gathered and add your own ideas, conclusions, and reasoning.

rewrite the first draft and create the second draft

Let your first draft rest for a day or two, and then go back to it. Read it and see where you could make improvements and adjustments.

If this sounds like too much, you can always find cheap term papers for sale . But if you put in the effort and try writing it yourself, you’ll get better at it in no time. The important thing is that you follow the same strategy each time and learn from your mistakes.

History Term Paper Topics of 2023

Finally, we’ve arrived at our ultimate list of the best history term paper topics for 2023. You’ve learned the basics and know how to write a history term paper. Now, let’s find a topic that will keep you amused, amazed, and focused on your writing assignment.

Ancient History Term Paper Topics

Ancient history is always a great choice for writing your term paper. There are tons of sources, and the materials can be fun for you to analyze.

• Religion in Ancient Greece
• Kinship and kingship in ancient Maya society
• Antony and Cleopatra: How love united ancient Rome and Egypt
• Urban life in the ancient cities of Egypt, Greece, and Rome
• The decline and rise of the Mesopotamian civilization
• Economic expansion in the Byzantine Empire
• Church and State in the Byzantine Empire
• Traditions, Culture, and Life in the Sumerian civilization
• Everyday life in Ancient Rome
• Elaborate on Ancient Rome’s police

Art History Term Paper Topics

History through art is another standpoint you could represent. Analyze different periods, movements, or artists in your term paper.

• Depicting the Mayan culture through art
• The beauty standards through different historical periods
• A cultural   history   of Japanese and Chinese   beauty
• Art as the symbol of freedom during the Civil War in the United States
• Nakedness and nudity in Egyptian and   Mesopotamian art
• Understanding Tibetan   symbols and motifs
• Buddhist Sculpture   of Northern Thailand
• History and Overview of the American Folk Art
• Painters in Europe’s Artistic Renaissance
• Gustav Klimt and a Representation of Vienna Secession Movement

Political Term Paper Topics

History of politics is certainly a significant part of global history, so maybe it’s a topic you’d enjoy covering. 

• Draft resistance during the Vietnam War
• History of the women’s movement in   Uganda
• The origin of bourgeois political and legal thought
• The   Chinese Occupation   of   Tibet
• Different perspectives on The Sino-Indian   War   of   1962
• Structure of power in the late Ottoman Empire
• Reform in the   Ottoman Empire, 1856-1876
• Vladimir Lenin and the Communism Approach
• Propaganda techniques in World War I and II
• History of US Military service during Wartime

Religion History Term Paper Topics

Finally, religion throughout history had its fair share of controversy and a significant impact on different segments of life. A topic from this domain could offer a new perspective on previously offered ones.

• The role of religion in the history of education and science
• Rituals and beliefs in different religions throughout history
• The history of religion and class structure
• European   Religion   in the   Age of   Great Cities: 1830-1930
• Religion in the Age of Romanticism
• Appalachian mountain   religion
• The emergence of Modern Hinduism
• Buddhism in premodern and modern China
• The institution of marriage through different religions in history
• Myth and rituals in the Christian church

Final Thoughts

The history term paper topics we’ve selected for you are versatile and interesting. Make sure you find a topic that suits your taste and will motivate you to write it thoroughly and professionally.

Use our list to make the best choice for your next history term paper.

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How to Write a History Term Paper: Guidelines and Helpful Tips

Table of contents.

History Term Paper and Its Peculiarities Step-by-Step Guide to History Term Paper Writing Preparatory Stage Writing the Paper Editing and Proofreading History Term Paper Topics: How to Select the Best One World History Term Paper Topics Ancient History Term Paper Topics US History Term Paper Topics European History Term Paper Topics Art History Term Paper Topics Military History Class Term Paper Topics Interesting Events in History to Make a Term Paper Easy History Term Paper Topics Conclusion

Term paper writing is one of the most typical assignments college students will have to deal with during their studying. When it comes to history essay creation, one should remember that precision, accuracy, and relevance are critical. Profound research of the topic, analysis of a certain period of time, and reasonable conclusions should be carried out. 

While some students consider it to be another academic project to accomplish, others struggle at every single stage of its writing. Plenty of dates, facts, and events can sometimes be overwhelming for learners. Additionally, it is vital to remember that paper creation is not only about the presentation of historical concepts and phenomena but also about the structured and logical succession of ideas. 

If the assignment seems complicated, one should look through a detailed guide that will help you detect the most interesting and appealing history term paper topics, peculiarities of the paper structure, formatting, and other aspects that will help you thrive with the project.

If this won't help, you can always opt for the alternative of placing your term paper order with a reliable writing service.

History Term Paper and Its Peculiarities

A history term paper is another academic assignment that is aimed at estimating the student’s awareness of the topic and ability to answer historical questions. Unlike other types of academic assignments, history essays are about evidence and accuracy only. Analyzing valid sources of information and reading the claims of other scholars, students can come up with a comprehensive paper. Personal standpoint and understanding of the topic are a must here, as you should know the perspective you emphasize and defend in the text. 

Striving to provide readers with a relevant, up-to-date, and coherent term paper, the writer should follow certain guidelines, paying attention to the following aspects:

• thesis statement
• introduction
• citation style
• grammatical excellence

These factors will influence the quality of your writing and may potentially draw you closer to the desired results. However, before you dive into the writing process, you should realize that choosing the theme is one of the fundamental points that will either help you thrive or will completely ruin your work. Irrespective of the variety of history term paper topics available on the web, finding the right one may be an overwhelming task. Keep reading to get a few tips on how to make the choice you will not regret. Additionally, you will get an extensive list of the most relevant and up-to-date topics for inspiration.

Step-by-Step Guide to History Term Paper Writing

How to start writing a history term paper? What should the essay look like? What are the constituent parts to be included? These are some of the most common questions college students ask when they get an assignment. Learners frequently have no idea what to start the paper writing with, which results in poor performance and tons of critical mistakes. Fortunately, there is always an opportunity to find effective tips and beneficial guidelines that will help you gain the desired result stress-free. 

Are you ready to start working on the assignment? There is no need to rush into analyzing the available history term paper topics and outlining your paper. Consideration, concern, and attention to detail are the factors that matter a lot here. 

Preparatory Stage

Before you dive into the essay writing process, you should realize that success with the preparatory stage is halfway to flawless results. So, if you are still confused about how to write a history term paper, mind the following points. 

Familiarizing yourself with the requirements of the paper is the first and the most significant step that will give you a better understanding of the assignment and its specifications. Double-check the formatting peculiarities and other options that may influence the quality of your work. Ignoring this stage, you increase the risk of missing something and getting a lower mark for the paper. Once you define the fundamental requirements and choose to stick to them, you are ready to move to the next point. 

Choosing a relevant and appealing topic is another step on the way to success. An important rule you should remember is to stay within the context. Talk about the historic event you are aware of and interested in. Avoid controversial and ambiguous themes that can add you problems. 

Searching for relevant and valid historical facts is the final stage of the preparatory phase. Do profound, in-depth research on the topic. Divide the theme into subtopics, which will help you create a well-structured and coherent outline. Make sure all the data included in the paper is taken from reliable and trusted sources. 

Writing the Paper

Once you are done with the preliminary stages, you can proceed to writing a history term paper. At this point, it is indispensable to single out a few critical elements, including a thesis and outline, which may predetermine the success of the undertaking. 

Take your time to analyze the theme and single out fundamental points. Formulate your opinion on the theme, singling out an argument that will serve as a thesis. Make it short, distinct, and comprehensible.

On successful completion of this stage, you can proceed to writing a history term paper outline. It is the exact point that will guide you and help you create a well-structured and consistent paper worth appreciation. Follow the instructions given by the professor to make the history paper comply with the requirements. Divide the essay into paragraphs, each presenting a different idea linked with the previous one, though.  

Finally, you are ready to start the actual writing process. Create a catchy and appealing history term paper introduction that will unveil some information about the paper but will not reveal all the facts. A consistent body and meaningful conclusion will add to the quality of your work. 

Editing and Proofreading

Once you are done with the first draft of your history term paper, it is the right time to start editing and proofreading it. Double-check the whole paper for any inaccuracies in the names, dates, and other history-related facts that can make a prominent difference. Additionally, watch for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors and typos that can also affect the relevance of the paper. Use online tools and instruments that can help you succeed with the process fast and easily. 

History Term Paper Topics: How to Select the Best One

As an experienced college student, you might know that choosing the most appealing and relevant topic for the history term paper is always a real challenge. At this point, it is indispensable to opt for a theme that is not only interesting but also definite. There is a risk of making the assignment even more overwhelming if you select an ambiguous topic that is hard to discuss. 

Considering American history term paper topics, for instance, you should focus on the options that seem appealing to you. Additionally, make sure you can find some data from valid sources so that you have enough material to work with. Surf the web, reading sample history paper topics that will keep you inspired. Check out a comprehensive list of good term paper topics that will guide you to the right choice below.

World History Term Paper Topics

• Britain and Spain as the Two Parties in the Battle of the Seas
• The Colonization of South Africa and Its Consequences
• Mexican-American War: Features and Outcomes
• The Influence of the Shogun on the Development of Japanese
• The Mutual Impact of Roman, Egyptian, and Greek Cultures
• Possible Ways to Prevent World War II
• Gandhi and His Contribution to the World Peace
• Aftershocks of Cold War
• Medieval Europe and Social Relationship at the Time
• Ancient Civilizations and Use of Weapons

World History Term Paper Topics 1400 and Earlier

• The Gnostic Gospels
• The Human Evolution in Mesopotamia
• Pompeii: Its Rise and Fall
• The Expansion of Latin and Its Prominence for the World History
• Roman Emperors and the Way They Changed the World
• Paganism: Critical Peculiarities of the Notion
• The Great Wall of China and Its Historical Prominence
• Medieval Europe and Life at the Time
• The Stages of Byzantine Empire Development
• Ancient Conquests: How They Changed the Modern Life

World History from 1500 Term Paper Topics

• Major Events in Europe in the 1500s
• Peculiarities of World Dominance in 1500 Years
• The History of the US Development from 1500
• The Prominence of the Industrial Revolution
• The Rise of the West in the World History
• The Discovery Age: Key Facts, Features, and Consequences
• Central Historical Characters of the Time
• Gallipoli Campaign and Its Impact on the World History
• Politics in Europe: Its Establishment and Development
• Social Inequality and Other Problems of the Time

20th Century World History Term Paper Topics

• The Exploration of Space: The Competition between Different Countries
• Caribbean Islands and Their Independence
• Nelson Mandela and the Impact He Made on the World History
• Scientific Advancement of the 20th Century that Changed the World
• The World War I and the Preceding Events
• President Nixon and His Impeachment
• Cold War: Positive and Negative Aspects
• The Role of the US in the Vietnam War
• Martin Luther King and the Impact of His Speeches on Society
• The USSR Breakup and Its Main Causes

Ancient History Term Paper Topics

• Ancient Egypt and Its Symbolism
• Culture and Traditions of Sumerians
• The History of Palestine
• Ancient Egypt: Death and Immortality
• Analyzing the Power in Assyria to Byzantium
• Prehistoric Britain and the Role of Women in Its Development
• Distribution of Responsibilities in the Iron Age
• A Comprehensive Analysis of the Near Eastern Civilizations
• Central Anatolia and Its Water Sources
• Religion, Culture, and History of the Ancient World

US History Term Paper Topics

• Declaration of Independence in 1776 and Its Role in the Further Development of the Country
• The assassination of Abraham Lincoln
• Equality Issues in the Declaration of Independence
• Civil War: Basic Facts, Problems and Controversies
• Key Features and Events of the Atlanta Campaign
• Homestead Act and Its Prominence: Detailed Analysis of the Historical Event
• Interwar Period: Peculiarities and Perspectives
• Emancipation Proclamation as a Beginning of the New Era
• The Influence of Industrialization on the American Social Movement
• Causes of the Civil War

Early American History Term Paper Topics

• The Impact of Reformation on the US History, Culture, and Religion
• The Middle Ground and Native Americans
• Christianity in the US: Its Influence on the Development of the Country
• The Role of the Constitution on US Society
• Bill of Rights and Its Prominence for the Development of the Country
• The History of Railroads Creation in America
• Cotton Industry in the USA
• American Economy: The History of Its Advancement
• Central Historic Personalities that Changed the US Formation
• Social, Political, and Economic Situation in the USA

Term Paper Topics for Colonial U.S. History

• Colonial America and the Contribution of Slaves
• Mercantilism and Its Development in Colonial US
• The Economic Situation in Colonies
• Colonial Unrest in New York
• The History of Colonial America: Social, Economic and Political Situations
• Colonization and Its Peculiarities
• The Life of People in Colonial America
• The Importance of the Colonization Process
• From Colonial America to the United States
• Loss of Connection to the Land for Aboriginal People

American History Term Paper Topics about Great Depression

• Great Depression in the USA: Reasons for Its Occurrence
• The Impact of the Great Depression on the Contemporary Minorities
• The Cost of the Great Depression: Economic Situation of the Time
• Great Depression and World War II: The Impact on the US Economy
• The History of the Great Depression for Americans
• Main Consequences of the Great Depression for the US Citizens
• The Influence of the Great Depression on Education
• The Way Great Depression Changed the Society
• Central Historic Figures during the Times of Great Depression
• Great Depression as It Was: Features, Events, and Outcomes

European History Term Paper Topics

• Literacy in Europe: Peculiarities of Its Development
• The Witch Hunts of the Catholic Church
• Nationalistic Trends in Europe
• Military Advancements between the Wars
• The Question of Gender and Its Role in Europe Throughout the History
•  Empiricism and Its Rise: Causes and Results
• Propaganda in Europe: Impact on the Contemporary Society
• French Revolution: Peculiarities of the Force Distribution
• A Comprehensive Analysis of the Mid-Tudor Crises
• Civil Rights of Women in Europe during Different Historic Periods

Art History Term Paper Topics

• Mayan Culture and History in Art
• The History of the Modern Art in Europe
• Christian Symbols and Their Significance for the Renaissance Art
• Early Works of Leonardo da Vinci
• History of Printmaking: Features of the Techniques Used at the Time
• Art Fairs and Their Establishment
• The Changes in Beauty Standards in the History
• Mesoamerican and Egyptian Pyramids: Similarities and Discrepancies
• Philosophy and Its Influence on Art
• The Significance of the Sculptures in Ancient Greece

Military History Class Term Paper Topics

• Prerequisites and Outcomes of the World War I
• Main Stages of the Military History
• Waging Wars and Their Role in the Formation of Nations
• Franco-Prussian War and Its Role in the World History
• The Cases of Diplomatic Decisions that Prevented Potential Conflicts
• The Shortest and Longest Wars in the History
• Hitler and His Role in the World War II
• Military Theory: Basic Peculiarities of the Concept
• Military Achievements of Different Historic Figures
• The Collapse of the Soviet Union and Later History of the Independent Countries

Read also: Writing guide and topics list for your anthropology term paper

Interesting Events in History to Make a Term Paper

• Key Thoughts and Ideas of Abraham Lincoln in American History 
• Events that Lead to the Fall of the Roman Empire
• Apartheid of South Africa: Its Influence on the Further Development of the Country
• The Relationship between China and Japan: Peculiarities of Their Establishment and Development
• African American Soldiers Fighting in World War II
• Main Reasons for the Empires to Fall
• Ancient Conquests and Their Outcomes for the Modern Society
• Women’s Rights Movement and Its Achievements
• Nuclear Weapons: Impact on the World Politics
• Civilian Population in World War I and II

Easy History Term Paper Topics

• Medieval Church and the Influence It Had on Society
• The Role of Women on Different Stages of History
• Black Death and Its Outcomes
• Islamic Empire and Its Role in the World History
• The History of Medieval Economy
• Papal Monarchy: Core Features and Specifications
• Justinian I: The Reign of Byzantine Emperor 
• Hundred Years War: Causes and Outcomes
• Crusades and Their Impact on the Contemporary Society
• Medieval Warfare
• Reformation and Its Prominence for the World History
• Impacts of Roman, Greek and Egyptian Cultures
• Medieval Philosophy and Its Influence on the Political Situation
•  Medieval Educational System: The History of Its Development
• The Time of Enlightenment
• Papal Monarchy and Its Specifications
• Hundred-Year War and Its Influence on the Route of the History
• The Role of a Woman in the History
• Crimean War: Key Causes and Results
• The Changes in the Laws and Regulations in Europe throughout the History

Following the history term paper guidelines and recommendations specified above, creating a flawless paper seems to be much easier. However, even if you are inspired by impressive topics and helpful tips, history term paper writing may remain challenging. Fortunately, with the development of technology, there is always a chance to get professional help online. 

No matter if you lack the time or desire to accomplish your project, you can contact the representatives of our support team and ask for help. Qualified and experienced term paper writers will deliver the most influential and efficient papers worth the highest grades.

Term Paper Topics: 150 Ideas for Academic Excellence

Upon entering university, the multitude of responsibilities that accompany your studies may catch you off guard. The pressure to write and submit research papers on time can be overwhelming, leading to feelings of exhaustion and anxiety.

Many students find themselves stressed and unsure of how to navigate assignments and exams, particularly when it comes to selecting the best term paper topics that align with their writing style. The process can leave individuals feeling lost and in need of guidance or an essay service .

In this article, you will find a collection of 150 excellent topic ideas in Philosophy, Sociology, Micro and Macroeconomics, History, Ethics, Medicine, Chemistry, Biology, Education, as well as Media and Communication.

From History to Biology: Intriguing Term Paper Topics to Spark Your Creativity

The provided topic suggestions are organized based on subject areas, offering a diverse range of options. Our goal is to provide a balanced scope and complexity, catering to various academic levels, courses, and interests. Feel free to tailor these research topic ideas to align with your specific educational needs when learning how to write a term paper .

Whether you choose to narrow down the topics or approach them from a different perspective, the list is designed to be adaptable to your unique requirements and preferences. Should you lack time to explore any of these topics, go for custom research paper writing at any time on our website.

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Philosophy Term Paper Topics

Embark on a philosophical exploration with these compelling topics in Philosophy that delve into the fundamental questions of existence, ethics, and knowledge. From classical philosophical inquiries to contemporary debates, this curated list offers diverse avenues for contemplation and intellectual discourse.

• The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence: Examining the Moral Implications of AI Development.
• Nietzsche's Ubermensch: A Critical Analysis of the Concept of the Overman.
• The Trolley Problem: Ethical Dilemmas in Utilitarianism.
• The Philosophy of Mind-Body Dualism: Descartes vs. Contemporary Perspectives.
• Existentialism in Literature: Analyzing the Existential Themes in Kafka's Works.
• The Epistemology of Fake News: Truth, Trust, and Information in the Digital Age.
• Eastern Philosophy: Comparing Taoism and Confucianism on Ethics and Society.
• Feminist Ethics: Deconstructing Gender Bias and Inequality through a Philosophical Lens.
• Environmental Ethics: The Moral Obligations in the Face of Climate Change.
• The Philosophy of Language: Wittgenstein's Linguistic Investigations and its Impact on Analytic Philosophy.

Sociology Term Paper Topics

Dive into the complexities of societal structures and human interactions with these thought-provoking topics in Sociology. This curated list explores a diverse range of issues, from the impact of technology on social dynamics to the examination of cultural norms and their influence on individual behavior. If Sociology isn't your jam, buy term paper from professional writers to keep up with the workload.

• The Digital Divide: Analyzing Socioeconomic Disparities in Access to Technology.
• Social Media and Identity: Exploring the Impact of Online Platforms on Self-Perception.
• The Influence of Gender Roles on Career Choices: A Sociological Perspective.
• Urbanization and Social Change: Examining the Effects of Urban Development on Communities.
• The Sociology of Deviance: Understanding the Social Construction of Criminality.
• Intersectionality in Feminist Theory: Addressing the Interconnectedness of Social Categories.
• The Role of Family Structure in Shaping Educational Attainment.
• Globalization and Cultural Homogenization: Assessing the Impact on Local Cultures.
• Social Movements and Political Change: A Comparative Analysis of Historical Cases.
• The Sociology of Health Inequalities: Investigating the Link Between Social Factors and Health Disparities.

Microeconomics Term Paper Topics

Explore the intricate world of economic decision-making and market dynamics with these engaging topics in Microeconomics. This curated list offers a diverse array of subjects, from analyzing consumer behavior to exploring the implications of market structures on resource allocation.

• Behavioral Economics: Investigating the Psychological Factors Influencing Consumer Choices.
• Market Failures and Externalities: Assessing the Role of Government Intervention.
• The Economics of Information: Examining the Impact of Asymmetric Information on Markets.
• Game Theory in Business Strategy: A Microeconomic Perspective.
• Labor Market Dynamics: Analyzing Wage Determinants and Unemployment Trends.
• The Elasticity of Demand: A Comprehensive Study of Price Sensitivity.
• Monopolistic Competition: Understanding the Characteristics and Implications for Industries.
• Environmental Economics: Evaluating the Economic Cost of Environmental Degradation.
• The Role of Microfinance in Alleviating Poverty: A Microeconomic Analysis.
• Health Economics: Exploring the Economic Factors Influencing Healthcare Access and Outcomes.

Macroeconomics Term Paper Topics

Study the broader economic landscape with these compelling topics in Macroeconomics. This curated list delves into key issues such as fiscal policy, monetary systems, and global economic trends, offering diverse avenues for in-depth analysis and critical inquiry.

• The Impact of Inflation on Income Distribution: A Macroeconomic Perspective.
• Keynesian vs. Monetarist Approaches to Economic Stabilization.
• Globalization and Income Inequality: Analyzing the Macro-Level Effects on Nations.
• The Phillips Curve: Examining the Relationship Between Inflation and Unemployment.
• The Role of Central Banks in Monetary Policy: A Comparative Analysis.
• Economic Growth and Sustainable Development: Balancing Progress with Environmental Concerns.
• Fiscal Policy and Economic Stimulus: Assessing the Effectiveness of Government Intervention.
• Exchange Rate Determinants: Understanding Factors Influencing Currency Values.
• The Business Cycle: Analyzing Phases and Implications for Economic Policies.
• The Macroeconomics of Public Debt: Evaluating the Impact on National Economies.

Economics Term Paper Topics

Discover a curated selection of topics in Economics designed to foster a deep understanding of economic principles and their real-world applications. From exploring market dynamics to evaluating the global impacts of economic policies, this collection provides a valuable foundation for in-depth research, allowing students to delve into critical economic issues and enhance their analytical skills.

• The Role of Entrepreneurship in Economic Development: A Comparative Analysis.
• Behavioral Economics and Nudging: Understanding the Intersection of Psychology and Economic Decision-Making.
• The Economics of Renewable Energy: Assessing the Viability and Impact on Energy Markets.
• Economic Consequences of Technological Innovation: A Historical Perspective.
• The Circular Economy: Exploring Sustainable Business Models and Resource Management.
• Income Mobility and Economic Equality: Analyzing Trends and Policy Implications.
• Trade Liberalization and Global Economic Integration: Challenges and Opportunities.
• The Economics of Healthcare Systems: A Comparative Study of Models Around the World.
• The Impact of Economic Policies on Income Distribution: A Case Study Approach.
• Financial Crises and Regulatory Responses: Lessons from Historical and Contemporary Perspectives.

History Term Paper Topics

To maximize your historical research experience, consider selecting a good research paper topic in History that aligns with your interests and offers ample primary and secondary sources, ensuring a rich and nuanced exploration of the past.

• The Silk Road: Cultural Exchange and Economic Impact.
• The Renaissance and its Influence on European Art and Science.
• The Berlin Wall: Origins, Division, and Fall.
• The Role of Women in Ancient Civilizations: A Comparative Study.
• The Cold War Space Race: USA vs. USSR.
• The Crusades: Causes, Consequences, and Historical Impact.
• The Age of Enlightenment: Intellectual Movements and Social Change.
• The Partition of India: Examining the Aftermath and Legacy.
• The Harlem Renaissance: Cultural Flourishing in African American History.
• The Industrial Revolution: Transformations in Society, Economy, and Technology.

Ethics Term Paper Topics

When tackling interesting research topics in Ethics, ensure to thoroughly define the ethical issue at hand and provide a clear rationale for your chosen stance. Engage with relevant ethical theories, present counterarguments thoughtfully, and strive for a balanced analysis to demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of the complexities involved.

• Ethical Implications of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare.
• Environmental Ethics: Balancing Human Needs and Ecological Responsibility.
• The Ethics of Genetic Engineering: Navigating Moral Boundaries.
• Corporate Social Responsibility: Evaluating Business Ethics in the Modern Era.
• Bioethics and Human Cloning: Moral Considerations in Scientific Advancements.
• Ethical Issues in Animal Testing: Balancing Scientific Progress and Animal Welfare.
• The Morality of Capital Punishment: A Critical Analysis.
• Cyberethics: Addressing Moral Challenges in the Digital Age.
• Ethical Considerations in Medical Research: Lessons from Historical Controversies.
• Ethical Dimensions of Globalization: Examining Fair Trade and Social Justice.

World History Term Paper Topics

When working on topics in World History, focus on developing a clear thesis that addresses a specific aspect of global history, ensuring it is both compelling and well-defined. Support your arguments with a thorough examination of primary and secondary sources, offering a nuanced perspective on historical events and fostering a deeper understanding of their global impact.

• The Impact of the Silk Road on Global Trade and Cultural Exchange.
• The Age of Exploration: European Expansion and Its Consequences.
• The Industrial Revolution's Global Impact on Societies and Economies.
• The Ottoman Empire: Rise, Peak, and Decline.
• Decolonization Movements in Africa: Struggles for Independence.
• The Renaissance in Italy and Its Influence on European Art and Thought.
• The Haitian Revolution: A Landmark in the Fight Against Slavery.
• The Boxer Rebellion in China: Resistance to Western Influence.
• The Berlin Airlift: Cold War Tensions and Humanitarian Efforts.
• The Cuban Missile Crisis: A Critical Moment in Cold War History.

Medicine Term Paper Topics

Contemplating interesting research paper topics in Medicine, prioritize selecting a specific and relevant subject to explore, ensuring it aligns with your interests and academic goals. Additionally, integrate critical analysis of current research, consider ethical implications, and emphasize the practical applications of medical advancements to enhance the depth and breadth of your research paper. Since writing about health research paper topics is often challenging, consider learning how to write a nursing essay to be better prepared for such a task.

• Precision Medicine: Tailoring Treatment to Individual Genetic Profiles.
• The Ethics of Organ Transplants: Balancing Supply and Demand.
• Pandemics Throughout History: Lessons from the Black Death to COVID-19.
• Mental Health Stigma: Addressing Barriers to Care and Understanding.
• Advances in CRISPR Technology: Implications for Genetic Editing in Medicine.
• The Impact of Vaccination Programs on Public Health.
• Global Health Disparities: Analyzing the Root Causes and Solutions.
• Telemedicine: Revolutionizing Healthcare Delivery.
• Alternative Medicine: Examining Efficacy and Integration into Mainstream Healthcare.
• Medical Ethics in End-of-Life Care: Balancing Autonomy and Compassion.

Tackling topics in Philosophy, carefully define your thesis statement and ensure it reflects a clear and specific argument, providing a roadmap for your exploration. Engage deeply with primary philosophical texts, critically analyze different perspectives, and construct a well-structured argument to demonstrate a nuanced understanding of the philosophical concepts under consideration.

• Existentialism in Literature: Analyzing the Themes in Kafka's Works.
• The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence: Examining Moral Implications in AI Development.
• Nietzsche's Ubermensch: A Critical Analysis of the Overman Concept.
• Eastern Philosophy: A Comparative Study of Taoism and Confucianism.
• Feminist Ethics: Deconstructing Gender Bias and Inequality Philosophically.
• Environmental Ethics: Moral Obligations in the Face of Climate Change.
• Theories of Truth: A Comparative Analysis in Analytic Philosophy.

Chemistry Term Paper Topics

When approaching topics in Chemistry, focus on clearly defining the research question and highlighting its significance within the broader context of chemical science. Integrate recent advancements, experimental methodologies, and real-world applications to showcase the practical implications of your chosen topic and engage your readers with the dynamic and evolving nature of the field. If any topic is too difficult or doesn't resonate with you, try term paper writing services for better results.

• Green Chemistry: Sustainable Practices in the Chemical Industry.
• The Chemistry of Drug Design: From Molecules to Medicines.
• Nanotechnology in Chemistry: Applications and Future Implications.
• Environmental Chemistry: Analyzing the Impact of Human Activities on Ecosystems.
• The Role of Catalysts in Chemical Reactions: Mechanisms and Applications.
• Supramolecular Chemistry: Exploring Molecular Assemblies and Interactions.
• Quantum Chemistry: Understanding Molecular Behavior at the Quantum Level.
• Chemistry of Food Additives: Safety, Functionality, and Regulations.
• The Chemistry of Brewing: From Raw Ingredients to the Perfect Pint.
• Bioinorganic Chemistry: Investigating the Role of Metals in Biological Systems.

Biology Term Paper Topics

With topics in Biology, carefully define your research question, ensuring it addresses a specific aspect of biological science with relevance and significance. Utilize a combination of current research, empirical evidence, and critical analysis to construct a well-supported argument that contributes to the broader understanding of biological phenomena.

• CRISPR Technology: Revolutionary Advances in Genetic Editing.
• The Microbiome and Human Health: Exploring the Gut-Brain Connection.
• Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behavior: Insights from Darwinian Theory.
• Climate Change and Biodiversity: Impact on Ecosystems and Conservation.
• Stem Cell Research: Applications in Medicine and Ethical Considerations.
• Epigenetics: Understanding Gene Expression Beyond DNA Sequences.
• Conservation Biology: Strategies to Protect Endangered Species.
• Neurobiology of Addiction: Unraveling the Molecular Mechanisms.
• Synthetic Biology: Engineering Life for Biotechnological Applications.
• The Ecology of Infectious Diseases: Interactions between Pathogens and Hosts.

Political Science Term Paper Topics

Approaching Political Science topics involves clearly articulating your research question and its relevance to political theory or contemporary issues. Thoroughly engage with diverse perspectives, incorporate relevant case studies, and critically analyze empirical evidence to construct a nuanced argument that contributes to the field's ongoing discourse.

• The Impact of Social Media on Political Campaigns: Analyzing Communication Strategies.
• The Role of International Organizations in Global Governance: A Case Study Approach.
• Populism in Contemporary Politics: Causes, Characteristics, and Consequences.
• The Evolution of Political Parties: A Comparative Analysis of Party Systems.
• Human Rights and International Law: Addressing Challenges and Controversies.
• The Influence of Political Economy on Policy Decision-Making.
• The Arab Spring: Examining Political Change in the Middle East.
• Environmental Politics: Policy Approaches to Address Climate Change.
• Electoral Systems: Comparing Proportional Representation and First-Past-the-Post.
• Nationalism and Identity Politics: Impact on Statehood and International Relations.

Term Paper Topics About Education

Ensure your Education research paper topics are specific and relevant, focusing on an aspect of education that aligns with your academic interests. Support your arguments with a blend of empirical evidence, educational theories, and practical examples to offer a comprehensive analysis and contribute meaningfully to the discourse surrounding educational practices.

• The Impact of Technology on Classroom Learning: Opportunities and Challenges.
• Inclusive Education: Addressing Diversity in the Classroom.
• The Role of Standardized Testing in Education: Pros and Cons.
• Early Childhood Education: The Foundation for Lifelong Learning.
• Online Learning: Exploring Effectiveness and College Students Engagement.
• Education Policy Analysis: A Comparative Study of Global Approaches.
• Special Education: Meeting the Needs of Diverse Learners.
• Teacher Professional Development: Strategies for Continuous Improvement.
• The Influence of Socioeconomic Status on Educational Attainment.
• Education and Social Justice: Bridging Gaps for Equitable Opportunities.

Media and Communication Term Paper Topics

Meticulously define your research question, emphasizing its significance within the realm of Media and Communication studies. Employ a critical analysis of media theories, incorporate real-world examples, and consider the social implications to construct a well-rounded argument that reflects an in-depth understanding of communication dynamics.

• Media Influence on Public Opinion: Analyzing the Power of Mass Media.
• Social Media and Political Discourse: Impacts on Democratic Processes.
• The Evolution of Print Journalism in the Digital Age: Challenges and Opportunities.
• Media Ethics: Balancing Freedom of Speech and Responsible Reporting.
• The Role of Advertising in Shaping Consumer Behavior: A Critical Examination.
• Media Convergence: Integration of Platforms and its Effects on Content.
• The Representation of Gender in Media: Examining Stereotypes and Progress.
• Fake News and Misinformation: Challenges in the Era of Information Overload.
• The Impact of Streaming Services on Traditional Media: A Market Analysis.
• Media Literacy Education: Enhancing Critical Thinking in the Digital Age.

It's always crucial to begin researching term paper topics by thoroughly understanding the assigned subject matter or selecting one that aligns with your interests and experiences. Engage in thoughtful brainstorming to identify key themes or personal anecdotes that can add depth to your essay. Establish a clear and compelling thesis statement that guides the reader through your narrative or argument, providing a roadmap for the essay's structure.

For those looking to expedite their academic journey, exploring term papers for sale online could be a strategic move. Be sure to strike a balance between personal reflection and broader implications, showcasing both your individual perspective and an awareness of the topic's significance. Finally, revise and edit your essay diligently, seeking feedback from peers or mentors to ensure clarity, coherence, and an impactful presentation of your research paper ideas. If you ever happen to require any help with finding the best research paper topics, simply say, ' write my paper ,' and college curriculum helpers will give you a hand. 

Found a Great Topic? Awesome!

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History Term Papers Samples For Students

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Do you feel the need to check out some previously written Term Papers on History before you begin writing an own piece? In this open-access catalog of History Term Paper examples, you are given a fascinating opportunity to examine meaningful topics, content structuring techniques, text flow, formatting styles, and other academically acclaimed writing practices. Using them while composing your own History Term Paper will surely allow you to finish the piece faster.

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Home » Term Paper – Format, Examples and Writing Guide

Term Paper – Format, Examples and Writing Guide

Table of Contents

Definition:

Term paper is a type of academic writing assignment that is typically assigned to students at the end of a semester or term. It is usually a research-based paper that is meant to demonstrate the student’s understanding of a particular topic, as well as their ability to analyze and synthesize information from various sources.

Term papers are usually longer than other types of academic writing assignments and can range anywhere from 5 to 20 pages or more, depending on the level of study and the specific requirements of the assignment. They often require extensive research and the use of a variety of sources, including books, articles, and other academic publications.

Term Paper Format

The format of a term paper may vary depending on the specific requirements of your professor or institution. However, a typical term paper usually consists of the following sections:

• Title page: This should include the title of your paper, your name, the course name and number, your instructor’s name, and the date.
• Abstract : This is a brief summary of your paper, usually no more than 250 words. It should provide an overview of your topic, the research question or hypothesis, your methodology, and your main findings or conclusions.
• Introduction : This section should introduce your topic and provide background information on the subject. You should also state your research question or hypothesis and explain the importance of your research.
• Literature review : This section should review the existing literature on your topic. You should summarize the key findings and arguments made by other scholars and identify any gaps in the literature that your research aims to address.
• Methodology: This section should describe the methods you used to collect and analyze your data. You should explain your research design, sampling strategy, data collection methods, and data analysis techniques.
• Results : This section should present your findings. You can use tables, graphs, and charts to illustrate your data.
• Discussion : This section should interpret your findings and explain what they mean in relation to your research question or hypothesis. You should also discuss any limitations of your study and suggest areas for future research.
• Conclusion : This section should summarize your main findings and conclusions. You should also restate the importance of your research and its implications for the field.
• References : This section should list all the sources you cited in your paper using a specific citation style (e.g., APA, MLA, Chicago).
• Appendices : This section should include any additional materials that are relevant to your study but not essential to your main argument (e.g., survey questions, interview transcripts).

Structure of Term Paper

Here’s an example structure for a term paper:

I. Introduction

A. Background information on the topic

B. Thesis statement

II. Literature Review

A. Overview of current literature on the topic

B. Discussion of key themes and findings from literature

C. Identification of gaps in current literature

III. Methodology

A. Description of research design

B. Discussion of data collection methods

C. Explanation of data analysis techniques

IV. Results

A. Presentation of findings

B. Analysis and interpretation of results

C. Comparison of results with previous studies

V. Discussion

A. Summary of key findings

B. Explanation of how results address the research questions

C. Implications of results for the field

VI. Conclusion

A. Recap of key points

B. Significance of findings

C. Future directions for research

VII. References

A. List of sources cited in the paper

How to Write Term Paper

Here are some steps to help you write a term paper:

• Choose a topic: Choose a topic that interests you and is relevant to your course. If your professor has assigned a topic, make sure you understand it and clarify any doubts before you start.
• Research : Conduct research on your topic by gathering information from various sources such as books, academic journals, and online resources. Take notes and organize your information systematically.
• Create an outline : Create an outline of your term paper by arranging your ideas and information in a logical sequence. Your outline should include an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion.
• Write a thesis statement: Write a clear and concise thesis statement that states the main idea of your paper. Your thesis statement should be included in your introduction.
• Write the introduction: The introduction should grab the reader’s attention, provide background information on your topic, and introduce your thesis statement.
• Write the body : The body of your paper should provide supporting evidence for your thesis statement. Use your research to provide details and examples to support your argument. Make sure to organize your ideas logically and use transition words to connect paragraphs.
• Write the conclusion : The conclusion should summarize your main points and restate your thesis statement. Avoid introducing new information in the conclusion.
• Edit and proofread: Edit and proofread your term paper carefully to ensure that it is free of errors and flows smoothly. Check for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors.
• Format and cite your sources: Follow the formatting guidelines provided by your professor and cite your sources properly using the appropriate citation style.
• Submit your paper : Submit your paper on time and according to the instructions provided by your professor.

Term Paper Example

Here’s an example of a term paper:

Title : The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Cybersecurity

As the world becomes more digitally interconnected, cybersecurity threats are increasing in frequency and sophistication. Traditional security measures are no longer enough to protect against these threats. This paper explores the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in cybersecurity, including how AI can be used to detect and respond to threats in real-time, the challenges of implementing AI in cybersecurity, and the potential ethical implications of AI-powered security systems. The paper concludes with recommendations for organizations looking to integrate AI into their cybersecurity strategies.

Introduction :

The increasing number of cybersecurity threats in recent years has led to a growing interest in the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to improve cybersecurity. AI has the ability to analyze vast amounts of data and identify patterns and anomalies that may indicate a security breach. Additionally, AI can automate responses to threats, allowing for faster and more effective mitigation of security incidents. However, there are also challenges associated with implementing AI in cybersecurity, such as the need for large amounts of high-quality data, the potential for AI systems to make mistakes, and the ethical considerations surrounding the use of AI in security.

Literature Review:

This section of the paper reviews existing research on the use of AI in cybersecurity. It begins by discussing the types of AI techniques used in cybersecurity, including machine learning, natural language processing, and neural networks. The literature review then explores the advantages of using AI in cybersecurity, such as its ability to detect previously unknown threats and its potential to reduce the workload of security analysts. However, the review also highlights some of the challenges associated with implementing AI in cybersecurity, such as the need for high-quality training data and the potential for AI systems to be fooled by sophisticated attacks.

Methodology :

To better understand the challenges and opportunities associated with using AI in cybersecurity, this paper conducted a survey of cybersecurity professionals working in a variety of industries. The survey included questions about the types of AI techniques used in their organizations, the challenges they faced when implementing AI in cybersecurity, and their perceptions of the ethical implications of using AI in security.

The results of the survey showed that while many organizations are interested in using AI in cybersecurity, they face several challenges when implementing these systems. These challenges include the need for high-quality training data, the potential for AI systems to be fooled by sophisticated attacks, and the difficulty of integrating AI with existing security systems. Additionally, many respondents expressed concerns about the ethical implications of using AI in security, such as the potential for AI to be biased or to make decisions that are harmful to individuals or society as a whole.

Discussion :

Based on the results of the survey and the existing literature, this paper discusses the potential benefits and risks of using AI in cybersecurity. It also provides recommendations for organizations looking to integrate AI into their security strategies, such as the need to prioritize data quality and to ensure that AI systems are transparent and accountable.

Conclusion :

While there are challenges associated with implementing AI in cybersecurity, the potential benefits of using these systems are significant. AI can help organizations detect and respond to threats more quickly and effectively, reducing the risk of security breaches. However, it is important for organizations to be aware of the potential ethical implications of using AI in security and to take steps to ensure that these systems are transparent and accountable.

References:

• Alkhaldi, S., Al-Daraiseh, A., & Lutfiyya, H. (2019). A Survey on Artificial Intelligence Techniques in Cyber Security. Journal of Information Security, 10(03), 191-207.
• Gartner. (2019). Gartner Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2020. Retrieved from https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/gartner-top-10-strategic-technology-trends-for-2020/
• Kshetri, N. (2018). Blockchain’s roles in meeting key supply chain management objectives. International Journal of Information Management, 39, 80-89.
• Lipton, Z. C. (2018). The mythos of model interpretability. arXiv preprint arXiv:1606.03490.
• Schneier, B. (2019). Click Here to Kill Everybody: Security and Survival in a Hyper-Connected World. WW Norton & Company.
• Wahab, M. A., Rahman, M. S., & Islam, M. R. (2020). A Survey on AI Techniques in Cybersecurity. International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, 11(2), 22-27.

When to Write Term Paper

A term paper is usually a lengthy research paper that is assigned to students at the end of a term or semester. There are several situations when writing a term paper may be required, including:

• As a course requirement: In most cases, a term paper is required as part of the coursework for a particular course. It may be assigned by the instructor as a way of assessing the student’s understanding of the course material.
• To explore a specific topic : A term paper can be an excellent opportunity for students to explore a specific topic of interest in-depth. It allows them to conduct extensive research on the topic and develop their understanding of it.
• To develop critical thinking skills : Writing a term paper requires students to engage in critical thinking and analysis. It helps them to develop their ability to evaluate and interpret information, as well as to present their ideas in a clear and coherent manner.
• To prepare for future academic or professional pursuits: Writing a term paper can be an excellent way for students to prepare for future academic or professional pursuits. It can help them to develop the research and writing skills necessary for success in higher education or in a professional career.

Purpose of Term Paper

The main purposes of a term paper are:

• Demonstrate mastery of a subject: A term paper provides an opportunity for students to showcase their knowledge and understanding of a particular subject. It requires students to research and analyze the topic, and then present their findings in a clear and organized manner.
• Develop critical thinking skills: Writing a term paper requires students to think critically about their subject matter, analyzing various sources and viewpoints, and evaluating evidence to support their arguments.
• Improve writing skills : Writing a term paper helps students improve their writing skills, including organization, clarity, and coherence. It also requires them to follow specific formatting and citation guidelines, which can be valuable skills for future academic and professional endeavors.
• Contribute to academic discourse : A well-written term paper can contribute to academic discourse by presenting new insights, ideas, and arguments that add to the existing body of knowledge on a particular topic.
• Prepare for future research : Writing a term paper can help prepare students for future research, by teaching them how to conduct a literature review, evaluate sources, and formulate research questions and hypotheses. It can also help them develop research skills that they can apply in future academic or professional endeavors.

Advantages of Term Paper

There are several advantages of writing a term paper, including:

• In-depth exploration: Writing a term paper allows you to delve deeper into a specific topic, allowing you to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the subject matter.
• Improved writing skills: Writing a term paper involves extensive research, critical thinking, and the organization of ideas into a cohesive written document. As a result, writing a term paper can improve your writing skills significantly.
• Demonstration of knowledge: A well-written term paper demonstrates your knowledge and understanding of the subject matter, which can be beneficial for academic or professional purposes.
• Development of research skills : Writing a term paper requires conducting thorough research, analyzing data, and synthesizing information from various sources. This process can help you develop essential research skills that can be applied in many other areas.
• Enhancement of critical thinking : Writing a term paper encourages you to think critically, evaluate information, and develop well-supported arguments. These skills can be useful in many areas of life, including personal and professional decision-making.
• Preparation for further academic work : Writing a term paper is excellent preparation for more extensive academic projects, such as a thesis or dissertation.

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Hippie Subculture History

This essay about hippie words examines the unique lexicon of the 1960s and 1970s hippie movement and its significance in expressing and shaping the cultural and social values of the era. The essay discusses how words such as “groovy,” “far-out,” and “cool” reflected the movement’s ideals of peace, love, and freedom, distinguishing it from mainstream society. It also explores the impact of phrases like “make love, not war” and the adoption of terms from Eastern philosophies, such as “karma” and “zen,” which underscored the hippies’ anti-war stance and their quest for spiritual depth. Additionally, the use of communal terms like “brother” and “sister” reinforced the bonds within the hippie community. The essay concludes by noting the lasting influence of hippie language on mainstream American English, illustrating how these words have transcended their origins to become part of the broader cultural dialogue.

How it works

The term “hippie” evokes images of the 1960s and early 1970s, a tumultuous era characterized by social, political, and cultural upheaval. Integral to the identity of the hippie movement was its unique lexicon—a collection of phrases and words that communicated the values, beliefs, and sentiments of those within the counterculture. This essay explores the origins, meanings, and lasting impacts of these “hippie words,” shedding light on how language both shaped and reflected the ideals of a transformative generation.

The hippie movement initially burgeoned in the United States as a reaction against mainstream consumerist values, the military-industrial complex, and the conservative norms of the post-war era.

This subculture championed values such as peace, love, freedom, and a deep respect for nature, which were starkly different from the prevailing societal attitudes at the time. Language played a crucial role in this cultural differentiation. Words like “groovy,” “far-out,” and “cool” permeated the vernacular, each carrying connotations of approval and acceptance. These words served not only as descriptors but also as a way to affirm the group’s shared values.

Another significant aspect of hippie language was the focus on peace and harmony, especially in opposition to the Vietnam War. Phrases like “make love, not war” and “peace, man” became slogans that were emblematic of the movement’s anti-war stance. These expressions were not mere catchphrases but represented a profound and collective yearning for global peace and personal freedom. The use of peaceful rhetoric was a deliberate choice, aimed at countering the aggressive discourse that dominated political conversations during the era.

The hippie lexicon also included terms that reflected the movement’s embrace of Eastern philosophies and alternative lifestyles. Words such as “karma,” “vibe,” and “zen” became part of everyday hippie speech, indicating a shift towards spirituality and an inner search for meaning beyond the materialistic confines of Western society. This adoption of new linguistic elements highlighted the openness of the hippie movement to diverse influences and their quest for a deeper understanding of life and existence.

Moreover, the way hippies used language also fostered a sense of community and identity among its members. Terms like “brother” and “sister” were used to signify the bond between individuals within the movement, reinforcing the ideals of equality and mutual respect. This communal language helped solidify the internal cohesion of the group, making it stronger and more resilient in the face of external criticism and societal misunderstanding.

Today, many of the terms coined or popularized by the hippie movement have been absorbed into mainstream language, albeit often stripped of their radical connotations. This integration illustrates the profound impact that the hippie movement had on American English and reflects broader cultural shifts towards more casual and expressive forms of communication.

In conclusion, the language of the hippie movement was both a reflection of and a response to the cultural shifts of the 1960s and 1970s. Hippie words did more than just define a lexicon; they articulated a worldview, offered a means of social bonding, and facilitated the widespread dissemination of the movement’s core values. By examining these words, we gain insight not only into the language itself but also into the enduring influence of the hippie ethos on subsequent generations and on the linguistic tapestry of American English.

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Flashback: Your Weekly History Quiz, April 13, 2024

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Title: using long short-term memory (lstm) to merge precipitation data over mountainous area in sierra nevada.

Abstract: Obtaining reliable precipitation estimation with high resolutions in time and space is of great importance to hydrological studies. However, accurately estimating precipitation is a challenging task over high mountainous complex terrain. The three widely used precipitation measurement approaches, namely rainfall gauge, precipitation radars, and satellite-based precipitation sensors, have their own pros and cons in producing reliable precipitation products over complex areas. One way to decrease the detection error probability and improve data reliability is precipitation data merging. With the rapid advancements in computational capabilities and the escalating volume and diversity of earth observational data, Deep Learning (DL) models have gained considerable attention in geoscience. In this study, a deep learning technique, namely Long Short-term Memory (LSTM), was employed to merge a radar-based and a satellite-based Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) precipitation product Integrated Multi-Satellite Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) precipitation product at hourly scale. The merged results are compared with the widely used reanalysis precipitation product, Multi-Radar Multi-Sensor (MRMS), and assessed against gauge observational data from the California Data Exchange Center (CDEC). The findings indicated that the LSTM-based merged precipitation notably underestimated gauge observations and, at times, failed to provide meaningful estimates, showing predominantly near-zero values. Relying solely on individual Quantitative Precipitation Estimates (QPEs) without additional meteorological input proved insufficient for generating reliable merged QPE. However, the merged results effectively captured the temporal trends of the observations, outperforming MRMS in this aspect. This suggested that incorporating bias correction techniques could potentially enhance the accuracy of the merged product.

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