TIPS ON WRITING ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAYS
Chris Endy, Department of History, California State University, Los Angeles
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(adapted from a document originally created by Michael H. Hunt)

In history courses, as in other college classes, your professors will most likely want you to write papers in an argumentative style.  This style is distinct from the kinds of writing you might do in other contexts.  There is a place in this world for playful, confessional, and informal styles of writing, but that place is typically not in your formal college writing assignments.  Instead, you should use these paper assignments to sharpen your skills in argumentative prose.  Improving your ability to write argumentative essays will yield benefits in college and later in life.  After you graduate, you will likely find many occasions that require you to use writing to persuade others of a particular point of view. 

Good argumentative writing depends on three specific qualities:
    -precision in argument and use of terms
    -grounding in evidence
    -clarity and concision in prose.

The following advice offers step-by-step guidance on how to write essays that contain these three qualities.

1. Take a few minutes to figure out the assignment. What are you being asked to do? To resolve any uncertainties, talk with your professor.

2. Build an outline.  Consult your notes and readings to find evidence that is relevant to the assignment.  Sort that evidence into categories and place together examples that are related to the same idea.  Once you gather and sort your evidence, draft a tentative thesis statement that satisfies the paper assignment.  What kind of thesis will your evidence support?

3. Prepare a rough draft. Don’t worry about perfection. Writing can be a way of trying out ideas.  Let go of those that don’t work, and concentrate on those that do.  If at this stage you are having difficulty getting started, return to the assignment instructions or consult with the professor. The most frequent cause for blockage at this point is the need for a stronger grasp of what you are writing about or a hesitancy to take a stand on the assigned topic or question.

4. Set the draft aside for a time. Twenty-four hours, or at least overnight, will give you a fresh critical perspective needed to edit.  If you don't have much time, take whatever pause you can—the longer the better.

5. Return to the draft for a careful editing. This can be the most pleasurable part of writing as you see your argument emerge ever more sharply.  Particularly difficult sections may require even more attention, perhaps even another visit after some time away.  Look carefully for passages that you can condense.  Empty phrases, tangential points, or repetitious statements use valuable space that could be used for added evidence or analysis.

6. Proofread.  Read your writing aloud.  This might sound odd, but it works.  It will help you catch grammatical errors and awkward passages.  Consider having a friend not in the class look over the draft for clarity, style, and grammar.

Here are some questions to keep in mind as you revise:

• Do you have a clear, descriptive, engaging title? The title is your first chance to communicate your intentions to your reader. Use it well.

• Does your opening paragraph indicate clearly your paper’s thesis?  Make sure that all the sentences making up the introduction point the reader in the same general direction. If they don’t, the reader will be confused from the outset.  Often, writers don’t figure out their real thesis until they reach the conclusion.  If this happens, move all or part of your conclusion to the intro, where it will serve you and your reader far better.  Make sure that your opening paragraph is clear and short.  Long introductions eat up limited space and reduce the amount of evidence you can use to support your argument.

• Are the supporting paragraphs tied together so that they make a connected argument?  Each supporting paragraph should begin with a topic sentence.  This topic sentence, at the start of each paragraph, should announce the purpose of the paragraph and indicate how the paragraph fits into the overall argument of your essay.  Think of the topic sentence as a mini-thesis for each paragraph.

• Does every supporting paragraph deploy evidence from class materials (e.g., names, events, statistics, points of view, or quotes) to support the argument?  Evidence requires careful selection.  Use the best and most relevant examples.  Evidence also requires balance in quantity.  Give enough to convince the reader but not so much that the reader is overwhelmed or bored.  Most importantly, pace yourself and your word count so that you have space to give roughly equal evidence to each supporting paragraph.

• Can you shorten any long quotations?  Lengthy quotations consume space while silencing your own voice and analysis.  Quote just the best parts of a primary source, perhaps even as little as four or five words.  Then embed the quoted material in your own analysis.  Quotations work best when the material is elegant or memorable.  If the material to be quoted is pedestrian or forgettable, you are better off putting it in your own words (paraphrasing).  Don’t forget the citation, even when paraphrasing.

• Does the concluding paragraph (usually relatively short) offer more than a simple repetition of the general argument? An intelligent reader will have already gotten your argument if it is well made.  Instead of merely repeating yourself (and wasting valuable lines), use the conclusion to extend your argument, explore its significance, or view it from a fresh angle.  What have you learned?  Why is the major point made in the paper important to you?

Stylistic problems to avoid when writing history papers:
These three writing problems are not ungrammatical, but they do weaken historical analysis and deprive your prose of clarity and vigor, which is almost as bad as being ungrammatical.

1. Avoid anonymous quotations.  Always identify the speaker or author of your quotations.  Also try to provide brief context such as the year and the original audience intended by the author.  Otherwise, readers will not have the context needed to understand the words that you are putting in quotation marks.
BAD: Idealism soared in 1898.  “Our purpose is noble.”
BETTER: Idealism soared in 1898.  As President McKinley told Congress that year, “Our purpose is noble.”

2. Avoid passive voice sentences, especially ones that obscure the real person or force doing the action. Historians, like most people, are deeply interested in WHY things happen.  Passive voice sentences often give readers no sense of who or what made something happen, leading to sloppy and imprecise analysis.
BAD: The movement was accused of being Communist.
BETTER: Truman’s White House accused the movement of being Communist.
BAD: By 1942 the unemployment problem was solved.
BETTER: By 1942 wartime industries had solved the unemployment problem.

3. Use the past tense when writing about past events or statements.  Some writers outside the field of history use the present tense regardless of the time frame, under the belief that that this tactic enlivens one’s prose.  Most historians, however, find this a tiresome gimmick that at times creates confusion over chronology.
BAD: In his 1898 letter to Congress, President McKinley writes that “our     purpose is noble.” 
BETTER: In his 1898 letter to Congress, President McKinley wrote that “our purpose is noble.”

Citations: As a general rule, you do not need to provide a citation for facts so generic that someone could find it almost anywhere.  For instance, the idea that the Civil War ended in 1865 requires no citation.  However, you must provide a citation for all quotations and statistics and for all facts and ideas that reflect the work of another scholar or writer.  You can thus pay your intellectual debts, and a reader can easily determine where your material came from.

Final Note: Learning to write with power and beauty depends on constant practice and critical feedback.  Do not expect to become a good writer in one single effort.  Most important, don’t let feedback on your paper become a referendum on you as a person.  Good writing requires a healthy ego, to venture forth with a confident argument.  It also requires a supply of humility, to absorb and respond to criticism.