Write a 5-6 page essay.

HIST 2732: World History 1945-1992: The Age of Three Worlds

Essay Writing Guide – Winter 2021

General Information:

You are to write an essay on the topic indicated below. The essay is to be 5-6 pages (1500-1800 word). The paper should be double spaced, in 12 point font with standard margins. Title page or citation pages do not count toward the page count.

The paper must present a thesis statement that answers the question you were given. The main source for the paper is the book assigned for this course (Attached). However, you may use additional outside sources if you find it helpful to provide more context.

All sources must be cited in Chicago style, meaning footnotes or endnotes.

Topic:

Essay: Voices from Chernoby: Oral History (9781628973303)

• After reading “Voices from Chernoby: Oral History”, answer the following question:

Question: What do these oral histories tell us about the nature of the Soviet state and Soviet Society in the 1980s? How do they help us to understand the fall of the Soviet Union a few years later?

You will be required to read the book “Michael H. Hunt (ed), A Vietnam War Reader: A documentary History from American and Vietnamese Perspectives.

Essay Writing Tips and Suggestions

These are some general tips on writing essays that might be useful to you.

1. Introduce your main thesis (argument) clearly in the first few paragraphs. In this case your argument will be an answer to the question I have given you.

2. Throughout your paper, stay on topic and include only information and analysis that is directly relevant to the main thesis. Make sure the reader understands how this information is relevant to the main thesis.

3. Be sure that you are proving rather than just stating your argument. While your opinion is important in this assignment, what’s more important is your ability to support your opinion and convince the reader t

4. End your paper with a brief conclusion that sums up your argument and reminds the reader how you have proven it. Don’t make the conclusion too long or too repetitive

5. Avoid using the passive voice, “it was thought” etc. If possible explain who is performing the action, “Mary thought” etc.

6. Remain in the same tense, avoid shifting from past to present tense. Usually history is written in the past tense, but at times when writing about recent history you might need to shift into the present tense. Avoid doing this mid sentence or mid paragraph if possible.

7. Try to retain a certain formality in your writing without being unnecessarily verbose or pretentious. Use plain language as much as possible but don’t be conversational or colloquial.

8. Be specific in your adjectives, avoid, “good”, “great”, “nice” etc.

9. Introduce your quotations, don’t just change who the speaker is without telling us who that person is and why you’re quoting them, ex, “in the words of historian Mary Beard…”

10. Avoid relying on opinion quotations as evidence. Just because a historian thinks something doesn’t make it true. You still have to prove it’s true

11. Stay away from “I intend to show” or “this paper will”. It’s a short paper. You don’t need to tell the reader what you’re going to write, just do it. If your argument is well laid out the reader should be able to follow it and understand what you’re arguing without that much direction.