Common Mistakes in Higher History Essays
Wednesday, November 17th, 2010Do well in your next higher history essay
Writing successful higher history essays is quite a challenge. Some students can handle the essay writing techniques, but find it hard dealing with so many facts and bibliography. Others, on the contrary, can face a professional historical research, but don’t manage to put it in words, especially when they must respect a certain essay word count.
Of course, if writing is not your forté, or you don’t have time to write your essays, you can always find help in our team of professional writers, who will provide you with a custom made essay. An original paper with intrinsic academic value, written by professional academic writers. However, if you want to try and prepare your own higher history essay, we suggest you avoid these frequent mistakes.
Mistake #1: Choosing a topic way too broad
Choosing the topic is the first thing you must do, whether you are working on a higher history essay or any other kind of assignment writing. The question is, what kind of topic? For example, you might be taking a course on “American History” and be asked to write an essay on the Civil Rights.
You should start by assuming that the topic is probably too broad, since it will require you to deal with too much information for just one essay. That is why, when trying to respect a certain extension, a broad topic will be quite superficial: you can say many things about this topic, but everything you write will be at a very basic level.
The answer is narrowing your topic: that is, choosing to deal with only a part of it. For example, you may want to choose something as how Martin Luther King played a major part in the fight for Civil Rights.
Mistake #2: Inventing colorful facts
A higher history essay doesn’t require you to create your own story. If you think that describing a day in Churchill’s life is going to help you achieve a deeper analysis, think again. Teachers won’t appreciate you writing a historical novel. Perhaps you are not inventing, but taking the data from a source which is less than appropriate, such as a TV documentary, a random web page or a school textbook. However, it is always better to refer to an authentic source while doing the essay as this is not a subject that you can write on your own. While the flow of writing should be in your style, you should never attempt to change the intended meaning.
Mistake #3: Not proofreading your essay
If you are taking such an advance course, we can assume this is not the first essay you write. Quite on the contrary, you probably are aware of the importance of editing and proofreading your essay (and you may even consider hiring an essay checker). The fact is a higher history essay needs plenty of attention in little details, such as years. Misspelling “1789” as “1879” could cost you a lot.
