Essay Evaluation Guidelines
by Perry Bush

Keep these guidelines in mind as you prepare to write history essays here at Bluffton. In your essay exams and in larger paper assignments, you will be asked to write an historical argument which should include:

• An Organizational Framework: This means an introduction which structures your argument, a series of ordered points in the body of your paper, some transitional sentences that show you are moving from one point to the other, culminating in a reasoned, logical conclusion which should tie your argument together. I expect a structured essay even in in-class assignments, though in essay exams I do not expect anything elaborate.

• Specific Evidence to support your viewpoint. This means names, dates, institutions, events, and in longer papers, a few, judiciously selected shorter quotations. Obviously, your ability to provide specific references to data will be more limited in in-class essays. Yet even here you will need to provide some specific references to both historical material and to historical arguments; even if you can't quite remember someone's name or title, half a reference is better than none at all. In either kind of assignment, you must always try to AVOID VAGUE GLITTERING GENERALITIES and VAGUE JUDGMENTS.

• Moreover, in papers you MUST be careful to provide adequate references to the sources of your data. YOU MUST CITE YOUR SOURCES; you must tell the reader where you are getting this data. You may, as outlined in class, either use footnotes, endnotes, or merely put your references in parentheses in the text, yet it is very important that you provide such references. Deliberate refusal to cite your sources may constitute PLAGIARISM, a serious offense with penalties spelled out in your student handbook.

• Finally, superior essays include an element of creativity. A superior essay does not only describe and relate historical developments, but endeavors to state such understandings in a bold and creative fashion. While I would caution you against going off into vague, unsupported lines of reasoning which do not entirely relate to the question at hand, I expect that you will be able to construct some creative understandings through a carefully reasoned and well-evidenced historical argument.

Stating all this in another way, when I go to grade your essay, I will ask myself the following questions:

1. Is the essay well-written? Is it clear? coherent? concise? Does it have a recognizable thesis? provide evidence in support of this thesis? summarize and conclude a careful argument?

2. Is the essay well-informed? Does it refer to material from a number of different historical sources -- class texts, lectures, and discussion? Is the evidence used accurately and precisely?

3. Is the essay original? Does it examine other issues closely related to the question? Does it highlight the most important consequences of the ideas, events, and/or developments discussed?

Copyright © 1996 by Perry Bush.
Permission has been granted to reproduce this document for non-commercial educational purposes, on the condition that the author receives credit. Perry Bush is associate professor of history at Bluffton College, in Bluffton, Ohio.