Tips for Historical Papers

How much time do judges have to evaluate papers?
Judges have more time to judge papers than for any other category. I try to give my judges at the state contest around two weeks to read the papers and prepare for the interview. Think about what this means:

• Judges have time to thoughtfully read your paper and read it again if they wish.
• They have time to notice misspellings, poor sentence structure, and typos.
• They even have time to check your sources in the bibliography if they wish.
• A well-written, well-prepared, and well-thought out paper stands up to scrutiny much better than one thrown together at the last minute.

How important is the interview if the papers are read in advance?
Interviews are much more important than one might imagine. If a student has submitted a high quality paper but does not communicate that he or she understands the content or the bibliography of the paper, then the judges will be suspicious about the authorship of the paper. More importantly, if sections of the paper are unclear to the judges, the interview process can help clarify their concerns and in a close decision, could be a deciding factor.

How many pages would 1,500 to 2,500 words be?
In this day and age of computers counting words, this may not be a concern to the participant but for the judges who are not going to take time to count them (do not put the word count in the paper, on the title page, or in the bibliography), a good rule of thumb is that there are 250 words on a double-spaced page. A paper should then be between six and ten pages long. It is rare when you can develop a good historical paper in less than six pages. More than ten pages and the judges are going to start to question whether you are over the limit. If you are under six pages, don’t keep writing just to reach 1,500 words and don’t add some filler to reach the minimum either. You will need to rewrite the whole paper and flesh out the entire story, adding details, etc. throughout the body of the paper. Adding something to the end just to reach the word count is not going to impress the judges.

What does a good paper "look" like?
When I pick up a new book, I get an impression right away whether or not it will be a good book just by thumbing through the pages. I do the same thing with historical papers. Margins will be correct. It will look like it follows either the Turabian or MLA format. Punctuation will look correct. Misspelled words will not jump out at me. There will be about two and a half paragraphs per page

This last item is much more important than it sounds. A paper that has lots of single or double sentence paragraphs tells me that ideas are not developed. More than likely a student has just jotted down sentences from their notes in a disconnected fashion. This does not mean that you have to have exactly two and a half paragraphs per page. It means that you have organized and developed your research and your ideas.

How is a good paper organized?
Your paper should open with a strong, focused introduction where you state your thesis statement and address how the material in your paper relates to the theme.

The middle should follow two basic principles: it should have continuity and clarity. Remember you are telling a sort of story. It should be clear what the story is about and the story should develop in a logical sequence. This logical sequence should both describe the events and your analysis (your ideas) about these events.

The conclusion should summarize your main points about your story, using them to prove the thesis you stated in the introduction.

What is the best way to proofread my paper?
There are a variety of ways to proof a paper.

• Read your paper aloud. You will catch a lot of poorly constructed sentences.
• Take a pencil and circle all  verb tenses. Novice history writers have a tendency to waffle back and forth between past and present tense.
• Use grammar and spell check. However, spell check often gets words with a variety of spellings confused so you need to read for words like to, too, and two and there and their, etc.
• Ask a friend or a teacher to proof it for grammar, spelling, and sentence structure. Often the writer is too close to his or her work and read what they think they wrote so a second set of eyes can catch  discrepancies. One thing about other eyes proofing your paper: remember they are only proofing for grammar, spelling and sentence structure. It should still remain your paper. They should not re-write your paper. Also, don’t be hurt when you see all the things the other proofreader found wrong. That’s why you asked them to proof it in the first place. A proofreader isn’t there to tell you how good of job you did. They are there to help you produce a good paper.