THE GOOD BLOG ENTRY
Students often ask about writing a good blog entry. Although we will discuss the elements of a good TypePad entry and TypePad comment extensively in class, these paragraphs are offered as modest reference. Essentially, a TypePad entry should be three to four paragraph—roughly 400-500 words or the equivalent of 1–2 double-spaced pages. You might want to draft your entry in a word processing program first and copy and paste after you have finished. Use a plain text editor, such as Notepad on a Wintel platform or Tex-Edit on a Mac, to avoid pasting in all sorts of weird characters.
Title & Introductory Paragraph
A good paper begins with a good title. A good title gets the reader's attention immediately and sets the tone for the rest of the entry. A title, such as “Entry #1,” is not particularly effective or even interesting. Since this is a class, it might be a good idea to number the entries so that the reader knows which assignment you are addressing. Examples might include: “#1: Movie-Black Robe & Last of the Mohicans” or “No. 8: SimUtopia: Pleasantville.” You can be much more creative, but you must have a number. If you use a catchy title, be sure that the assignment is indicated in the first paragraph.
Once you've decided on an interesting title, the next step is framing an introductory paragraph. An introductory paragraph can take many forms, but in a short entry, two strategies are usually successful: the brief anecdote or narrative or the quotation. How might these work? Here are two examples.
The New Yorker magazine observed, “We believe that the truth can turn up in a cartoon, in one of the magazine's covers, in a poem, in a short story,….” The New Yorker statement might well apply to the British and Patriot reactions to events preceding the Revolutionary War depicted in early cartoons from both sides of the Atlantic. [The quotation]
In 1770, Boston citizens skirmished with a small band of British soldiers in front of the Customs House. Although witnesses to the event differed on who was responsible for the starting the altercation, the results were not in dispute—five dead Bostonians. Four years later, the women of Edenton decided to oppose the British Tea Act by boycotting tea. Both these events were memorialized in print. [The short anecdote or narrative]
The last sentence of the introductory paragraph should be the thesis. You should be aware that it is acceptable (and often necessary because of time constraints) to skip the introductory sentences in an essay examination question and begin immediately with a thesis statement.
Thesis
A thesis is a proposition or statement of an argument. It is not “stage direction” (e.g., “In this entry I will tell you about the British and American attitudes toward pre-revolutionary activism, and then I'll show…”). An adequate thesis is a clear, precise, declarative statement: “The British cartoon lampooning the women of Edenton, North Carolina, suggest that the British attitude toward patriot activism was <blank> and.” Obviously, your interpretation of the source will determine what you put in the blanks. Note, too, that this statement identifies the two sources.
Body
The body of your entry follows the terms of your thesis, beginning with a transitional sentence. (The easiest way to frame a transitional sentence is to take an important word or phrase from the sentence in the preceding paragraph and build on it.) In the Edenton example, the next paragraph would discuss the first “blank” and include the supporting evidence. The second paragraph would follow with a discussion of the second “blank” (usually its best to put the most compelling evidence last) and its evidence.
Conclusion
A conclusion not only summarizes your argument—usually in a sentence or two—but also discusses its historical significance. The last is the most critical. A conclusion puts your argument into “the big picture,” as Richard Nixon was fond of saying. It is an effort to relate your findings to a broader theme in the course. Does Edenton cartoon say something about how the British viewed patriot seriousness of purpose? Does the imagesoffer any insights into British on gender and politics? Et le voila—your entry is finished, and you have a nicely ordered 3–4 paragraph entry.
Movie Responses
The movie responses are an exercise in critical thinking. We want to encourage you to experiment with ideas and theses in these responses. Be creative. Be bold. Be daring. However, you must also have a clear thesis and use supporting evidence from the films, lecture, readings and/or exercises. In general, you should be thinking about questions of historical representation, of collective memory, of narrative, of historical processes and of authenticity. We expect the students to engage with concepts like freedom, individualism, equality, standardization, technological innovation, family, race, gender, class, mass media and nationalism. There are a variety of approaches you can take when writing about these films. Some of you may chose to pick a theme and carry it throughout the semester. For example, you can write about the ways in which race, class and/or gender are portrayed in the films and books. Another option is the “big picture” approach where you elaborate the themes of the film/books and relate those to the history of the time period.
We will have an opportunity to discuss these films in class before the entry is due. Come prepared with opinions and ideas. But do not rely on our class discussion for your entry. They should be original ideas/arguments and clearly demonstrate that you have seen the film.
As a side note, we are NOT looking for plot summary or narrative descriptions of the films. We have seen them and know the story. In this same vein, we are NOT looking for responses that point out the specific historical inaccuracies in the film, like whether particular battlefield scenes are “accurately” portrayed.
Grammar for Historians & Others
Here are some common grammatical problems that arise in history papers, listed with the correction mark for each and a solution to the problem. You will find these abbreviations used on your papers, so it is a good idea to look these over. Grammar for Historians can be found online.