You may return to the J. B. Owens Home Page. You may also find it useful to read the standards used to evaluate longer essays.

Writing Effective Examination Essays

On examinations you will be writing relatively short essays. These will respond to interpretative questions. Most of the study questions accompanying each unit of the course are interpretative ones. Indeed, some have been used as examination questions, and you should know that I frequently reuse questions.

Such interpretative questions require you to take a stand on some issue; you must have an opinion, or more technically a hypothesis, which you will defend. Because the first thing I look for in reading a student's essay is a statement of the opinion/hypothesis to be defended, the logical thing is to start with a paragraph stating as clearly as possible what your opinion is. Then, because no opinion, no matter how beautifully or clearly stated it is, is worth anything if it fails to explain the known facts of a situation, your next task in the essay is to use what you know to defend your opinion. Obviously, some specific material may be relevant here, including names and dates (depending on what the question is). After assembling your defense, the only other thing you could possibly do, and this would be impressive, would be to explain briefly why you have rejected any other hypotheses of which you are aware. An essay developed successfully in this way would be outstanding.

A hint about studying for tests

Your course is built around trying to explain difficult problems associated with historical change. As we proceed, you should be trying to understand the problems, understand the possible hypothetical responses to the problems, and learn the evidence necessary for discussing these issues. If you try to do these things as you read and as you go over your clear and extensive class notes and discussion list messages on a regular basis, by the time we get to an examination, you will be ready, except for a review of the views you have developed and of the evidence to support them. This hint works whether you are taking an essay or a multiple-choice exam.

Send your questions about essay exams now or later to owenjack@isu.edu. Please include you name and e-mail address in the body of your message.

Revised: 21 August 2001

URL: http://www.isu.edu/~owenjack/essay.html