Bare with me, it’s my first time “writing” but I have to start some where.
UWM is a great school. They offer great resources for undergraduate students when it comes to helping us developing our writing skills, however, I am learning they are not always geared towards history majors.Historical writing is a certain type or writing. It requires taking large amounts of data, processing what is needed for the project you happen to be working on, and then taking that data and turning that data in to something readable. This differs from so many other types of writing because it’s not creative, its a very subjective type of writing. Two people can read the same primary source and take a way a totally different opinion of it. For example, I tend to look at most historical events with a religious tint, half the time without even realizing it. I know others who will spin a feminist view on the same document even if there isn’t a woman mentioned anywhere in it. Factor in the opinion of the professor and you have no clue what grade you are going to get on the paper. It’s hard water to navigate. So where do you start.
I think one of the biggest struggles for me has been to break free from my standard 5 paragraph essay. We all know it. It was pounded in to our heads in high school. It’s gotten my a’s thus far, but I think it’s time for me to abandon my old friend. He’s holding me back. Even if I can manage to stretch it out to 4 pages, they really do start to ramble on and unravel. I don’t know why it’s such a struggle to get away from this, one bit of advice that I received from a friend who runs creative writing workshops was to read my favorite writers to see what they do. Let me tell you, I don’t think I’ve ever read a 5 paragraph book. By anyone. Ever. Non fiction or Fiction.
The other idea that has been pounded in to my head that I can’t seem to get away from is that using “I” is evil. I am sure using “I” every other word is evil. I am sure that I don’t need to say that I believe that I believe that I don’t need to used the word I- see that I am doing here, but there isn’t anything wrong with using I. Surely every once in a while I can say something along the lines of “I intend to prove” But I don’t. I will thesaurus myself in to a frenzy to reword that phrase in to something else. Making myself sound stuffy and pretentious or at the very least crazy. I am going to work on this, as well as breaking out of my 5 paragraph slump.
The biggest thing I was able to take away from East Asian History this semester, besides learning to spell bureaurcracy, was learning to write more. At first when my Professor told me to write more I wanted to scream and yell and say how much more do you want me to write! Then, he gave us the chance to do a re write. When I had to retype out a hand written paper, I laughed at how sad it really was. It was a reality check. I really did need to write more. And when I asked what he meant when he said write more, he said tell me what you know. I said well you know I know about ____ he said it’s a test, how am I supposed to know you know that. That is when it clicked! Had this been multiple choice would I have just left half of the questions blank thinking he knows I know that? No way! So why would I omit half of the information on an essay question? So I learned to include more. Historical writing needs more back story! Of course this leads to the first problem, how much is too much, how do you weed the necessary from the unnecessary. How do you omit the facts that make you giddy happy, but would bore they every day person? How do you make an academic paper that has a word limit, page limit, whatever limit include EVERYTHING but still not run over?
I guess these are the things I hope to figure out. At AHA last weekend I picked up some amazing books on historical writing, Writing History A Guide For Students by William Kelleher Storey andEssaying The Past By Jim Cullen So far this week has been pretty hectic and I’ve only had a chance to glance at them but I am pretty impressed. Hopefully, once I’ve read through them I can go to history department with them and convince the history department and beg them to think about a formal historical writing class! Till the next blog! Hopefully with book reviews.
Speaking of Jim Cullen, Follow his blog, http://amhistnow.blogspot.com/ Maybe, he'll help me get followers too!
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