Writing an Ancient History Essay
Any essay you submit should be founded on your own analysis and research. Any material or ideas taken from other sources must be listed in the references section.
If you don’t know much about the given topic, it is better to start with studying the general history of the period and standard textbooks, for example, The Cambridge Ancient History.
Your essay on ancient history should be a structured piece of persuasive writing with proper arguments and evidence. You should bring the hypothesis and validate it while writing. In your essay you set the question and answer it.
Writing an ancient history essay includes six steps: choosing a topic, making notes, organizing the information collected, writing the drafts, composing final version of the essay and preparing footnotes and the bibliography.
First of all, you need to decide which topic will suit you better. Your essay will be more effective if you will write on the topic you are interested in and you have profound knowledge about.
While conducting research, you need to keep in mind that extensive reading is essential for receiving high grades for your essay. You can choose rather narrow topic, but hold a deep analysis. This way you will demonstrate your deep knowledge of the subject and your analytical skills. Usually supervisors appreciate that.
Making notes will assist you in systematizing the material. It is better to take notes as you read, writing down the bibliographical details as well. If you will note only information, ideas and interpretation, your work will be free of plagiarism.
Next step is to read your notes and organize them into categories. Create the appropriate sequence and write down the detailed plan for your essay. The main points on this stage are providing unity and structure for your piece of writing. All your arguments should be divided into three parts: introduction, body text and conclusion.
In introduction you introduce the idea of your work and explain how you are going to answer the questions set. This part should catch the attention of the reader making him interested in the final result.
In the body text you develop the key points mentioned in the beginning and follow through different aspects of the topic. Paragraphs should lead naturally one to another.
In conclusion you restate your key arguments and demonstrate how they answer the main question.
Pay special attention to paragraphs’ structure. You need to make logic connection between paragraphs: each new paragraph should flow on from the previous one.
For ancient history essay you should present evidence supporting your arguments. In ancient history there are two types of sources of information: modern works and ancient sources. You need to keep in mind that ancient sources may contain evidence as well as opinion. In modern works there is only opinion about the past events.