Guide to Writing an Effective Essay

In 2004, 260,789 people took the US History Ap Test. Out of those people only 28,078 recieved a 5 and only 54,546 recieved a 4. 50% of your exam grade is multiple choice and 50% is free response questions. The multiple choice is studying on your own but the essays are all about strategy. Here are a few simple strategies to make your essays in US History AP better both in class and on the AP Exam.

[Note: For this example I will be using an essay written by me responding to: " Did life in the colonies to 1750 reflect the values of freedom, justice, equality and republican government as was claimed by 1776? Consider social, economic, and political experiences of the colonists"]

Introduction Paragraph:
In my opinion, this is the most important part of every essay. A strong introduction will set the reader's mood and attitude towards the essay in a positive direction while a weak opening paragraph can cause lack of interest. First and foremost we need a hook or a sentence or two used to real the reader in.

“O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!” (US National Anthem) is a phrase that most Americans are familiar with. According to America's founders, freedom, liberty, equality and republican government were all words that reflected American values since the start of the colonies in Jamestown in 1607.

Most people are in fact familiar with this phrase and can relate to the essay. After we create a hook (for our purposes) we will write a thesis. The This is the main idea of the essay, stated in a single sentence, called the thesis statement. You must limit your entire essay to the topic you have introduced in your thesis statement. Your Thesis can be put anywhere within your essay but it is recomended to put it in your introduction for the sake of flow.

The colonies up to the year 1750 failed to demonstrate the values they proclaimed due to inequality for all people (especially blacks and women), limited freedom of religion, injustice to the innocent, and the colonies being under the control of England.

The thesis clearly states my opinion on the matter and includes all of the arguments I present within my essay. This thesis was written during an in class essay and litterally took about 30 seconds to come up with. If you are writting a thesis for a take-home essay, it should include more advanced vocabulary. (A thesaurus is your best friend here!) After your thesis you should include a sentence or two as transition into your essay.

Compared to parts of Europe the colonies were actually farther behind in reflecting these values than most other countries.

Body Paragraphs:
Note that this section is entitled "Body Paragraphs meaning there should be more than one. These paragraphs convey your main ideas, points, or analysis on the topic/question you are writting about. In my essay I had four body paragrphs (one for each argument I provided in my thesis). Each paragraph should include facts supporting your argument. These facts should be clear and concise and may be taken from your personal knowledge or from history. Due to the exam being an AP US History exam... you probably want your facts to come from history. As long as you provide good historical insight and information in your essays you should do well. Most teachers grading the exams will not take points off if you missed a date by a year or so. Here is my first body paragraph for reference:

Inequality was a major injustice of the colonies not only since their start but chiefly since 1619 when the first slave market arrived in Virginia. Slaves were by no means equal to any other group in society. They were the bottom of the food chain metaphorically. Slaves were under the complete authority of their owner which in its own shows inequality but besides that they were made to pick the rice, tobacco, and sugar in many plantations. Women were also victims of inequality since even before the start of the colonies. Especially in religion women were regarded as inferior to men. Puritan and Quaker religion especially reflected that. Women were expected to stay home and raise the family while the men made the money. Neither women nor slaves could hold town offices or vote in the elections.

Rebuttal Paragraph(s):
This is the most commonly left out part of an essay and happens to be a very important part of them. Rebuttal Paragraphs are paragraphs that basically take what someone trying to disprove your essay would say and disproving them. The form of this paragraph(s) is dependant on how strong your argument is. A rule of thumb is to make your rebuttal a seperate paragraph after the body if you have a strong argument but if your argument as a whole is weak you should probably imbed your rebuttal within the body paragraphs of your essay. Here is an example of a short (due to limited time) rebuttal i came up with:

Many countries had already attained these values that the colonies were still trying to generate. Slavery had been altogether abolished or never started in many countries because of the heinousness of it. Equality also fell victim to class which became to a great extent defined during the emergence of the colonies.

Conclusion:
The conclusion is the part of an essay with which people commonly have the most trouble. Within your conclusion you should restate your strongest points and restate your opinion in different words. However, this is the only part of a good essay that is not necessarily required. During a timed essay like the AP exam, teachers would rather you have the time to write the strongest essay possible with no conclusion than you rush to finish your essay just so you can include one. However, the exception to this rule is take-home essays. In these you should always have a conclusion because you should ahve more time to write the essay. I didn't write a conclusion for my essay but Im sure most of you are familiar at least with what one is. Two things never to include here are the words "In conclusion" and a happy ending sentence like "and that is why America is what it is today!". They are not needed and only show lack of experience in writing essays.

Links to Essay Writting Resources:
[URL=http://www2.actden.com/writ_den/tips/essay/index.htm]Tips-O-Matic[/URL]
[URL=http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Atrium/1437/]The 5 Paragraph Essay[/URL]
[URL=http://members.tripod.com/~lklivingston/essay/]Basic Essay Guide[/URL]
[URL=http://www.h-net.org/~africa/citation.html]Citing Internet Sources in History[/URL]
[URL=http://www.webgrammar.com/]WebGrammer.com[/URL]
[URL=http://home.earthlink.net/~gfeldmeth/DBQ.html]DBQ Help[/URL]

Hope this helps a bit! ^_^