How do YOU approach writing a History essay

[LinuxBeta]

While I totally love history, I seem to have some pretty big problems when it comes to writing essays. This isn't because of my language or my research skills- those have been worked into me by now. No...the problem for me seems to be the mentality behind it. Whenever an essay is assigned, I tend to over think the process. I spend days buried at the library, reading and taking notes, and by the time I finish, not only do I no longer feel like writing the essay but when I do write it, the information has been so well synthesized that I no longer remember where I got my information (my teacher keeps writing [u]make sure you cite all info[/u].

I am just curious as to how others approach writing these history essays. How do you go about finding historiography in particular?

[Scade]

I used this approach for my history EE and essays:

First I start by thinking about the areas I'm interested in, then start narrowing the topic and maybe read a bit. When I'm pretty sure about the topic I try to find a number of books related on the matter. At this point I start reading them, and writing down (either notebook, or computer) whenever I find something important. Especially different interpretations. Also facts of course, but depending on the topic they can be pretty much the same in all books. Whenever I write something I also write the author and the page number (book also, if I'm using several from the same author). When I've done this for a sufficient number of books I go through them. At this point I start organizing the quotes & interpretations according to their topic (for example in my EE I talked about how Trotsky organized the red Army in 1918, I divided the notes into three sub topics of conscription, recruiting officers, and the use of commissars). At this point it is pretty easy to just read through the notes. At this point I normally start composing the essay by either just starting to write it, or still compressing and organizing the information to rough points, which I then write.

With this method it is pretty easy to cite all the information and get many interpretations into the essay.

[Tarz]

[quote name='Scade' post='39072' date='Mar 5 2009, 02:52 PM']I used this approach for my history EE and essays:[/quote]
Yeah, that's exactly what I do too. I came up with something very helpful while I was doing my EE.
I was comparing different theories of who was behind the Reichstag fire, so I made a table which had the titles:
Communists | NOT | Nazis | NOT | van der Lubbe | NOT
and I'd make all my notes on the computer in another file, the colour code them with highlighting and whenever I found a point that supports or disproves one of the theories, I'd put it, colour coded, in the table while I also write the quote itself and the page number under a colour coded section in the other document (with the notes). Oh, and the table is really wide, so I make sure I extend it all the way across my wide screen monitor. If I needed more columns, I could use my second monitor too
Then everything is right there. I have have to decide what version of the story I believe and all the arguments are there and the references take 5 secs to find.

My adviser was impressed by my EE, so I guess this works