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Sharpening your history skills: paragraph writing

Essays are an important part of external assessment in history. Good essays are based on joining sentences together as coherent paragraphs that tackle different components of the essay question. A good essay must have good paragraphs.

Always remember to write each key idea in your essay as a new paragraph. It is in your interests that the marker can see quite clearly where each idea begins and ends. It is sometimes helpful to think of a paragraph as having a set layout:

• a sentence that outlines what the paragraph is about – a topic sentence
• sentences to support the topic sentence
• a sentence to conclude the paragraph.

In this way a paragraph mirrors the structure of an essay. One reason for using this layout is that a lot of markers will skim read your essay first for signs that you have understood the question and that the material is relevant. They will then look at your essay more closely. Anything you do to create a positive first impression can only help.

Developing good essay-writing skills involves good paragraph-writing skills. Think ultimately of your essay as being a collection of relevant paragraphs on a set topic.