The Essay for the Lecture

The essay for the lecture (Modern History and Historical Migration Research)

• These instructions explain what an essay is and how you can write an academic text in this format in courses offered by the Chair of Modern History and Historical Migration Research.
• An essay always refers thematically to the lecture of the respective semester and explores a question (of your choice) from its context in greater depth by analyzing two sources.
• The deadline for submitting the essay for the lecture is the last day of the winter or summer semester in which the lecture is attended. An extension of the processing time is possible on the basis of a justified, informal application at the earliest five working days before the submission deadline; as a rule, an extension of the processing period by two weeks is initially granted.

What is an essay?

• The essay is a short academic text form. It differs from the term paper in three ways: It is shorter, more focused and works with fewer sources. While a term paper deals with a topic in a broad way, the essay goes into more depth.
• To write an essay, you choose a question from the thematic context of the lecture you attended and work on it using two documents.
• The deadline for submission is the end of the semester in which you attend the lecture.

Why write essays?

Essays train three skills that historians need:

• Selection: You will learn to select a few sources out of many possible sources that you can use to address your research question.
• Analysis: You learn to read sources scientifically and critically
• Comparison: You will learn to compare different perspectives by analyzing sources.

Structure of the essay

The essay follows a simple structure:

Introduction:

• Topic and question: What do you want to find out?
• State of research: Very concise and focused.

Presentation:

• Individual analysis: What does each source say about the issue you are investigating?
• Comparison: How do the sources differ?

Conclusion:

• Summary and classification: What do your findings mean for your question?

This structure corresponds to the procedure in research. You develop a question, collect material, analyze it and draw conclusions. The essay makes this process visible.

Instructions for the 5-page essay

Formal

• Length: 5 pages of text (plus bibliography)
• Format: Arial or Calibri 11pt, 1.5 line spacing
• Words: about 2,000 words
• Sources: exactly two documents, these can be primary sources or secondary sources, you can also compare publications from the scientific literature.
• Scientific apparatus: evidence of the sources, a small selection of contextualizing research literature, in notes only evidence of direct quotations, bibliography of all materials used
• Topic: from the current lecture

Step 1: Choose a topic and develop a question

• Go through your lecture notes. Which topic interested you? Which question remained unanswered? The essay is your chance to dig deeper.
• The question must be specific enough that you can work on it using two sources as examples
• In your introduction, introduce your topic in 2-3 sentences. Then formulate your question. Explain why the question is important.

Present sources (external source criticism)

• Present your two sources (internal and external source criticism and interpretation):

1. What documents do you have?
2. Who wrote them?
3. When were they written?
4. In what context?

• Explain why you have chosen these sources. What do you expect from the analysis? What do you hope to find out?

Step 2: Analyze sources (internal source criticism)

• Now analyze each source individually. This is not a summary. You are asking:

1. Who is speaking? Is the author a politician, civil servant, journalist, scientist? This shapes the perspective.
2. What is the intention behind it? Is the text intended to inform, convince, justify? Texts are not neutral.
3. What arguments are used? Does the author refer to morality, law, economy, tradition?
4. What is concealed? What is not said is often important.
5. Which terms appear? Language changes. "Foreign workers", "guest workers", "migrants" - each term conveys different ideas.
6. Facts: How do the sources address the facts you are investigating?

• Work out the author's attitude, perspective and narrative.

Step 3: Compare

• Then comes the most important part: the comparison.
• Don't just discuss differences or similarities, ask about reasons, motives and the way in which these are conveyed in the text.

1. Where do the sources agree? These are often undisputed points or aspects on which there is broad consensus.
2. Where do they differ? This shows lines of conflict and different interests.
3. Why these differences? Different positions usually have different causes, e.g:

• Temporal differences (changing circumstances)
• Social differences (different social groups)
• Regional differences (different local conditions)
• Political differences (different ideologies)

The comparison should bring new insights. If you only confirm what you already knew, the selection of sources was too simple: the aim is to determine how two sources take up and present an issue differently.

Step 4: Classify and evaluate

• Finally, categorize your results. Answer your original question. What did you find out? What new insights have you gained?
• Reflect critically on the limitations of your investigation. Two sources only provide an excerpt. What other perspectives would be important? What questions remain unanswered?
• Do not speculate about things that your sources do not reveal. Stick to what you can prove.

Practical tips

• Search for sources: Start early. Use the university library and digital archives. Ask for references during office hours. Grateful sources can often be found in large newspaper corpora (German newspaper portal, ZeitPunkte NRW, Chronicling America, etc.)
• Timing: An essay needs time to mature. Do not write it all in one day. Leave the text and revise it.
• Language: Write clearly and understandably in accessible academic language.
• Quotations: Quote sparingly, but accurately. Every quotation must have a purpose.
• Evidence: substantiate all claims about your sources. Do not invent anything.

The essay is an exercise in historical thinking.

It is not about the "right" answer, but about reasoned argumentation.

Show that you can read sources critically and understand different perspectives.

Instructions for writing essays, as of summer semester 2025.