Turning a Draft into an Essay

1. Move from narrating to developing topics, themes, problems, issues
2. Create a conversation between you, historical actors, and other historians
3. Interpret, explain, analyze
4. Research, research, research-especially primary sources
5. Integrate a range of different primary sources into each paragraph
6. Quote primary, not secondary, sources
7. Identify everyone quoted or mentioned
8. Sweat the big stuff: organize topically
9. Sweat the small stuff: punctuation, grammar, style, citations
10. Revise passives to active voice