Note that this work is an edited anthology, and not his companion book to the video documentary series, which is simply titled The First World War. Make sure you are working with the proper book, the Oxford Illustrated History edited by Strachan.
For most of the primary course texts for this course, students will be required to write an opinion essay. These essays will be due at the end of the week listed for that particular book in the Weekly Course Outline / Assignment section of the course syllabus. The due date will be listed in the Announcements section and also in the Assignments section of the course site. These essays are to be relatively brief – a minimum of three full pages of text exclusive of end matter, although you may write more if you wish. They are not research papers – that is, there is no need for a bibliography or citations (unless you quote directly from the book or reference other books). You must include a separate title page with student, course, and paper information, which does not count against the length requirements. Sample essays will be provided below, both correct and incorrect, to show you what I want.
Basic / standard academic writing format is expected – 12-point type font, Times New Roman, Arial, Calibri or Verdana font, with 1-inch top and bottom and 1-¼ inch side margins. It is also expected that students will use proper spelling and grammar. Since this is an opinion paper, you not only may but indeed are required to use first person format when writing it. If you do use citations, they should be in the appropriate Chicago/Turabian history style, and you should include foot or endnotes and bibliography with your essay if you use any direct quotes. You must include a distinct title page, which should include your name, the course number / name, the section number, the assignment title (such as Opinion Essay #2) and the title of the book you are writing about.
These essays are intended to be thought/opinion pieces about the assigned course text. They are not book reviews – I do not want an overall description or summary of the book, or any other sort of formal book report/review material. I want to strongly emphasize this – I am looking for your personal reactions to the book, not a summary of the book’s contents. I know what is in the book; what I want is your reaction to it.
One key aspect of this assignment is to make sure you write it in first person, as opposed to the third person commonly used for book reviews – “I had a hard time reading the book because I felt that the author jumped around a lot.” (First person – correct) versus “The book was uneven and disjointed.” (Third person – incorrect). While they both convey a similar point, the first phrasing makes it plain that the reaction described is a purely personal one, while the second, more “objective” phrasing implies that the book is poorly written, which may or may not be the case.
I realize this is an unusual way to do a reading essay, and it may be hard for some students to break out of the more traditional “book review” style of writing. It may seem like an odd way to do it, but I actually use this format in order to help you improve your ability to evaluate and report on books.
A common instruction for students writing a book review is for them to “put aside” their personal feelings about the book and write an objective review. This is actually very good advice, but is much more difficult to do than is commonly assumed. The standard method of “being objective” about a book is simply to write about it using third person phrasing. This type of phrasing may seem more objective on the surface, but in fact is frequently a method of expressing personal opinions in a manner that makes those opinions seem like objective “fact”. What I am trying to do with this assignment is to have you to recognize those opinions, both positive and negative, examine why you feel that way, and to distinguish between those opinions and more objective analysis of the book.
The point here is that by acknowledging and evaluating your own opinions about the book, you will be better equipped to do so with future book reviews. If you can say “I don’t like this book because I find it difficult to read”, then you have identified a potential issue that can be examined. Is the book truly poorly written, which is a significant and objective criticism? Or do you just not like the author’s style, which makes it a personal reaction rather than an objective criticism?
Finally, I also want to help students begin to break out of a common human behavioral cycle, which is to confuse personal opinion with “truth”. We tend to assume that our own personal reaction to something is the only legitimate evaluation of it, and that others will universally share that opinion. If we like a book, then it becomes “an excellent work of history”’ if we dislike it, then it is “poorly written garbage”. It can be very hard to admit that a book that we like actually contains many serious factual errors, or that a book we dislike is actually an incisive analysis of an issue. By focusing only on your opinions for this assignment, I hope to sensitize you to those opinions, so you will be better able to take them into account when doing more traditional book reviews (and other such analysis) in the future.
I am looking for your opinion of, and reaction to, the book itself. You certainly don’t have to like the book – this is your opinion, after all. You may consider some or all of the following questions to provide material for these essays, but it is not necessary to answer any of them when writing the essay:
Did you find the book easy or hard to read, and why?
What aspects of the book did you enjoy / dislike, and why?
Do you think the author provided adequate support for his thesis / arguments?
Was there anything that you felt should have been included in the book but wasn’t? Was there material in the book that you felt was unnecessary? Be careful about this one – don’t confuse your own interests with the author’s. If the author explicitly states that they will not cover “X”, then don’t say “This book was bad because it didn’t talk about ‘X’”. You could say “I would have liked to see a discussion of ‘X’, but I realize it was outside the scope of the author’s stated goals for the book.”
What did you learn from it? What do you feel was the most important idea or concept you gained from reading the book?
In what ways did this book increase your understanding of the overall course subject area?
Do you think the book could have been improved? If so, what improvements would you suggest?
Does the book agree or disagree with other books or material you have read on this subject? If so, in what ways, and which do you feel are the correct interpretations of events?
I do NOT want you to turn the essay into a “question and answer” sort of thing, where you take each of the above questions and write a short bit about it. These questions are merely intended to give you an idea of some of the ways you can approach the essay.
You are not limited to the above questions – if you can come up with other methods of expressing your opinion of the book, feel free to use them. It is also important to note that you are not required to like the book, but merely to explain your reaction to it, and why you felt that way. However, “I didn’t like it because it was too long.” sounds much less mature than “I felt the author repeated himself quite a bit, making the book much longer than it needed to be.” Likewise, “It was boring because it didn’t have enough pictures.” is not nearly as incisive as “I would have enjoyed the book more if it had more pictures in it.”
If you have any questions regarding this assignment, please ask.
Another possible resource:
Chapter 15-16
Cataclysm the First World War as political tragedy
Stevenson, D. (David), 1954-
2005, c2004