Dr. Cocks
Department of History
Guide to Writing Critical Essays
NOTE: This list is NOT a checklist, that is, you do not have to answer every question for
any one paper. These questions are the sorts of questions you should think about as you
read and then write your paper on the basis of those questions that seem most important in
terms of the assignment.
1. Into what category does the work fall? Nonfiction? Fiction? Biography? Autobiography or
memoir? (An autobiography is the first-person account of a life, while a memoir deals with the
experiences of an individual in conjunction with certain times, persons, or events.) Diary?
Artistic work (film, novel, play, short story, poem)? Is the source a work of history or from
some other field of study (e.g., sociology, psychology, economics, philosophy, etc.)? Does the
work use one or more disciplines in its analysis of its subject matter?
2. Who is the author of the work and what are his or her credentials for writing it?
3. Does the author have a personal involvement in the events or phenomena being discussed?
To what extent is such subjectivity an advantage for an author’s understanding of these events or
phenomena? To what extent is this a disadvantage in terms of objectivity, that is, personal
distance from the events or phenomena under discussion? (See 4.)
4. When was the work created? Do the time and place in which the work was created have any
effect on its arguments and presentation? Does a work created during or just after the events
described have certain advantages over a work written at some distance in time and place? Or
does a work written a significant amount of time afterward have certain advantages? (See 3.)
5. What is the stated purpose of the work? (This is related to the thesis of the work; see 7.)
Books will often have a preface or introduction in which the author tells the reader why s/he
wrote the book or a foreword by another person discussing the book and the author(s); for films
or other creative works, reviews and analyses written separately by the author or by others will
discuss the origins and purposes of the work. Book and article reviews and review essays are
also good sources of critique.
6. On what sources of information is the work based? How reliable are these sources of
information? (See 8.)
7. What is the thesis of the work? That is, what argument or arguments is the work attempting
to make? Is the thesis sound? What are its strengths and weaknesses? (See 4.)
8. How effectively does the author present his or her arguments? Are these arguments clearly
stated and is the work sensibly organized? In what ways can the arguments be criticized?