"Publication is not all that it is cracked up to be. But writing is. Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do -- the actual act of writing -- turns out to be the best part. It's like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony."

-- Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird, xxvi.

How easy is it to create a footnote in Word? (WordPerfect would be similar)

1. Move the cursor to the end of the passage that you want to cite.
2. Hold down control and alt keys, press "f".
3. Word creates and numbers in superscripts the footnote, you just fill in the data.
4. Then close the footnote window.
5. That's it!

You can view them by clicking the "view" pull down menu (or viewing the whole document in "print layout" mode) and clicking on footnote; you can create them via pull down menus as well: "insert" - "reference" - "footnote".

But easiest? Clearly getting to the point where you want one, and ctrl-alt-F.

Easy!

Don't try to make your argument or your evidence do tricks, but do follow all rules of grammar and usage. A complicated argument is often less clear and effective than a simpler one. The art of good writing is to play by the rules of grammar and usage, and to be concise. Get a copy of Strunk and White's Elements of Style for help with this. I read it regularly, just to remind me of what effective writing consists.

• Past Tense

A safe bet - mixing tenses can easily confuse your writing

• Write "Actively"

This makes quite a difference in the power of your writing. We often write tentatively, stepping back from making strong statements, and that leads to very weak and unclear writing. "Passive voice" is the term for this sort of indirect writing, and it is best to avoid it altogether.

• Short Assignments

If you are feeling overwhelmed, take a small piece of your paper and work on it, get it done, then move on to another small piece. Divide and conquer. You will need to fit these pieces together - a paper of many small pieces is no paper at all. But it is not only OK, it is the best way to write to divide up a larger issue into more manageable smaller ones. After outlining, simply take one point you plan to make and develop it; move on to the next. Before you know it, you have most of a paper written.

This is an absolutely wonderful, moving, and hilarious book on writing, well worth the read.

"Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, "Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird."

"I tell this story again because it usually makes a dent in the tremendous sense of being overwhelmed that my students experience. . ."

-- Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (Anchor, 1994), 18-19.

After you write a paper, read the introduction, the first line of each paragraph, and the conclusion. In a clear, concise paper, this should give you the flow of the argument, and such a skim will reveal where you have problems, where the argument is convoluted.

This is so very good that I bought copies for all of my family members.

Trust me, it is worth the read.

Anne Lamott on First Drafts:

"People tend to look at successful writers, writers who are getting their books published and maybe even doing well financially, and think that they sit down at their desks every morning feeling like a million dollars, feeling great about who they are and how much talent they have and what a great story they have to tell; that they take a few deep breaths, push back their sleeves, roll their necks a few times to get all the cricks out, and dive in, typing fully formed passages as fast as a court reporter. But this is just the fantasy of the uninitiated. I know some very good writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts. All right, one of them does, but we do not like her very much . . ."

What is the secret then? Rewriting:

My "writing would be terrible. I'd write a lead paragraph that was a whole page, even though the entire review [food review for a magazine] could only be three pages long . . . but eventually I would let myself trust the process - sort of, more or less. I'd write a first draft that was maybe twice as long as it should be, with self-indulgent and boring beginning . . . and no end to speak of. The whole thing would be so long and incoherent and hideous that for the rest of the day I'd obsess about getting creamed by a car before I could write a decent second draft. I'd worry that people would read what I'd written and believe that the accident had really been a suicide, that I had panicked because my talent was waning and my mind was shot."

"The next day, though, I'd sit down, go through it all with a colored pen, take out everything I possibly could, find a new lead somewhere on the second page, figure out a kicky place to end it, and then write a second draft. It always turned out fine, sometimes even funny and weird and helpful. I'd go over it one more time and mail it in."

-- Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (Anchor, 1994), 21, 24-25.

A Useful "Trick" of Strong Critical Thinking:
Piggy-Backing Issues and Evidence

Most writing assignments, whether in history courses or not, ask you to pare down a huge amount of information that people have written whole books about -- the Causes of the Civil War, for instance, or the Significance of Shakespeare's Sonnets -- into a relatively brief essay. Much of what you are doing, really, is deciding what to leave out, using your judgment about what is most important (central to your paper), rather important (secondary points in your paper), and less important (left out of your paper).

It is good to think consciously about this process as you outline your essay and as you write. Here is a good "trick" for demonstrating most clearly how you have used good judgment in sifting through the material for your essay. Center your answer upon the best and most telling or important points that you can make using the strongest evidence that you can use. But in the process, also briefly gesture to other, less important pieces of evidence that similarly support the point you are making. Not every piece of your argument needs to be fully explored and explicated -- packaging a very strong point along with similar subsidiary points makes the argument as a whole much stronger and shows greater breadth of your understanding.

This is a little vague and could use an example. Here is one. Imagine this paragraph as a portion of a paper on the Progressive era:

"The nation's interest in the environment during the Progressive Era finds its best example in the growth of federally-protected park land. Starting in the late-nineteenth century and reaching a climax during the Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, the government set aside vast stretches of of land in the west to preserve the wilderness and its resources as a sort of national bequest to future generations. By 1916, the United States had a system of national parks comprising millions of acres of parkland. Combining both a faith in government and a focus on the moral worth of nature, this effort to protect the wilderness is one of the enduring legacies of the Progressive Era."

This is a fine paragraph, but it is singularly focused upon the one issue. It could be stronger still if the writer demonstrated that he/she saw connections between this issue and other similar ones. Look at how little one would have to add to this paragraph to achieve this:

"The nation's interest in the environment during the Progressive Era finds expression in a range of issues -- the development of city parks and playgrounds, sewer and water improvement projects, and the founding of the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, among others. But the most striking example of this environmental effort is in the growth of federally-protected park land. Starting in the late-nineteenth century and reaching a climax during the Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, the government set aside vast stretches of of land in the west to preserve the wilderness and its resources as a sort of national bequest to future generations. By 1916, the United States had a system of national parks comprising millions of acres of parkland. Combining both a faith in government and a focus on the moral worth of nature, this effort to protect the wilderness is one of the enduring legacies of the Progressive Era, and is one piece of a much larger environmental effort in this period."

In this second paragraph, the author demonstrates the broad terrain of the issue and the place of national parks within it. The author needn't write whole paragraphs on the Boy Scouts and City Beautification -- simply mentioning them as auxiliary points to the main issue of national parks strengthens the whole and demonstrates an understanding of the big picture and what it all means.