What is Required for a Good Grade on a DBQ?

Step One: Annotation You need to write WHAT YOU SEE on the document. Underline, circle, highlight, and write notes to yourself about key parts of a document that provide insight to answering the question.

Step Two: Thoroughly Answer the Questions Answering the questions at the end of each document helps clarify your thinking so you don’t have to think it up while you are writing the essay.

Step Three: Write a Good Introduction Using Sufficient Background History from Essay You need to lead into the topic of discussion by summarizing the history that the question is addressing. This is what the “Background Essay” in the packet is for.

Step Four: Create a Solid THESIS STATEMENT. State your answer to the question as matter-of-factly as you can. DO NOT use the words “I think”, or “In my opinion…” in the statement (or anyplace else in the essay) Example: “The three main reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire were …”

Step Five: Good Topic Sentences Introduce each Body Paragraph with a sentence that clearly states the element of the question that you will be defending. Example: “The greatest reason for the fall of Rome was …”

Step Six: Good, Solid Evidence Use evidence from the documents that backs up your answer to the question. You should always try to use multiple sources for each point you are trying to defend.

Step Seven: CITE YOUR SOURCE! You must give credit in the essay to the source you are using as evidence. You can do it in an introductory phrase (The author in document title states …) or at the end of the sentence, as in (Doc. A)

Step Eight : Defend Your Evidence You need to explain how your evidence proves your point, your answer(s) to the question. You should do this with each portion of evidence you write about, not just at the end of the Body Paragraph.

Step Nine : Never Settle for Less Than Your Best Put you best effort into the WHOLE process and you won’t regret the results. YGOWYPI: You Get Out What You Put In