1. Remarks on Style and Clarity

2. Wordy/verbose/repetitive
“Due to the fact that these aspects of the issue of personal survival have been raised by recently transpired problematic conflicts, it is at the present time paramount that the ultimate psychological end of suicide be contemplated by this individual.”
“To be or not to be, that is the question”

3. Misuse of the passive voice
Write in the active voice. The passive voice encourages vagueness and dullness; it enfeebles verbs; and it conceals agency, which is the very stuff of history.
“My darling, you are loved!”
On history papers the passive voice usually signals a less toxic version of the same unwillingness to take charge, to commit yourself, and to say forthrightly what is really going on, and who is doing what to whom.

4. Misuse of the passive voice
“In 1939 Poland was invaded.”
The German-Soviet Pact of August 1939, which stated that Poland was to be partitioned between the two powers, enabled Germany to attack Poland without the fear of Soviet intervention. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland.
Historians usually wish to focus on the doer, so you should stay with the active voice—unless you can make a compelling case for an exception.

5. Inappropriate use of first person.
Most historians write in the third person, which focuses the reader on the subject. If you write in the first person singular, you shift the focus to yourself.
Also avoid the first person plural (“We believe...”).
“Enough about the Haitian revolution, now let’s talk about me!”

6. Explain/what’s your point?/unclear/huh?
You may have gotten off the subject; drifted into abstraction; assumed some- thing that you have not told the reader; failed to explain how the material relates to your argument; garbled your syntax; or simply failed to proof- read carefully.
If possible, have a good writer read your paper and point out the muddled parts.

7. Paragraph goes nowhere/has no unity.
If your topic sentences are vague, strength and precision—the hallmarks of good writing—are unlikely to follow.
“From 1538 to 1547,there are many different arguments about the nature of what happened.”
“The childhood of Ivan the Terrible has provoked controversy among scholars of Russian history.”
. (If you have a series of supporting points starting with first, you must follow with a second, third, etc.)

8. Tense inconsistency Inconsistent Consistent
(“de Beauvoir published [past tense] The Second Sex in In the book she contends [present tense] that woman....”)
(“The pollsters had not realized [past perfect] that voter opinion had been [past perfect] changing rapidly in the days before the election.”)

9. Free-floating quotation
Do not suddenly drop quotations into your prose.
(“The spirit of the Progressive era is best understood if one remembers that the United States is ‘the only country in the world that began with perfection and aspired to progress.’”)

10. Informal language/slang
Columbus did not “push the envelope in the Atlantic.”
Henry VIII was not “looking for his inner child when he broke with the Church.”
” Prime Minister Cavour of Piedmont was not “trying to play in the major leagues diplomatic wise.”
” Wilson did not “almost veg out” at the end of his second term.
President Hindenburg did not appoint Hitler in a “senior moment.”
Prime Minister Chamberlain did not tell the Czechs to “chill out” after the Munich Conference,
Gandhi was not an “awesome dude.”

11. Clumsy transition
If your reader feels a jolt or gets disoriented at the beginning of a new paragraph, your paper probably lacks unity.
“Another aspect of this problem...,”