A document based question (dbq for short) is a historical essay written with the help of documents to help prove your point. In a historical essay, grammar isn't that important so don't focus on having good grammar but instead on getting your point across. Keep in mind the reader already read the documents so you don't have to explain what each document means, just explain how to help with your argument.
First of all, before writing the essay, you will need to read and understand all the documents and the question.
After reading the documents, make a clear thesis statement of about 2-3 sentences declaring your position on the question. RESTATING THE QUESTION IN YOUR ESSAY WON'T HELP YOU. Be sure to include 3 evidence to support your claim.
After that, try to fit in ALL of the documents into one of the 3 evidence, each evidence should have 1-2 documents, preferably 3.
A few more tips
- Add a situation similar to this before ending the introductory paragraph to get points for contextualization.
- Add 1 external support that IS NOT included in the documents
Good luck on writing your dbq essay and remember to just focus on getting your point across.
