Subject grammar profiles

Humanities and history

History and humanities writing tells what happened, in what order, and how we know. These structures carry time, sources and argument.

Past tense range

Students need more than the simple past: continuous and perfect forms show what was already happening and what came first.

By ___, ___ had already ___.

Sequence and duration are central to historical explanation.

Before ___, ___. After ___, ___.

Verbs such as argue, claim and suggest show how a source or historian positions a view, and how certain it is.

The historian ___ that ___.

Good historical writing matches the strength of a claim to the evidence, using words like may, likely and suggests.

This source suggests that ___, although ___.