What Is a DBQ?

Welcome to How to DBQ. Today, we’re going to learn all about the DBQ, another type of essay on your AP exam.

For those of you who are taking your first AP history course, writing that essay might seem a little bit confusing and stressful. You kind of know what’s expected of you, but you’re trying to figure out how to actually put it into a well-developed essay, something that can essentially help you pass the AP exam. So that’s what I’m going to go over today.

First of all, you got to know what a DBQ is. DBQ stands for Document Based Question. You will be given a prompt along with seven documents to analyze. You are given about 60 minutes on the AP exam to write this essay. 15 minutes of those 60 minutes are considered a reading period. So again, you’re given seven documents to analyze, and you need to be able to read them. So they suggest that you take about 15 minutes to do that, and then you have about 45 minutes to actually write the physical essay.

Now, there’s no requirement that it has to be exactly 15 minutes. If you read the documents in hypothetically five minutes, then you have 55 minutes to write your essay. However, most students actually want to take more than 15 minutes to read the documents. Just keep in mind if you spend 25 minutes reading, that’s OK, but then you only have 35 minutes to actually write the essay itself. The DBQ is worth 25% percent of your overall AP exam score.

So first, let’s talk about format, and then we’ll talk about each of these requirements and how to actually do them.

So paragraph one, you’re going to start with essentially a body paragraph. You’re going to have a contextualization statement, and you’re going to have your thesis. Your thesis is a preview of what’s to come. Very similar. It’s approximately one to three sentences. There’s no length requirement. The requirement is that you meet certain requirements, basically. It doesn’t matter if you do that in one sentence or in three.

In several years of teaching AP history courses, we find that the best thesis statements are usually around three sentences, definitely two. It’s really hard to write a well-developed thesis in just one sentence. But if you manage to do that, then it is OK.

Contextualize explains the broader historical context. Again, that’s usually one to three sentences. You don’t need to write a novel, but students who do the best typically have around two to three sentences for their contextualization statement. It really doesn’t need to be any longer than that. It can be, but you don’t get any extra points for length.

Then paragraph two: basically there’s no requirement on how many body paragraphs there needs to be. Many students will do two body paragraphs. You’re welcome to do three body paragraphs, you’re welcome to do four, although it’s not required. So we encourage you to stick to two, unless you really feel like your essay is going to be better off if you have more.

You’ll start with your topic sentence. Let us know what your argument is. Analyze your documents to prove your thesis, all documents in each group, and then use evidence to support your argument.

Don’t use quotes. Quotes get you nowhere on the AP exam. I know in your English language arts classes, you’re supposed to back up your writing with quotes. You might be used to inserting a quote and then analyzing that quote in your essay. That is not required. It will take up precious time that you need to actually do your analysis, so it’s not required. Then you will include additional evidence. Again, we’ll talk about each of these things.

Your conclusion will restate your thesis. This is helpful if you mess up your thesis in your introduction, because you can restate it in your conclusion properly and still get that thesis point. Then we have analysis and reasoning, which is great that you guys already know how to analyze and reason. So if you’re still struggling with it, you’re still going to be practicing on the DBQ.

OK, first step. Read the documents. When you get your AP prompt, whether it’s AP world, Euro, or history, you need to read the documents. You cannot write a well-written essay in which you analyze documents if you don’t first read them, so take the time to read them on the actual AP exam. You can mark them up, you can write all over them. They are yours, so do that, OK? Do what you need to make sure you fully understand the documents.

SOAPSTone. This is an acronym, something that we have used with students for years. Many AP teachers use this acronym. Check your Resources folder in your course for a document called: How to DBQ SOAPSTone Worksheet. You are welcome to download that, and use that as a guide.

These questions help guide your analysis of your documents. SOAPSTone stands for Speaker, Occasion, Audience, Purpose, Subject, and Tone. For the sake of time, we won’t go over all of the questions that fall under each of those categories. You can do that on your own. But essentially, when you’re asked to analyze a document, these are different things you can focus on.

You’re not going to be able to answer all these questions for every single document, nor do you need to do that. But if you have a document-- let’s say you have a document written by Adolf Hitler, and it is an excerpt from a speech in which he was talking to the Nazi Party about why Jews are inferior, OK? That’s a belief that Adolf Hitler had during this World War II era. Let’s say that’s the document you’re looking at.

Things that you could use to analyze that document would be maybe occasion. When was it produced? What do you know about that time period, that World War II time period? Was it produced for a specific event or a specific occasion? Maybe look at the speaker who wrote it. What do you know about Adolf Hitler? Why are they significant to history?

Maybe look at the audience. Who was the intended audience? In this example, the intended audience would be the Nazi Party. That definitely is going to impact how Adolf Hitler speaks. He’s going to say certain things to certain people that he might not say to others.

What is a thesis? For each essay, you will write a thesis statement. A thesis is an outline of what you plan to address, and it is an introduction to a carefully constructed paragraph. It is not just a restatement of the question.

Your reader should know what you’re going to talk about in your essay by reading your thesis statement. You shouldn’t just review what the prompt is. We already know what the prompt is. You need to address the prompt, of course, but your reader wants to know where you’re going in your essay. What are the arguments you’re going to make?

So the components of a thesis. In AP, you need to address the prompt. If you’re asked to analyze the views of, let’s say, Americans during the American Revolution, and your thesis is talking about Americans during the War of 1812, obviously, you’re not addressing the prompt.

TP stands for time and place. Sometimes that’s provided in the prompt, and sometimes it’s not. But we need to know what time period we’re looking at, and where are we in the world? Then you have your categories of analysis, a preview of what is to come. Again, what are you going to talk about in your essay?

Your introduction paragraph is to help you contextualize. You have your thesis statement. Now, you need to provide us context. Explain the broader historical context. Situate the topic in the larger flow of events.

Here’s a tip: You could do this by making a connection to the historical events through cause and effect. What causes the event to happen? What effects would eventually result from this event?

It must be a separate sentence from your thesis. This is probably the biggest struggle we see with students writing DBQs. A lot of students like to combine the thesis and the contextualization statement. They include the time and the place in the conceptualization statement, and then leave it out of thesis. This is separate. You cannot get this point if you already got the point for something else.

So if you include a time period in your contextualization statement, even if it seems repetitive, you need to include it in your thesis statement as well. Otherwise, your thesis would be incomplete. Please let your teacher know if you have any questions about that. It’s very important that you understand that now.

Let’s turn to your body paragraphs. Again, you’re going to have about two. If you want to write more, that’s great, but it is not required. Because of time limits, more than two paragraphs might not be a great idea.

You start with a topic sentence. It must relate to your thesis. Let us know what you’re going to talk about.

Then you’re going to analyze your documents to prove your thesis, all documents in each group. When you read your seven documents, you want to kind of group them in little groups in which they’re similar. So maybe you’re asked to analyze the views of Americans during the American Revolution.

Then you’re reading your documents, and you find that four of the documents are written by American soldiers who are rebels. They want to separate from England. Then you find that the other three documents were all written by loyalists. They’re Americans who are loyal to the British. They are fighting alongside the British Army, and they essentially do not want the United States of America to be created. They want to remain a colony of the British.

That would be a way to break them up into two groups. So your first body paragraph, you might just analyze all of the documents written by the rebels. Then in your second paragraph, you analyze all of the documents written by loyalists. That was just an example. You can group them however you want, but want to have some similarities, and then you want to analyze them in light of your prompt.

Then you want to provide additional evidence. You, again, do not have to quote documents at all. Don’t do it. It doesn’t get you any extra points.

You are welcome to just refer to the documents as Doc 1, Doc 2, et cetera. So for example, you can say, in Doc 1, so and so said, blah, blah, blah, and then you analyze it. Remember, all of it must address the prompt.

All right, so additional evidence. This is a requirement on the DBQ. You must provide an example or an additional piece of specific evidence beyond those found in the documents to support that statement. You need to come up with something that is historically true, identify that evidence, and then explain how that evidence supports the argument.

So again, if you have a body paragraph in which you’re analyzing the writings of rebels during the American Revolution, for example, you would analyze the document, and then think of some other piece of historical information you have that cannot be found in any of the documents to include in this paragraph. Simply write one piece of historical evidence that further supports what are you are trying to demonstrate. Then you include a “because” statement, which provides us additional evidence.

Then you have your conclusion. Restate your thesis. Again, that’s optional. But if you restate your thesis, you might wind up getting the thesis point if your introduction thesis was lacking a requirement. Then you have your analysis and reasoning. That explains the connection between the argument and a different historical period, situation, area, geographical area, or subject.

So again, you’re relating it to something else. So for example, if you are writing about the American views during the American Revolution, you might say something like, the American views during the American Revolution were similar to the views of, maybe, the French during the French Revolution, and then you would have to provide an explanation for that. Why are they similar? Be very specific with your evidence when you do that.

That’s all for now. We hope this has been helpful for you, and wish you the best of luck!