1.  Answer the question as it relates to the course.  For instance, if your term is “credibility” you could answer that it’s “the quality of being trusted or believed in.”  That’s the Webster definition, but it’s the wrong answer.  As you know, credibility has a special meaning in relation to the Vietnam War. It has been discussed in our lectures and books.  That’s what we need for this answer.

2.  Make connections.  The essay as a form is about making sometimes surprising connections between ideas, people, and things.  Montaigne, who invented the form, said that the question every essay asks is “Que sais-je?” What do I know? You know things in relation to other things.  So, if you are writing about an idea, show that you know who thought of that idea, or who used that idea; show that you know when, at what event or occasion, the idea came into play.  So, for the above term “credibility,” you might indicate that it was a particular preoccupation of the Kennedy administration, that it became even more important after the Cuban Missile Crisis, and that it connected nuclear strategy with counterinsurgency doctrine.