History Research Study

mongo19

any ideas on wat i shud do mine on?did harry boland last year, got b2 , repeating dis yr!!
wat did u al do it on last year?????

Mars Bar

I did mine on Rasputin last year, i advise against it but i think he is the bomb, i'm repeating too so any advice would be good...

debz929292

Last year i did the "Rise and Fall of Jim Jones". It was very intresting, found tones of sources eg.internet, books, documentaries, ect. Was'nt boring at all, as most seem to be... and im pretty sure i got full marks on it aslo. Choose something you're intrested in and wont get bored of half way through, something off the beating track is aslo good..that way the examiner has to take your word for it, they dont usually check up on things...
good luck!:)

GurlyGurl

I'm repeating too! Starting tomorrow at my old school. Dead nervous. I did mine on Himmler last year, might change it.

Mars Bar

might change it? i think you have to...

i stand to be corrected though

GurlyGurl

mars bar wrote:

might change it? i think you have to...

i stand to be corrected though

Oh really? I didn't know that. Ah well, doing something new will be interesting anyway.

rjt

GurlyGurl wrote:

Oh really? I didn't know that. Ah well, doing something new will be interesting anyway.

I remember reading that somewhere too, but I'm not sure.

I did mine on Alan Turing's contribution to code breaking during WW2. I was worried that it might be too specific, but I got my A1 so I ain't complaining . I'd say pick something original, and perhaps even semi-obscure, as long as you can justify it and find sources.

yurmothrintites

I did mine on the battle of castlebar and i viewed it on friday and 100% on it! HELL YEAH!

Mars Bar

Well I HATE anything to do with Irish history except for Michael Collins...

I love Russian history and that's why I did Rasputin, anybody able to give me an idea for anything Russian?!?!

Carolus Magnus

http://www.examinations.ie/schools/S90_06_Repeating_LC_History.pdf

That would appear to be the official line on it.

The History research study was great fun now, thinking back on it. We were the first year to do it, when the new syllabus came in back in 2006. Mine concerned Mussolini's crackdown on the Mafia in Sicily. I'd definitely follow people's advice in picking something a little off the beaten track. There's a list of research study topics from the old syllabus (where you had to rewrite the study inside in the exam hall) that people seem to rely on as a crutch (and I've noticed how teachers would turn to it as a last resort for the weaker students who weren't coming up with any suggestions of their own.) I'd nearly say examiners have seen hundreds of pages about Von Stauffenberg at this stage, to the point of revulsion. Make sure it's something that has sparked your interest though, in addition to being something that you think will spark the examiner's interest.

Have you ever considered doing a topic in late medieval/renaissance history? That'd definitely get noticed, and may get more marks. You're permitted to go as far back as 1492 if memory serves. I knew one person whose study was about the corrupt Pope Alexander VI - Rodrigo Borgia i.e. the pope famous for the Banquet of Chestnuts (>_>) and having no less than 10 children. I got the impression that it was pretty fun to do from the person who wrote it as well. Similar topics from around the same time period might concern general military history. Pope Julius II's campaigns, the War of the League of Cambrai, the building of the new St. Peter's Basilica, Girolamo Savonarola and the burning of the vanities etc. etc. All would have a general narrative feel to them as well. Trick of course is in providing some analysis of your own as well. But then again, it seems that 'analysis' gets very tokenistic treatment under the new marking scheme anyway. Red flags being sent up for use of certain lingo, and marks being awarded for that respectively.

TheInvisibleFie

Carolus Magnus wrote:

http://www.examinations.ie/schools/S90_06_Repeating_LC_History.pdf

That would appear to be the official line on it.

The History research study was great fun now, thinking back on it. We were the first year to do it, when the new syllabus came in back in 2006. Mine concerned Mussolini's crackdown on the Mafia in Sicily. I'd definitely follow people's advice in picking something a little off the beaten track. There's a list of research study topics from the old syllabus (where you had to rewrite the study inside in the exam hall) that people seem to rely on as a crutch (and I've noticed how teachers would turn to it as a last resort for the weaker students who weren't coming up with any suggestions of their own.) I'd nearly say examiners have seen hundreds of pages about Von Stauffenberg at this stage, to the point of revulsion. Make sure it's something that has sparked your interest though, in addition to being something that you think will spark the examiner's interest.

Have you ever considered doing a topic in late medieval/renaissance history? That'd definitely get noticed, and may get more marks. You're permitted to go as far back as 1492 if memory serves. I knew one person whose study was about the corrupt Pope Alexander VI - Rodrigo Borgia i.e. the pope famous for the Banquet of Chestnuts (>_>) and having no less than 10 children. I got the impression that it was pretty fun to do from the person who wrote it as well. Similar topics from around the same time period might concern general military history. Pope Julius II's campaigns, the War of the League of Cambrai, the building of the new St. Peter's Basilica, Girolamo Savonarola and the burning of the vanities etc. etc. All would have a general narrative feel to them as well. Trick of course is in providing some analysis of your own as well. But then again, it seems that 'analysis' gets very tokenistic treatment under the new marking scheme anyway. Red flags being sent up for use of certain lingo, and marks being awarded for that respectively.

I don't think there is an earliest date. At least our 6th year teacher told us about a teacher bringing up about a student studying 900s Russia at an in-service day. Our 5th year teacher put a thing on ours that we weren't to go further back than 1800. :mad:

Even though looking at medieval/ Renaissance stuff would be really interesting the student would most likely have to spend a good amount of time explaining the background of the case. That could take away from the overall shape and make it harder to get some decent analysis in.

Corruptedmorals

Someone in my class did Ancient Egypt for theirs..found it a nightmare for sources, he ended up lying I think.

I did mine on Geisha of Kyoto in Japan..not happy with the mark for the essay, it's getting appealed..

Carolus Magnus

@Invisible
You could be quite right, but if there is no earliest date, then there is a danger of a crossover between the History syllabus and the Classical Studies one. The History syllabus anyway is branded 'modern', covering early modern (1492 to 1815) and late modern (1815 to 1992). I'd be wary of straying outside of those parameters. I think it'd be quite excellent if you could though. Go back further than 1492, and there are even tastier topics to be investigated. The Latin Crusade of 1204, the Investiture Controversy, Demystifying Pope 'Joan', St. Patrick: Fact or Fiction?, or an assessment of the importance of figures such as Gregory the Great and Leo I to the formation of the Papacy and European character. That's before you even get to the heresies. Something like the historical likelihood of the Brendan Voyage, or the interventions of Nicholas Breakspeare and the Norman Invasion of 1169 covers an Irish angle particularly well.

I don't think excessive scene setting would be required. A 300 word paragraph could suffice, that's assuming repeated editing and paring down would be carried out. The word count also is also eh . . . hardly going to be enforced. I'd put it like this. If something is ostentatiously over the word count, you might be in trouble. But if you're say, in the region of 2,000 words or that, it won't be apparent unless your writing is quite large, and no examiner will ever carry out as tedious an activity as counting the individual words, for the sake of docking you some discretionary marks.

As for analysis. The marking scheme tends to go on about interspersing it throughout the narrative in an un-awkward fashion. I read that as meaning a sentence or two per paragraph, and then a great deal of analysis forming the conclusion.