How to write a Leaving Cert history essay

daithiolabhrai · 03-05-2009 5:03pm #1

Is there any specific way in which you were told to write your essays, e.g. Length, number of paragraphs, number of points raised. I know there's some specific way of marking the essays, with the cumulative mark and the overall mark, but I don't quite know what these mean. Could anyone help?

titan18 · 03-05-2009 11:16pm

About 5 pages.Opening paragraph, closing paragraph and 5 paragraphs in between, detailing the main points of the topic.

-ME- · 03-05-2009 11:42pm

titan18 wrote: »

About 5 pages.Opening paragraph, closing paragraph and 5 paragraphs in between, detailing the main points of the topic.

5 pages!! That's insane. Nah, i'd say 4 pages maximum and even that's pushing it time-wise. I got 98/100 for one of my essays in the pres and that was about 4 pages in big handwriting.

Write as many paragraphs as you can, each paragraph's marked out of 12. If you have excess information your cumulative mark could even exceed 60 (but you wouldn't actually get the extra marks, 60's the maximum) You get good marks for answers which show 'wide reading' I think.

spurious · 04-05-2009 8:38am

Make sure you stick to the question asked. Many people lose marks by adding in lots of stuff that isn't really relevant and for which they can get no marks.

Make a plan before you answer.

Nihilist21 · 04-05-2009 9:50am

We've been instructed to put down as many seperate paragraphs as possible, since it's easier to pick up marks with 12 okay paragraphs rather than 5 excellent.

phasers · 04-05-2009 9:53am

Our method is:

-Intro
-6 main paragraphs
-Conclusion

Essay should be 3.5-4 pages.

use lots of key concepts.

MrPirate · 04-05-2009 11:00am

What my history teacher suggests is try and raise 5-6 main points of the topic (at higher level) and try to develop 5-6 paragraphs from that; if 1 or 2 are very closely related, then you can conjoin them, especially if you're short on info/repeated a lot of stuff for one of them. But anyway, include the intro paragraph and the concluding paragraph; one of the worst things you can do is to have the intro paragraph, 5-6 good points, and leave it at that!
I got a 80 in my mock paper with not too much study using that format so you can't go wrong with it!

daithiolabhrai · 04-05-2009 12:26pm

I appreciate all the responses guys! They're very helpful, especially when you have a teacher who tells you nothing! Good luck to anyone else doing the lc in June, hope it works out okay!

Black kettle · 04-05-2009 2:30pm

Write about 10 half decent paragraphs or more and they will mark you out of your best ten because the most they can give per paragraph is 12, so its easier to score higher if you have quite a few paragraphs marked at say, 8.
Four pages is usually sufficient depending on the subject of course, I wrote an essay of 3 1/2 pages on the suffragette movement not so long ago and it received 87 per cent but there is not much you can actually write on it. However, if you are writing an essay say on Parnell, you may want to write 5 pages.

one2one · 04-05-2009 2:37pm

I have a similar question - for the LC History special topic - how do I start my first draft? I have my outline plan etc done but haven't a clue how to start my first draft - its due tomorrow! I am doing it on the Battle of Stalingrad.

ironictoaster · 04-05-2009 3:40pm

Tomorrow? I was due on the 30th of April?!?!

I would also thank everyone for the responses, my history teacher is disaster. Has a passion for history but, he can't really teach it...

eoins2345 · 04-05-2009 4:39pm

Documents question this is what your timing should be
Documents question
5 mins to read questions and documents
5 mins each for comprehension criticism and comparing
15 mins for contextualisation...This is marked out of 40.A short intro 3 paragraphs each a half a page around and a short conclusion.24 marks for all the paragraphs and then an overall 16 for da whole ting

Essay1 5 mins making a plan(very important to get the a1)
35 mins writing 7/8 paragraphs averaging about half a page each..total 4 pages.If you get between 7-9 for each paragraph ul get the 60 out of 60.Just stick to the question and make references to it in each paragraph where appropriate.Also keep within the dates excluding the intro and the conclusion.The conclusion need more then a mere summary.Its needs to include some new information such as what happened after,an evaluation of the person,thing,event whatever ..maybe a historians view with an interesting(made up) quote.This will impress. You should get a least 30 marks heres out of 40 provided you do the above

Do the same for the other 2 essays and then that leaves 15 mins at the end to go over your work and add in stuff/make alterations

sock puppet · 04-05-2009 6:49pm

one2one wrote: »

I have a similar question - for the LC History special topic - how do I start my first draft? I have my outline plan etc done but haven't a clue how to start my first draft - its due tomorrow! I am doing it on the Battle of Stalingrad.

I assume you're in 5th year? For the opening of essay you should establish the setting. A very brief explanation on what was going on at the time and events leading up to the battle. The body of the essay will depend on your title. You may end up with too high a word count so try to only include information relevant to the topic.

english4490 · 04-05-2009 8:41pm

we only got out booklets on thursday! we are writing it in over this weekend and will hand it up tuesday morning, the teacher will give us another booklet to write it out correctly! there is only 2 of us in the class! the project stays in the school till the day of the history exams and the chance of an examiner coming are very slim... if they do me the other guy and our teacher will be "absent" if an examiner was to come! so by friday we will hopefully be finished!:(

Gloom · 04-05-2009 9:20pm

Here's what I do. I'm getting worried. I'm still only at a B2 stage, I need to get an A1!

e.g Account for the rise of Fascism in Europe.
Intro - talk about the background, define fascism, what it involved, who was involved, where?
par 1 - point 1
2 - 2
3 - 3
4 - 4
5 - 5
6 - 6
conclusion - events which happened afterwards - fall of fascism/ww2

I suppose it was either the way the corrector marked my answer in the pres or my paragraphs aren't factual enough.. I mean, come on, 41minutes!

I'm just really confused about the whole marking scheme to be honest. I'm told the more parapgrahs you write, the more marks you can get. For my point 1 and 2 - I split it into two paragraphs (I felt I had mentioned two different points, but they just put the two in brackets together and counted them as one paragraph!)

gah!

Jack Sheehan · 04-05-2009 10:41pm

Gloom wrote: »

Here's what I do. I'm getting worried. I'm still only at a B2 stage, I need to get an A1!

e.g Account for the rise of Fascism in Europe.
Intro - talk about the background, define fascism, what it involved, who was involved, where?
par 1 - point 1
2 - 2
3 - 3
4 - 4
5 - 5
6 - 6
conclusion - events which happened afterwards - fall of fascism/ww2

I suppose it was either the way the corrector marked my answer in the pres or my paragraphs aren't factual enough.. I mean, come on, 41minutes!

I'm just really confused about the whole marking scheme to be honest. I'm told the more parapgrahs you write, the more marks you can get. For my point 1 and 2 - I split it into two paragraphs (I felt I had mentioned two different points, but they just put the two in brackets together and counted them as one paragraph!)

gah!

Each paragraph is marked out of 12. Some people say you should go for short paragraphs, get a load of 6's. This may compromise your overall evaluatin however, which accounts for 40 per cent.

Nihilist21 · 05-05-2009 12:15am

Whilst one may think that the short paragraph approach would result in a poor OE, if you manage to get 60 in the CM they can only give you 36/40 minimum, the OE is purely dependent on how much you get in the CM. We've been instructed to not do any intro / conclusion and instead just put down as many short paragraphs as possible, which generally works - and if you have difficult thinking up 13 or so general points you can always elongate a few paragraphs / add detail, however for things like rise of fascism, or anything broad is surprisingly easy to think of 12-14 points. You just have to put in a bit of effort to make them distinct from eachother.

spurious · 05-05-2009 6:04am

Gloom wrote: »

e.g Account for the rise of Fascism in Europe.

<snip>
conclusion - events which happened afterwards - fall of fascism/ww2

Make your conclusion about the rise of fascism - that's what the question is.

IWishh · 05-05-2009 4:57pm

My history has been telling us to fit everything into 6 paragraphs which, until the mock, I realised is the old course and is actually really bad advise for the new one =/ now thats a bad teacher!

Just wondering in the introduction paragraph do you outline what it is you're going to talk about in the following paragraphs?
Also do you briefly refer to what happened before or what led up to what the quesiton is or is it strickly within the time they've asked for?

And the conclusion - you don't necessarily need to stick in further information do you? Like say your asked for the Rise of Mussolini - in the concluding paragraph you just say "Overall, this that and the other resulted in the Rise blah blah...."

Thanks for any help..

Nihilist21 · 05-05-2009 6:18pm

IWishh wrote: »

And the conclusion - you don't necessarily need to stick in further information do you? Like say your asked for the Rise of Mussolini - in the concluding paragraph you just say "Overall, this that and the other resulted in the Rise blah blah...."

Thanks for any help..

If you plan on writing a conclusion paragraph the most you can get is 4 marks if you are just summerising what has been written already. However if you use new information (that would be hard in a conclusion) then its marked as a normal paragraph.

IWishh · 05-05-2009 8:08pm

Nihilist21 wrote: »

If you plan on writing a conclusion paragraph the most you can get is 4 marks if you are just summerising what has been written already. However if you use new information (that would be hard in a conclusion) then its marked as a normal paragraph.

Oh ok, so you don't lose marks then if you end your essay without really wraping it up. I wish I had a better teacher

How to write a Leaving Cert history essay

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